In one English translation of the Bible, the word "if" appears 1,595 times. (I know that because I checked in a concordance, not because I counted them out myself.)

In today’s first reading, for example, "if" appears no less than 10 times: God says it 3 times, and Abraham says it 7 times as he intercedes for the people of Sodom and Gommorah.

The fact that this word is so prevalent in the Bible indicates that God has made certain things in life conditional. That is to say, they will only happen if we do what needs to be done to make them happen. "You will live and grow numerous, and the Lord, your God will bless you,’ Moses said to the Israelites in Deuteronomy 31, ‘IF you obey [his] commandments and [walk] in his ways. . . "

Jesus said, "Your heavenly Father will forgive you your sins—IF you forgive the faults of others."

Those are just two of the 1,500+ possible examples that I could share with you today.

But actually the number is much higher than that, because there are many verses in the Bible where the word "if" is not explicitly stated, but is clearly implied. We see this phenomenon in today’s Gospel text from Luke 11. In that passage, Jesus says, "Ask and you shall receive; seek and you will find; knock and it will be opened to you." The word "if" does not explicitly appear anywhere in that verse, but it is implied 3 times! The message of Jesus is: "You will receive, but only IF you ask (and keep asking); you will find only IF you seek; and it will be opened to you only IF you knock."

And finally we have the "implicit ifs" which stand behind the "explicit ifs" and can be added to the explicit Biblical ifs and the implied Biblical ifs that I just mentioned. (I trust you could follow that!)

What do I mean? Well, take a look—once more—at today’s first reading. As I said a few moments ago, the word "if" appears there explicitly 10 times. But behind all those explicit ifs is a very big implied if, and it comes from the mouth of God himself: "If you, Abraham, intercede for the people of Sodom and Gomorrah, I will honor your prayer and bestow an extra measure of my mercy upon them." Abraham understood that "if" very well, which is why he kept the conversation with God going until he got the Lord down to 10.

Fr. Ray, what’s the point of this "iffy" information?

Well, it’s really rather simple: So often we wonder why more good things don’t happen in this world. And, in the process, we can be very quick to point the finger at God, as if it’s his fault!—"God, why don’t you do something about all this?!"

But the truth is: in many cases, the fault is clearly our own!—we have failed to ask (and we have failed to ask persistently); we have failed to seek; we have failed to knock; we have failed to reach out to those in need; we have failed to elect enough pro-life people to office; we have failed to share our faith with others to help lead them to conversion; we have failed to forgive; we have failed in 1,001 other ways.