“Always offer yourself to God in prayer. Offer to endure any spiritual or temporal pain. Beg Him always to give you the strength to do His holy will.”
Alphonsus Liguori in To Serve Jesus Christ as recounted in Lent and Easter Wisdom with Alphonsus Liguori (The Redemptorists: Denver, 2011) 4.
As I think of Jesus this morning, my mind goes to the Garden of Gethsemane where Jesus said, “Not my will but yours be done” (Luke 22:42b). He even knew what was ahead and still maintained a posture of submission and obedience. What’s this got to do with generosity?
I believe that sometimes prayer appears as a cosmic shopping list of things we want God to get or do for us. Alternatively, this Lent my hope for each of us is that prayer shifts to daily giving ourselves to God with complete reliance on Him to do whatever He calls us to do.