By Tom Thomas –
Have you ever felt desolate, abandoned by your people and wondered what to do next and who to turn towards? This must be how Moses felt when he returned from the Mount Sinai after forty days and nights of fasting and found the people turned away completely from the Lord with the substitute of the Golden calf as described in the Book of Exodus.
In a fit of rage he smashed the tablets on which the Ten Commandments were written. How desolate and dejected he must have felt with even his own brother Aaron, the second in command, abandoning his principles of Leadership based on the Lord.
Reading through Exodus 34:1-7 shows us what Moses did next. We see that in a state of desolation and dejection he reached out to the Lord and the Lord asks Moses to meet Him early in the morning on the Mount with two freshly cut tablets of stone.
We see that Moses faithfully follows this command, preparing the stone tablets afresh and rising early to travel to the Mountain alone. We see that he is able to have a fruitful dialogue with the Lord after fasting for another 40 days and nights ( this makes Moses the only recorded person to have completed a 40 day fast twice) returning with the tablets on which the covenant was written for His people.
What can we learn from him?
The time: What is the opportune time to meet the Lord? Time and again the scripture tells us that the early morning time is when Moses and others close to God prayed. We can even see this in the examples of Jesus life too (Mark 1:35 is one reference). In our lives we can take this as giving the best time of the day to the Lord, normally the first hour of our day. These days of a 24/7 work culture when some of us work nights and sleep in the day, we can adopt the schedule accordingly as convenient.
The place: is also important. Moses took the trouble to travel to the mountain to meet the Lord alone. We must make an effort to encounter the Lord. Where is that place for us? It could be a Church during Mass or Adoration, a quiet corner, a retreat or really anywhere we can be with the Lord in silence. But we do need to get to that place.
The offering: Moses brought to the Lord the freshly cut stone tablets and offered that to the Lord to be written afresh. We can also infer that we can bring to the Lord our desolate moments, our sorrows and our pains- that rebellious child, the unexpected health challenge to face, that difficult situation in marriage that failed business, that missed opportunity, that problematic relationship and offer them to the Lord and He will write on that situation afresh. Our desolate moments will be transformed by the Lord or He will give us the strength to bear them. We are not alone in facing these desolate moments. Even the great Saints like St Francis of Assisi, St John of the Cross and St Mother Teresa also had these moments.
These insights above on how to pray in moments of desolation by following the example of Moses were revealed during a Bible Study session. A close study of the Bible unlocks for us the way we can lead our lives, centered on the Lord, no matter the ups and downs that come our way.
Especially in this season of Lent we are called to draw close to the Lord and to pray. Let us draw our inspiration from Moses on how to bring our desolate moments to the Lord, taking the effort to meet Him with fasting and preparation through prayer.
After all, as St Francis of Sales mentions, ”A single prayer in times of desolation is of far more value before God than a hundred offered during periods of consolation.”