If you live in or near Chicago, most of you know the Chicago Blackhawks won the Stanley Cup this week. Triumph! Champions! Prayers answered!
But were they?
Certainly there were a lot of faithful Boston fans praying that their Bruins would beat our Blackhawks.
So…… were our prayers better?
Does God prefer Chicago over Boston?
Are we more faithful than the Boston people are?
The question this week becomes: Why pray?
Why pray when our aging parents are dying?
Do our prayers give them one more moment of life?
This idea of "effective prayer" has been a stumbling block for faithful folks for centuries. Like Job's friends, some of us may succumb to judging others when we see their prayers falling on deaf ears. Some of us might lose our faith when we perceive that our own prayers are just evaporating into the stratosphere. And worst of all, some of us might even begin to censure our prayers, fearful that God can't or won't do for us what's on our list.
The "sticky wicket" of prayer is that we get hung up on the outcomes. Instead, let us look at prayer from an entirely different perspective. Let us consider prayer as simply a deep conversation between us and One who loves us. In the very act of having that conversation, we are transformed. We begin to realize that God is God and we are not. We begin to recognize God's actions in the world and become more aware of God with us. And, finally (God willing) we will begin to recognize God's invitation to us to participate in God's world. God's invitation to us to participate in God's world.
Certainly there were a lot of faithful Boston fans praying that their Bruins would beat our Blackhawks.
So…… were our prayers better?
Does God prefer Chicago over Boston?
Are we more faithful than the Boston people are?
The question this week becomes: Why pray?
Why pray when our aging parents are dying?
Do our prayers give them one more moment of life?
This idea of "effective prayer" has been a stumbling block for faithful folks for centuries. Like Job's friends, some of us may succumb to judging others when we see their prayers falling on deaf ears. Some of us might lose our faith when we perceive that our own prayers are just evaporating into the stratosphere. And worst of all, some of us might even begin to censure our prayers, fearful that God can't or won't do for us what's on our list.
The "sticky wicket" of prayer is that we get hung up on the outcomes. Instead, let us look at prayer from an entirely different perspective. Let us consider prayer as simply a deep conversation between us and One who loves us. In the very act of having that conversation, we are transformed. We begin to realize that God is God and we are not. We begin to recognize God's actions in the world and become more aware of God with us. And, finally (God willing) we will begin to recognize God's invitation to us to participate in God's world. God's invitation to us to participate in God's world.
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