David's Prayer

Everyone's getting into the "what's up with prayer?" act. Here's David, the Cubicle Rev:

Recently, on account of a change in jobs I had gotten into financial troubles to the point where I was behind on every bill. Every time my father asked me how things were going I’d tell things were fine. They weren’t fine, but I could not bring myself to be honest with him and heaven forbid ask for help. I did not want to give up the appearance of being a strong and capable person who can take care of himself. Of course things hit the fan leaving me with no choice except to ask for help. I will never forget my dad’s expression when he picked me up. He was hurt and could only say, ”Why did you lie to me?” Because I did not want to look bad to my father. I could not give up appearing to be manly in front of my father. How often do we do that with God? Henri Nouwen in his great book “With Open Hands” compared this an old woman being taken to a hospital who held tightly onto a coin out of fear that if she lost the coin she’d lose everything. Christ through his actions taught a completely different model. The night of his arrest he went off to pray and was so distraught he asked God to take the cup from him and sweated blood. So how was Jesus feeling at that point? He had no problem with giving up his coin and showing his heavenly father the real Him. It wasn’t a sin for Jesus to be honest before the father. Open up before God. It improved a relationship with my earthly father. How much more so with my heavenly one?