THE NEED TO DRAW STRENGTH ... like Jesus ... FROM PRAYER:
Our adult years are a marathon, not a sprint, and so it is difficult to sustain graciousness, generosity, and patience through the tiredness, trials, and temptations that beset us through those years. All on our own, relying on willpower alone, we too often fatigue, get worn down, and compromise both our maturity and our discipleship. We need help from beyond, from somewhere even beyond the human supports that help bolster us. We need God's help, strength from something beyond what is human. We need prayer.
The first disciples of Jesus already realized this. They looked at Jesus and sensed that he drew his real strength and his power from a source beyond himself. Nowhere is this more evident than in the Gospel of Luke. In his gospel there are more descriptions of Jesus in prayer than in all the other Gospels combined. Luke gives us glimpses of Jesus praying in virtually every kind of situation: he prays when he is joy filled; he prays when he is in agony; he prays with others around him; he prays when he is alone at night, withdrawn from all human contact. He pays high on a mountain, on a sacred place, and he prays on the level plane, where ordinary life happens. In Luke's Gospel, Jesus prays a lot.
And the lesson is not lost on his disciples. The sense that Jesus' real depth and power are drawn from his prayer. They know that what makes him so special, so unlike any other religious figure, is that he is linked at some deep place to a power outside of this world. And they want this for themselves. That is why they approach him and ask him: "Lord, teach us to pray!"
(excerpt taken from SACRED FIRE by Fr. Ronald Rolheiser, p. 169-170))
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