If you look up the word “focus” in a dictionary, you will find that it has a number of different meanings. Then if you will move to the end you will see that it was originally a Latin word that simply meant “hearth.” That is to say the hearth of the fireplace was the focus of home life, the warm center around which the family gathered on cold nights.

Consider also that the word “prayer” has several definitions. Across the years it has accumulated a number of different meanings, some of which most of us would find difficult to accept. For example, a radio evangelist a few years ago explained that we must pray specifically if we expect God to answer our prayers. Then he told a story of ordering a bicycle from a mail-order company. He had to tell them what color, what size, what model, etc. His application was that when we pray, we must tell God specifically what we want. In other words, this man thought of prayer as a heavenly mailorder catalogue. I find a great deal of difficulty that prayer is a kind of Aladdin’s lamp that, if you know how to rub, it will give you anything you want.

The reading from the letter of James begins with a vivid scene of strife, turmoil, envy, and frustration. Then we are told, “You do not obtain because you do not ask.” In other words, we do not get from life what we want from life because we do not pray. But then James adds this all important sentence: “You ask and you do not receive because you ask wrongly, with a view to squandering what you receive on your own pleasures.”

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