Prayer, humility and faith

I often wonder why prayer has such a mixed ambiguity for me. On the one hand it seems that if I pray, I imagine "someone" very powerful "up there" making all the decisions, and I'm seeking perhaps an undeserved favor. Who am I to receive a special request just because I asked for it? What am I doing to earn this good fortune (or more commonly, this reversal of bad fortune)?

But I'm seeing now that prayer does include a degree of humility. We can't see the One to whom we are praying: we must believe that there is a Force out there who is all-seeing and all-knowing, and who holds a larger context for our destiny, which has to be a good one, in spite of the immediate evidence.

I am speaking here of prayer outside of a specific religious setting, the kind of prayer available to all of us. And this issue of humility is exactly the point of prayer. To even begin to surrender the idea that we don't have a clue, or at least the right answer to any number of life's dilemmas, begs for humility. And it is in this act of humility that we find a faith that must be created and then clung to as a means to make it through, to take the steps necessary to find the peace that surpasses all understanding.

Life offers each of us a series of hard choices: it takes humility to move away from rationality and into a place of faith in our own integrity, our own willingness to listen to that deep inner voice, the one which reflects the answer to our prayers. Humility is the bridge between prayer and faith, and strengthens with practice. I pray today for the humility to keep praying. Faith is not fantasy: it is the beginning of right action, the only stepping stone to creating a life well-lived.