Prayer, the Path to Sufficiency

Powerful and effective prayer is born from that great abyss that opens within us when we consider our essential helplessness. It is a healthy recognition that, as the title of the famous novel by the Peruvian writer Ciro Alegría suggests, “the world is wide and alien.”

The world is populated by hostile forces. It is far more mysterious, unfathomable, and complex than we can comprehend with our limited capacity. Left to our own resources, without the powerful arms of our heavenly Father to defend us and lift us out of the pit, we are like defenseless children in a jungle full of wild beasts.

That is the feeling of humility and total dependence expressed by Psalms 120 to 134, known as the “Songs of Ascents.” Psalm 124, in particular, expresses the writer’s overwhelming awareness that, were it not for the merciful intervention of Jehovah, he would easily have succumbed to the enemy’s merciless attacks:

1 If Jehovah had not been on our side,

Let Israel now say;

2 If Jehovah had not been on our side,

When men rose up against us,

3 Then they would have swallowed us alive,

When their fury was kindled against us.

4 Then the waters would have overwhelmed us;

The torrent would have passed over our soul;

5 Then the raging waters would have passed over our soul.

6 Blessed be Jehovah,

Who did not give us as prey to their teeth.

7 Our soul escaped like a bird from the snare of the hunters;

The snare was broken, and we escaped.

8 Our help is in the name of Jehovah,

Who made heaven and earth.

In his commentary on this beautiful psalm, Dr. Samuel Pagán writes: The central message of the psalm recognizes divine intervention as an extraordinary source of salvation. The fundamental image that emerges from the poetry is that of a God who accompanies his people through the vicissitudes and anguish of human existence. The poet’s basic purpose is to affirm categorically that the people have not been alone and that, just as they experienced divine deliverance in the past, that same redeeming power stands ready in the present and the future to answer the people’s cry.

Authentic prayer will always be the product of recognizing that we do not have what it takes, that we lack the wisdom, the strength, the solution, the resources we need. Effective prayer always arises from a man or a woman who looks at himself or herself and says, “I don’t know what to do; I don’t have what I need. What it takes to prevail in this situation is not within me.”

But prayer always goes beyond that initial recognition of insufficiency. After admitting their helplessness, the person who believes turns their eyes toward God, stretches out their hands, and opens their soul in expectation of the heavenly Father’s merciful answer.