This is the fourth week of our Fall Message Series which we have called, “8^th Grade Faith.” We have noted that for too many Catholics, their faith development seems to end in the 8^th grade after receiving the sacrament of Confirmation. Instead of Confirmation being a sending forth into a greater, more mature participation in the Church and it’s mission to make disciples of all nations, it becomes more of a graduation from Church. People stop going to Mass, they stop reading the Bible, they stop growing in their faith. This message series is about moving on from an eighth grade faith to a more useful approach and application to our faith.

Interestingly, one thing that most post-Confirmation Catholics do not stop doing is praying. They pray when they want something, like a good grade on a test, a new job, a car, good health. They pray when they are afraid and in trouble. Growing up we all learned the basic prayers – the Our Father, and Hail Mary, maybe Grace before a meal – and we will power through one or more of them when we want something or are scared. In fact, one reason people often give for why they no longer go to Church is because God did not give them or do for them something they prayed for.

Growing up most of us were taught prayers, but not necessarily how to pray. Just rattling off prayers that we have memorized is not really entering into prayer. Today, we're looking at that. We're looking at entering into prayer as a way of moving on from our eighth grade faith. And to do it, we're looking at today's first reading from a fellow named Habakkuk.

Habakkuk lived about 650 years before Christ. He lived in the city of Jerusalem under the rule of a cruel, corrupt, tyrannical king. And as a result, corruption was rampant in this city. Jerusalem was supposed to be a city, a shining city on the hill, an inspiration to the rest of the world of God's goodness and grace. But at this point, it was far from that. It was filled with violence and corruption and injustice. And this bothered Habakkuk. Habakkuk's prayed, "How long, O Lord, how long, how long I cry for help but you do not listen? I cry out to you, violence, violence, but you do not intervene. How long O Lord?"

Have you ever felt like that? If we are honest, probably most of us have. Like Habakkuk, we ask God for help, and we feel as if He is not listening. Habakkuk felt ignored by God, and he told God about it.

One of the best ways to enter into a conversation with God, a great place to start, an easy place to start is just by being honest about our feelings, to be honest about our frustration or our anger. Prayer doesn't require piety, but it does require honesty. Nowhere does our Christian faith argue or promise that there must be a God because everything is perfect. Everything is not perfect and there is a God.

Habakkuk doesn't buy the lie. He didn't use the suffering, injustice in the world around him to come to the conclusion that there is no God or that God doesn't care. He uses it as the opportunity to turn to God in prayer. He allowed his frustration and his anger to drive him deeper into prayer. 

God tells Habakkuk some pretty unsettling news. He says, "Don't worry about those corrupt politicians in Jerusalem because I'm sending the Babylonians. And the Babylonians are going to take Jerusalem over." This could not seem like good news to Habakkuk. The Babylonians were conquerors. It would be like our complaining about all the corruption and partisanship politics in Washington, DC, asking God to clean it up, and God saying, “Don’t worry about all those corrupted politicians in DC because I am going to have the North Koreans invade and take over the government.” Not good news.

Habakkuk is utterly confounded. He's left speechless. Now, if God is all powerful and all knowing, then we could expect, we should expect at times that his ways are not our ways. When that happens, what are we to do? Well, here's what Habakkuk did. He said, "I will stand at my guard post and station myself upon the ramparts. I will keep watch to see what he will say to me and what answer he will give to my complaint." Conversation is listening as well as talking. And to do that, we've got to position ourselves to be able to hear because most of the time, most of our life is so filled with noise, we can't hear anything.

The person of prayer, the person who enters into prayer understands this. They wait patiently and sometimes, not always, but sometimes they're able to spot God's action. They get where God is going and what he's doing. Prayer like Habakkuk's doesn't limit God to our circumstances or our understanding, but trusts that in all our circumstances and way beyond our understanding, God is present. God is present even when he seems absent, God is moving even when we don't know where he's going.

In today's Gospel reading, the apostles approached Jesus with a kind of naive request. It sounds almost childlike. They say, "Increase our faith" as if it were magic. And he answers their request, interestingly by discussing service and the role of a servant, the role of a servant in a household. What's that all about? Well, more than anything else, a servant is attentive to the master, at least a good one is, and that's what prayer is. Being attentive to God in all things rather than trying to get God to do what you want him to do. Aim to see where God is moving and join him. Go where God is blessing. Habakkuk didn't hear what he wanted to hear, that's for sure, but he eventually wanted, he embraced what he heard. Don't expect to hear from God what you desire. Instead in prayer, learn to desire what you hear.