When does our relationship with God begin? For the men that felt guilty after Jesus was nailed to the cross, it was baptism. In the psalm, it was upon admitting that we are all the servants of God. For me, it was confirmation, the individual affirmation of faith. While my parents chose to baptize me in the Episcopal faith, confirmation was an opportunity for me to make my own decisions. God welcomes us into his kingdom at baptism, even if we are often too young to really understand what that means. To many others, the Lord presents himself in times of distress. But how is it that despair can seem to pull us closer, but also separate ourselves more from God?

To me, the answer, and the main idea of today’s readings is prayer, and the concept of forgiveness. We develop a relationship with the Lord when He is there to listen to our prayers. Our relationship with God is a very complicated and precious one. In the psalm, it is asked how we could ever hope to give to God what he has given to us. In the first reading, Peter told the people that we can thank God for saving us by “changing our hearts and lives through baptism.” But after baptism, how can we continually demonstrate our commitment to the ideals God envisions for us? This is where I see the pertinence of prayer. Every Sunday we repent because we have not loved God with our whole hearts, and we not only ask for forgiveness, but for the strength to serve the community in the upcoming week.

Last year in English class my class read the memoir Night by Eli Wiezel. Eli Weizel was a holocaust survivor, and his memoir retells his experiences in the concentration camps. One of Eli’s greatest challenges during his time at the concentration camps was this idea of prayer. If such hardship was administered to the Jewish people, how could there truly be a God, or at least one that cared about them? Many times God is blamed in times of hardship, and during those times people begin to lose faith.

My grandmother died a few months ago, and at that time I was first angry with God. I was truly distraught when she died. I continued to wonder how I was going to get through the hard times, and then I immediately thought of God. After she died, and we came into church, someone put our family’s name in the prayers for the people, and a lot of people from the church came up and offered their condolences and sent sympathy cards.

When I think about God in times of trouble, I am reminded of the retreat I went on the Barbara Harris Camp a little while ago. A few members of the Diocesan Youth Council came in front of all the people there to tell their stories about their relationships with God. One girl said that when she felt most distant from God, He appeared to her through others. Friends, family and even strangers. I see God in those friends and family members that were there for me when my grandmother died.

Even though I’ve never really interpreted it like that, kindness, love, and hospitality are all things that God shows to us through others. In the Gospel, the two followers offered Jesus a meal with them after their day’s travels, and after he gave thanks to the Lord for the meal and broke the bread, he showed himself to them and they believed. So, if we can’t see him, how do we believe?

Last summer I stayed with my cousins in the Cape for about two weeks to go to this really nice sailing camp. On Sundays during that time I went alone, as my cousins are Jewish, to an Episcopal Church just a walking-distance away. The minister there said that when searching for God, “you will find him if you look for him with all your heart and with all your soul.”

Peter says in the second reading that we should look to God because he loves us without judgment, and he has saved us from our sins. Somehow, even though we all do bad things, good things still happen to us.

This is because of forgiveness. God forgives us and enables us to forgive others and treat others the way that we wish to be treated. When we ask for forgiveness, we are humbling ourselves to a greater power. Times of prayer and humility are those that remind me that God is there. When I was confirmed, I took it very seriously, because for me, it was a test of my relationship with God. Was my love for God and relationship with him mature enough to make such a great commitment? When I asked myself this, I was really asking myself if I was sure that this was what I truly wanted. The first reading talks about how baptism saved those people from their evils. Peter tells us that we “have been born again, and this new life did not come from something that dies, but from something that cannot die. [We] were born again through God’s living message that continues forever.” This reminds me as to why, in the end, I was so sure that confirmation in the Episcopal Church was right for me. I couldn’t truly live without God, because in essence God lives through all of us.

As I am sure exists with many others, faith and I have had a very interesting journey on the road to confirmation, like the travelers did on their journey down the long road with Jesus. Faith has always been an interesting, yet confusing, idea for me. Especially this idea of prayer. For example, I was always confused as to why we ask for forgiveness for not fully and whole-heartedly loving God. What I have come to realize is that even though we all believe that we love God, our love for God must be exemplified through practice, not through theory. We pray and ask for forgiveness not just because it is part of our Sunday readings, but because it is the fuel which drives our relationship with God to not only exist but to grow and each and every day. Amen.