The steering wheel

This is the kind of faith God expects from us. Children in all their innocence and purity of mind are wonderful conduits to send prayers up.

Deep faith practised by parents will drive faith right into all the chinks and corners of children’s mind like ‘the mortar that holds the building together’.

The family that prays together stays together they say, and parents must inculcate the thought in children’s minds that prayer should not be a “spare wheel” that one pulls out when in trouble, but should be a “steering wheel” that directs the right path throughout.

Unflinching faith in Lord’s mercy should be the mainstay of the prayer. One very poor mother had great difficulty in providing food for her hungry children when her pantry as well as her purse was empty. When she tried reaching down to the big barrel to scrape up the last bit of flour to make some bread for her little ones and she couldn’t control her sobs.

Hearing her sob, her little son tugged at her dress and said: “Mother, don’t weep. God will surely hear you scrapping the bottom of the barrel!”

These words of great faith from the little one filled the mother’s heart with deep conviction and confidence and she worked on with trust in the divine help.

Non-believers may make fun and ridicule the concept of God and prayer. They may question when everyone is praying and praying for something or the other, in the cacophony, how can the so-called God decide who is in real distress and reach out to help? It is said God is like a life-guard, who hears the cries of the drowning person despite all the noise on the beach – the loud talking, yelling and whistling of the people.

His ears are tuned towards those in distress. It is a tough thing to make non-believers understand the concept of God.

Once Mahatma Gandhi was approached by a hardcore atheist it seems with a request that he organise and promote an anti-God society, to which Gandhiji replied: “It amazes me to find an intelligent person fight against something that he does not at all believe exists.”

Regular prayer teaches man the habit of looking on the best of everything, because he is sure that when God is for us, who or what can be against us?  That is why it is said that one must make ‘prayer to be the key of the morning and bolt of the night’.