Prayer, what is it good for? [Religious]

The title is a play on a song title and a question posed. Some would give the same answer provided in the song.

For the record I have not been to seminary. I am not fluent in scripture. Greek is…well…Greek to me and that’s all. I have several bibles. My wife Shelley makes me go to church. (Kidding!) I like beer. I screw up on a regular basis. After much thought in the matter I am willing to accept that I have benefited from white privilege. I’m retired. Thanks to the internet I am now an ordained minister. I am of the faith. Those are some of my bona fides.

Over the years I have wrestled with a lot of questions about prayer. What is prayer? Does one prayer count for more than a thousand? Does God hear all prayers? Does God answer all prayers? Is the prayer of an adult more important than the prayer of a child? Are there some things that we shouldn’t pray for? Can non-believers pray? If they can’t can we pray for them instead with any possibility of such prayer being answered? Does a prayer have an expiration date? Are bar codes involved? (I hope not.)

I’m sure that others have biblical answers to all of the above questions and more when it comes to prayer. There are also disclaimers in the bible as to why prayer won’t work for some. Usually having to do with guilt, being sinful in some fashion or not being righteous enough. Frankly it just all gets too confusing. After reading some of the verses dealing with prayer I’m not sure that anyone is truly qualified to have prayer answered.

It seems to me then that the best time to pray is right after a person accepts Jesus because they haven’t had a chance to be sinful again yet. That doesn’t sound right though does it? We’re going to screw something up. It’s what we do. We’re fallible. Even the best of humanity.

Perhaps it’s better to start with what prayer isn’t. Prayer isn’t magic. Abracadabra in the name of Jesus you’re a lottery winner! If you pray this prayer abracadabra you’ll make a lot of money this year! Hocus pocus if you’re righteous you will have material wealth if you pray just right. Praying to a bobble head Jesus on your dash will keep you safe from wrecks.

I don’t believe that giving the church or other intermediary money gives a prayer a better chance of reaching God’s heart. (Unless of course you want to give me a million dollars and then at some point I will personally deliver your message. If this helps you in your decision to give me a million dollars I am getting old. I’m not that many years away from having a lifetime supply of pills in the medicine chest.)

As a Christian I think that the answer I most often heard from childhood to adulthood is that God answers all prayer but with the caveat that prayer isn’t always answered in a way that we expect or understand. The perfect disclaimer of absolution. I believe that answer leads to unrealistic expectations on the part of Christians and validation for those not of the faith that prayer obviously doesn’t work or we wouldn’t need such an addendum.

Really if prayer always worked then children wouldn’t die and we would have world peace. But children do die and we don’t have world peace.

But sometimes children and others don’t die when they should have. So I think that we need to use the modifier “sometimes” when saying that prayer works. This is about the time that God’s plan or will jumps into the prayer fray in discussion. In other words a prayer contrary to God’s plan or will would be DOA. Praying for something evil is a non-starter. Prayer isn’t vindictive but we can pray for mercy as in letting a loved one slip away from their suffering.

I saw a great meme on Facebook the other day about prayer. A doctor was giving the grieving family the news that they lost someone because they were 2 prayers short on Facebook or something like that.

Rewards-based Christianity. I can’t tell you how many testimonies that I’ve heard over the years from people saying that prayer or tithing to the church has made them wealthy in the material sense. That always makes me wonder if poor Christians who tithe are somehow doing something else wrong, like not praying right. Evidently they’re guilty of some biblical infraction. After all we are a rewards-based society. Do something right—get rewarded; have your prayers answered. Do something wrong. Get punished. It’s only natural to want to have something to threaten the opposition with. Too often our prayers imply an insult to those less fortunate – that if only they believed (and prayed) harder or better or longer they would not be homeless, or poor, or in ill health.

God set the universe in motion as well as all the laws governing it. So there’s the free will of the physical world as all those myriad forces act with one another as well as our own free will thrown into the mix. What I mean by the free will of the physical world is that regardless of what we do there will be earthquakes, volcanoes, storms, heart attacks, disease, accidents, etc. In other words—stuff happens. Lightening will strike some people because they’re in the wrong place at the wrong time. The free will of the physical universe means that yes our world can be obliterated by a stray asteroid. We can pray of course that won’t happen. Sometimes our prayers and the free will of the physical world coincide like when seas part.

Man! I’m bringing myself down here. Things were going fairly well until I got to that sentence about obliterating the world. I’m thinking here it might be time to delve into why I do pray.

I’m sure there are reasons prayers are or are not answered but they are simply beyond our ability to sort out or understand. For sure though if there is no prayer there is no answer and can be no fulfillment. Why pray then?

Well, I pray because sometimes it works. While I can’t explain or understand why some prayers aren’t answered I do believe that some prayers are answered. I pray every day; more often than not several times. I also believe that miracles both large and small happen on a regular basis. I believe that God speaks to us but we have to pay attention. It’s easy to miss all of these things as the chaos of free will swirls around us.  We’re so busy dealing with the world that we often miss the miracles occurring around us. We’re so busy coping with life that we forget to live it.

Testimony needs to be personal. On a personal level, since September of 2015 I have been dealing with some health issues. It started out with me having some serious chest pain. That led to tests. The tests attributed the chest pain to stress. Evidently I wasn’t handling the stress of selling a house, buying land, moving stuff to a half dozen storage facilities, finding a new place to live in another state, getting bit by a brown recluse spider, 2 bouts of shingles, working up home plans with an architect, having our church come apart and losing a loved one (Paul) real well. (I should mention that Shelley went through this with me and did a much better job of handling the stress. Including one wild Beverley Hillbilly style ride pulling a trailer.) Those tests led to my being diagnosed with an enlarged ascending aorta like my older brother had. The doctor was surprised that I didn’t already have a cardiologist and told me to be sure and get one when we got moved to Missouri. A follow up with doctors in our new locale ended up with more tests confirming the original diagnosis.  

Fast forward a few months, to a new CT scan done in order to check and see if the aneurysm had gotten any bigger. The nurse called to give me the results of that scan and informed me that I now have zero aneurysm. What?! However, the CT scan showed up a nodule on my lung. Swell! I had subsequent PET scan to check that out to see if there was any indication of malignancy. There wasn’t any. Needless to say, there had been a lot of prayers going up about both of these health issues. It’s obvious to me that they were answered.

Shelley and I also credit prayer for where we are now. It was Shelley’s prayer that brought us here to Table Rock Lake, of this I have no doubt. A couple of years ago Pastor Rob Schmutz gave a sermon in which he told us not to be afraid to pray big. So she did. Unbeknownst to me she prayed that somehow it would be possible for us to move to Table Rock to be near my family. She didn’t share her prayer with me because she didn’t dream that I would ever consider leaving the little town of Park City, Kansas where I grew up. When I turned to her one day and said, “Babe, what would you think about us selling our house and moving to Table Rock Lake?” she said you could have knocked her over with a feather. This is a time of life when we were supposed to be settling in comfortably for the final run.

God frequently takes us out of our comfort zone.

How and where I pray has also been affected by a chance encounter with another Christian in a rather odd circumstance.

Once upon a time on our way home to Park City, Kansas from Table Rock Lake Shelley and I stopped off at an Iron Skillet for a bite to eat. After the waitress had served our meal a swarthy man walked slap footed into the non-smoking dining section where we were seated. He had an unlit cigar that had to be at least in inch thick stuck in his mouth. I disliked him instantly. I figured that he was probably going to light up his cigar and stink up the non-smoking section as soon as he sat down.

He didn't light up. I returned to our meal in progress. The next time I looked in his direction the waitress had just delivered his meal and his head was bowed in prayer as he said grace before he ate.

So, did the guy with a cross earring, me, say grace before we started chowing down on our delicious lunch? Nope. What kind of message did I deliver to the young waitress that waited on us or others in the room for that matter? We stopped eating and I said grace. I remembered several lessons while we ate our lunch. I should have followed that meal up with several helpings of humble pie.

Being a Christian only works if we apply the teachings in our day to day lives. Just going for some God time on Sunday between such and such times isn't enough. Listening to the praise music, testimonies, prayer and message from the pastor isn't enough. It won't help us in our daily lives unless we apply what we've learned and know to be right. It won't help if we don't try and make a difference by helping others. It won't help if we don't lead by example. It won’t help if we don’t pray.

There’s a lot of talk about Christianity being under attack these days in this country. From the memes that I see on Facebook you would think that Christians are being persecuted for practicing their beliefs. I do think that we are under attack but sincerely believe that our main adversaries in this country come from within the faith and the lack of practicing what we’re supposed to believe. Instead too often the examples that those not of the faith see from Christians are negative, filled with words and actions that are contrary to the teachings of Jesus.

Doesn’t it seem like we should be seeing more Christians in action being stopped from practicing our faith if we are truly under attack? And I’m not talking about being forced to bake a cake for someone. Jesus didn’t go and ask about the beliefs or lifestyles they lived before he fed the 5,000. Being denied the right to force Christian beliefs on others is not the faith being under attack. Lacking a servant’s heart is not someone else’s problem. Jesus practiced helping the less fortunate in deeds and words.

It seems to me that one of the most obvious things that Christians should be seen doing as everyone goes about their daily lives is praying. Do you see a lot of that when you’re out and around? How many times have you been in a restaurant and noticed someone saying grace before a meal? Have you ever heard anyone in a restaurant saying that, “Hey! We don’t allow no Christians praying here!” Didn’t think so.

One of the easiest ways to get a non-believer to at least think about the faith even if it’s for a fleeting moment is for them see someone praying at a meal. Better yet pray with a non-believer at a meal or wherever you’re at. (Ask first! You might be surprised.) I have told people not of the faith just to think of us as wishing them well to a figment of our imagination. It’s an offering of kind thoughts for them at the least and an introduction to the faith at best.

This country full of Christians doesn’t pray in public that much on a consistent day to day basis. It seems to me that Christians avoid the most obvious way of sharing and promoting the faith on a regular daily basis. Think of how many people would be reached if Christians started praying in public as well as in private. Think of the statement that it would make if you went to a restaurant and half of the people there were praying. You aren’t liable to see that happening frequently any time soon.

When I pray I give thanks for the day and all that we have because prayer reminds me to be aware of the bounty that surrounds us. I am thankful for the day and the beauty that can be acknowledged even during the power of a storm. There is beauty in the day. Prayer on a regular basis helps me be mindful of others less fortunate (without insulting them in the process).  

Some of the things that I will pray for on a regular basis for myself and others are healing, knowledge, guidance, understanding, strength of character/body/mind, peace, discernment, lightening of a heavy burden, a joyful heart, to be a better person/friend/husband, seeing through the clutter of life, perspective, safety, forgiveness. Prayer helps me stay positive.

What kind of Christian will I be today? I will pray that I’m a better representative of Christ.

Prayer, what is it good for? Absolutely somethin’!