A NOTE ON PRAYER

GOD answers prayers. I know this, and I believe it. Yet, there have been times in my life when it felt as though He simply did not respond to my deepest requests. Even when I do believe He has answered a prayer, I sometimes find myself wondering if it was truly what I asked for, especially when that very answer turns out to be painful down the road.

That is exactly how I felt when I was dismissed from a premier law school due to a grade deficiency. I found myself questioning everything: If qualifying for the college of law was an answered prayer meant to give me a better career, a greater chance to help others, and a brighter future for my family, why did He allow me to fail? Why did God take back the opportunity He had so graciously given me?

It would be easy to conclude that what went wrong was entirely my fault—that I didn’t study hard enough, that law school wasn't my strong suit, or that I simply didn't want it badly enough. But for every academic struggle I faced, I consistently sought God’s help and guidance. During the tense deliberation of my case by the appeals committee, I prayed fervently. I even made a covenant with God, promising to dedicate myself to serving His church—a familiar bargain I often strike when backed into a dead corner.

But I lost. The committee refused to give me a second chance. I became the chaff—the one who fell short of the standard of excellence—separated from the grains of deserving scholars. In the wake of that loss, I began to deeply ponder how prayer truly works, and how it can strengthen our relationship with God regardless of whether we receive the answers we expect.

It is easy to bitterly conclude that God simply did not hear my prayers. But that would be unfair to Him. In reality, I was the one being unfair. I was treating Him like a tool, praying to the effect of: "Lord, You gave me this chance, so You should be here for me. I need You, so please make this happen." What if I had uttered instead: "Lord, here I am. Do whatever You want me to do. Thy will be done." Would that surrender have made a profound difference?

Winners and Losers

This struggle with unmet expectations isn’t unique to my academic life; I see this same transactional view of prayer everywhere, even when I turn on the television to watch a basketball game.

Every time I watch a game, I notice that players making the sign of the cross—either before a play or after a successful shot—are as common as the referee whistles blowing for on-court violations. Athletes from opposing teams all pray to the very same God. When one side begs, "Lord, help us win this game," and their opponents pray for the exact same outcome, to whom does God listen? When a team triumphs, the victors raise their arms in hallelujahs to the Lord, while the losers are left to contemplate why they were denied divine intervention.

Our world is highly polarized into winners and losers across every field and walk of life. Yet, no one can truly declare whether a person has won or lost it all in the grand scheme of things. Looking back, whenever I failed in an undertaking, when self-reliance finally ran out, or missed a golden opportunity, my immediate reaction was to think my prayers had gone unheard. Perhaps I lacked a deeper, more mature relationship with God. In those moments, I felt I had no choice but to wait for another round, and then another. I have never considered myself overly religious, but through it all, I have never stopped praying.

Lessons from Job

I do not believe that the misfortunes we endure are forms of punishment from an all-powerful, benevolent God. Nor do I subscribe to a purely clinical worldview where suffering is merely a direct, mechanical reaction to our own mistakes. In the Bible, Job was not being punished when he lost his children and all his material possessions. Job was a righteous man, deeply faithful to God. His story confirms that the tragedies, hardships, and suffering of this world are often far beyond our human understanding. God loved Job, yet He allowed him to be tested.

God is under no obligation to say "yes" to our every prayer—which is honestly a blessing, considering some of the short-sighted things we ask for. Sometimes, He is testing us. Other times, possessed of a far greater wisdom and foresight than we could ever comprehend, He says "no" to our most profound requests.

But a "no" does not mean we stop seeking Him. If time passes and we still cannot see the fruit of our prayers, we are allowed to ask God why. We can persist in our questioning if we do not understand or agree with His answer. If we persist, God will meet us in our grief, giving us a peace and understanding that surpasses the need for logical answers

This understanding is only possible through constant, unceasing prayer. When light finally breaks, we will realize that God did hear us all along, and that He has done far more for us than we ever could have thought to ask. Had I realized this truth earlier, I would not have spent so much time griping during those trying chapters of my life.

A DREAM IN A WOODEN BOX

“THE TV’s gone...” my mother said that afternoon I arrived from school. I was 9 nine years old, and watching my favorite cartoon shows was always something to look forward to after a tedious school work.

Now what I saw was an empty TV stand, like a decapitated superhero gone and lost forever. The eldest of my three brothers had to explain to me that Father was forced to sell the television to a neighbor because he badly needed an amount to pay part of his big losses in a mahjong game. The guaranteed amount was equivalent that time to a half-cavan of rice which would have been enough for our week-long ration.

I couldn’t understand why Father had to let go our most precious possession. It was 1973 when he brought home the bulky wood-framed Hitachi Solid State television all the way from Manila to Narvacan, our hometown about 300 kilometers from the capital. It was one of the earliest televisions in the poblacion.

The TV would become my father’s best friend, and his tool to gain new friends and acquaintances around town and attract more customers for our tailoring shop. The shop during the day would teem with people trying to glimpse at a show in the black-and-white monitor. A boxing match was a fiesta—when almost all men on the streets, most of them tricycle drivers, would come to our house to watch the bout.

And the TV would become my earliest schoolmate. From the classic grainy black-and-white Hollywood and Filipino movies to Japanese early animation series to Sesame Street and The Muppet Show—I had watched them all.

When we moved to the barrio after losing our tailoring shop to poor business, aggravated by my father’s gambling escapades, we easily disposed of our sewing machines, cabinets, refrigerator, but not the TV. My father’s “best friend” was purposedly set at the center of our new abode.

But not anymore with that afternoon I arrived home from school.

“You can now concentrate more on your studies,” Father spoke to me in a tone that was largely devoid of blame. But listening to him was hard when you have lost a “special friend.” The thoughts of losing the television passed over me like a wave of fever.

Every night, while I worked on my assignments in a room I shared with my brothers, I could hear our TV being feasted on by our neighbor and his family. I would hear their boisterous pleasure with a comedy skit, or sounds of guns and airplanes and cannons in a war movie, or slaps and sighs from heavy loaded drama in a soap, all flashed on the TV screen. I missed my favorite cartoons and noontime shows so much!

I was too eager to watch television shows even from our neighbor’s window, but I couldn’t. It pained me so much to cast an eye on what we have already lost. I rather crossed the streets two blocks away and watched TV at a rich relative’s house. But I couldn’t choose the show I wanted. I even obliged myself to be extra friendly to my cousins; otherwise, they would shut the door—or the windows—for me.

There were long months in our house that we didn’t have electricity, because we weren’t able pay our long-overdue electric bills. I could feel the hardship in our family, even more when my father resigned as a part-time teacher of a private school in the poblacion. He went into farming but he didn’t have much luck either. Unlike some fathers in the barrio who drowned their miseries in alcohol, my father would do well with mahjong or card games around town. And bad times showed no sign of abating.

Every night I literally burned my midnight oil studying my lessons. Yet, those were the nights that I heard that intense sound of our erstwhile TV from our neighbor’s house. Though most of our neighbors had also purchased their own televisions, our neighbor’s TV stood out in my own uncompromising nights.

I might not have watched so many TV programs in those years but I had read plenty of books I couldn’t imagine I would read in my lifetime. I completed my elementary and secondary education on top of my class, and I was a consistent scholar while in college.

It was the year I graduated from college that I learned that our old TV set was no longer in use, perhaps damaged by old age, now relegated to a dark spot in favor of new and better model. Yet, I never wavered in my determination to buy it back someday. And this had been a driving passion in my early life. 

IN the summer of 2004, I visited my hometown after almost a decade working in publishing houses in Manila. Years earlier or just after I settled down, I bought a 14-inch Samsung colored and cable-ready television for my new family.

Many things have changed in our neighborhood in Nanguneg. The roads were well paved and the old folks of my childhood were gone. Gone also were the thatch-roofed and dilapidated houses. In their places were concrete and bigger houses. Now every household had their own television sets.

The neighbor who bought our TV had migrated to the US a year after his wife died. The family of one of his two married daughers was all that was left in their old house. And I learned from my mother that that “antiquated” TV have been rendered totally useless, all electronic parts gone; and the wood-framed Solid State box was now only good for a four-footed cupboard for old tools.

“The TV’s gone...” I remember Mother repeating those words to me. Had I only known the truth earlier, I wouldn’t have gone this far. After years of wishing helplessly to reclaim our old glory from a wooden box, I gained something better than that—my pride.