Sometimes, prayer can be a real struggle and I think we believe that the greatest obstacle to prayer is that we’re too busy or distracted. But the more we go deeper into reflection, we start to realize that the real obstacle might just be rooted in a misunderstanding of who God is.

Too often, we approach the Lord as if He were distant – He is just some guy who watches over everything that we do. We might even believe that He is reluctant to listen to our needs or only moved by our cries in moments of desperation. Or worse, maybe we think He is a tyrant who only punishes us when we do something wrong. But today’s readings reveal something a little bit more profound – they challenge our ideas about who God is and reveal that He is closer to us than we think, more attentive to our needs, more merciful to us, and absolutely invested in our lives. He is a God who listens patiently, acts justly, and desires to draw us deeper into relationship with Him.

In our first reading, Abraham intercedes for the people of Sodom. He speaks directly, confidently, even boldly to the Lord. He makes a direct plea for mercy and forgiveness. And with each of those requests, God responds not with frustration, but with willingness to answer Abraham’s prayers.

Abraham understands something fundamental: God is more merciful than we expect and more willing to save than to punish. Abraham prays not out of fear, but out of hope in God’s goodness.

And yet, Scripture also reminds us that God’s mercy always invites a response. In the end, it wasn’t that Abraham’s prayer wasn’t heard because Sodom was destroyed. Sodom’s destruction wasn’t due to God’s lack of mercy…instead, it was destroyed because of the peoples’ refusal to receive that mercy. Mercy was offered – it wasn’t accepted. Grace was present, but hearts were closed.

Abraham’s conversation with God sets the stage perfectly for what we see in the Gospel. Jesus is teaching His disciples how to pray. And notice how He does that. He doesn’t begin with a list of techniques or formulas. He begins with the same posture of bold trust that we saw with Abraham – but He goes even deeper.

Jesus tells His disciples to call on God as “Father.” That one word reframes everything about what prayer is supposed to be. We’re not just speaking to some powerful deity – we are addressing a loving Father who desires intimacy with His children. The boldness Abraham showed in intercession is now raised, it’s brought higher by Jesus and it becomes a relationship of personal trust and daily dependence.

Jesus encourages us to be persistent: ask, seek, knock. Not because God is hard to persuade, but because He desires our hearts to be open. He wants us to be fully engaged and willing to be changed. Prayer is not about wearing God down. It’s about being drawn into His will.

And it’s that disposition, that posture, the recognition of our deep need for His mercy, that unlocks the power of God’s grace in our lives. The Lord can’t work in a hardened or self-sufficient heart. He needs a soul that is humble, honest, and ready to be transformed.

Paul reminds us in Colossians that we are not just people who talk to God. We are people who have been united with Christ and buried with Him through our baptism. And symbolically, the action of emerging out of the water represents a resurrection; it’s a reminder that we have been raised to new life through Christ’s Sacrifice. But resurrection assumes something has died. The old self. The sin. The pride. The self-reliance.

That’s why the Christian life demands ongoing repentance. Our sins have been nailed to the Cross, yes…but we still have to bring them there; we still have to give them to Jesus and invite Him ever more deeply into our hearts. We cannot receive God’s mercy with closed fists or hardened hearts; it is an attitude of receptivity.

So let me ask this: What would our prayer look like if we really believed two things: first, God is nearer to us than we think He is; and, second, He desires our transformation more than our comfort?

If we believed those two things, would we pray more often? Would we be more honest with God? Would we let Him stretch us beyond our convenience and into conversion?

Because that’s what Jesus is teaching us: prayer is not just about getting things from God; it’s about becoming someone for Him. It’s about opening our hearts to Him, giving Him our past, our present, our future; inviting Him into those areas of our lives we have tried to hide from Him.

This week, let’s really focus more on our relationship with the Lord. Come before Him not only with our needs, but with our need for Him. Ask Him for the grace to be open, to soften our hardened hearts, to heal what’s wounded, to change what’s disordered.

Don’t be afraid to knock. Don’t be afraid to let Him in. Because the One who answers is not only just…He is merciful, generous, and ready to work wonders in our lives.

Painting: Christ on the Mount of Olives, Josef Untersberger (Giovanni). Wikimedia Commons. Used under public domain.