Saturday 10 January 2026
1 John 5:14-21. The Lord takes delight in his people – Ps 149:1-6, 9. John 3:22-30.
God hears us
This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us. And if we know that he hears us – whatever we ask – we know that we have what we asked of him.
How wonderful to know that we can have confidence in the prayers we make, knowing they will be heard and an answer provided. However, we also know that God knows best and that this may not always be the answer we are looking for. As Elizabeth Barrett Browning wrote: ‘God answers sharp and sudden on some prayers, / And thrusts the thing we have prayed for in our face, / A gauntlet with a gift in it’. This first reading’s admonition, ‘Keep yourself from idols’, may be interpreted more widely today as refraining from those things, excesses of consumption or greed or bad or thoughtless habits, the idols that distract us from God and from the power of prayer.
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