Prayer

I was in conversation with my granddaughter, Robin, a few years ago.  It was just the two of us, and I no longer remember the topic of our discourse--maybe the poor or underprivileged or Grandpa Phil's homeless ministry at church.  It doesn't matter.  Robin said, "I think we should pray for all of the people who don't know Jesus."  I was stunned.  This child--this baby, who could not have been more than 8-years-old--was expressing compassion for people who could not help themselves, and that praying for them to acquire faith would help them along the way.  Such maturity!  I admired her in that moment and told her so.  "Yes, I think we should, too.  We'll do that."

The story doesn't end there.  Awhile later--minutes?  hours?--Robin came to me and mentioned, "We said we were going to pray for those people, but we never did."  She had me there.  We hadn't.  She was looking to me for leadership, but I had dropped the ball.  I wasn't exactly the best example of a leader in that case, now was I?  We bowed our heads and said the prayer right then, but I had learned a valuable lesson.  How often do we say we're going to pray for people but never actually do it??

A couple of days ago, once again I had the opportunity to view a graphic from a "friend" on Facebook who had posted it.  "Let's let God back in our schools.  Share if you agree."  The picture was of a line of young school children looking happy at the front of a classroom.  The whole "letting God back in school" thing has to do with school prayer--the practice of starting the day with a common prayer in the same way that we start with the Pledge of Allegiance.  It isn't legal, and there are reasons for that.  Legal reasons.  Constitutional reasons.  But people who were raised with school prayer are totally convinced that not starting the school day with an oral prayer means that we have rejected God and that He will cause bad things to happen to our children because of it.  (No kidding--I've heard people whom I love and respect say that school shootings happen because we've taken God out of schools, and nationally, some folks say that wildfires and hurricanes, tornadoes and earthquakes are happening because we are accepting of homosexuality in our midst.)

I wasn't raised in the Bible Belt.  I never attended a single school in all of our military travels where prayer was a part of a daily ritual, so I have never understood the fanaticism.  I presently live in Indiana which is on the northern fringe of the BB, so many of my local friends were raised with school prayer.  My comment to the Facebook post about letting God back in our schools was that He never left...that the Lord God Almighty does not need us to validate His existence in the world, and that the more important quest should be to let God back in our homes.  I'm convinced that even the most devout of us fail to pray.  (See my story about Robin, above!)

There is not a single law on the books to prevent a student or teacher from praying.  All he/she has to do is drop his/her head and do it....silently.  It can't be "led" except before or after school hours and by choice.  In the high school in which I taught, there was an organization called the Fellowship of Christian Athletes.  They met in a sponsor's classroom before school.  Once a year, they met around the flagpole outside before school to pray for our country's leaders.  It was all legal and welcome.

A couple of years ago, I saw a news story of a Christian minister who was moonlighting as a school bus driver.  When he loaded the last of his students on the bus each day, he prayed out loud over them, making them also bow their heads and listen.  He was warned twice to stop that practice because it was offensive to non-Christian students on the bus, but he was practicing his religious rights as he wanted to and did not stop.  He was fired.  The person who posted the story (on Facebook) was obviously appalled that a man should lose his job because he was praying for the students on his bus.  She obviously didn't read the whole story.  My response was that he'd been given fair warning from his employer but would not comply, so he reaped the consequences of that.  If he merely wanted God's blessings on the kids, he could have done that in silence--but he was making a defiant point.   I don't know of too many employers who will look the other way when an employee defies a directive.  His head rolled.  I had no sympathy for that.

The Bible teaches us, in Jesus' own words, how to pray...and that is:  in secret.  Jesus admonished His followers to go into a closet--a place alone--and pray to God without a big public show of things.  So WHY do we need a prayer in public schools?  Are we afraid that children are not getting enough of that at home?  It is probably true, but it is NOT the function of schools to lead children's religious lives.  That is the job of the parents.  And if the parents aren't doing that, shame on them, if that's what they want!

 As I age, I notice that the list of people to pray for grows longer, and the requested reasons for prayer get more serious.  People with cancer.  People with children who have gone astray.  People who are caring for seriously ill loved ones.  The list simply doesn't end.  And I always say I will pray for them...but I don't always.  My heart goes out to them.  My thoughts are with them.  But I don't always pray, and I wonder why.  Maybe it's because I believe that God knows what is in my mind and heart. Maybe it's because I feel that I am overloading Him with requests when I can offer nothing in return. Maybe it's because I feel unworthy for Him to listen to  me, a sinner.  Or maybe it's because I am the world's best procrastinator--I'll pray later.  Yeah...that's it.  Lately, I have decided to pray the instant I am asked to do so.  Do it now because later might not happen.

But why pray at all?  What if there is no God?  What if the sacrifice of Jesus was just a manipulation of Scripture?  Doesn't matter!  People who live without faith have nothing greater than themselves to look to for comfort.  Human beings are flawed.  Can you imagine a child without a parent to lead and guide and care for him/her?  It is usually terrifying to children just to be lost from their parents in a store, much less have to discover that there is no one else in charge but themselves.  In the face of life's challenges, we HAVE to believe in something that helps us explain what we feel and endure. Pray because you have nothing to lose.  Pray because it gives you focus.

Focus?  Yes, dear readers--focus.  Successful people and athletes focus on the "follow through". They imagine success.  Surround themselves with positive energy.  They concentrate their energies on what they want and hope to achieve, then behave as if that will happen.  That is faith.

Faith is believing in something that can't be seen, heard, or felt.  If you have no faith, you can't survive in a happy state.  You would be unable to count on anything, from the sun coming up in the morning, to your car starting when you put the key in the ignition.  Some things HAVE to be taken on faith or you will crumple.  So pray.  Pray without ceasing.  Pray to God or whatever power you think the universe holds for you...but focus and pray for what you want, what you need....and don't forget to say "thank you" for what you already have.

Many years ago, when my grandmother was desperately ill and near death, I prayed and prayed to keep her alive, just for me.  And then, one day in desperation, I took a long walk and talked with God about my pain.  My grandmother had pernicious anemia which put her in a coma until blood transfusions would bring her out of it.  She was badly diabetic.  She had been in a wheelchair unable to walk for 15 years due to a previous tumor near her spine.  She had no control over her bladder, having to wear a catheter with a urine bag close to her useless legs.  One of her feet had become gangrenous and black, although the doctors didn't want to perform surgery because she was so otherwise unwell.  By her own admission, she was ready to go.  I didn't want her to!  For the first time in my then-young life, I didn't know what to pray for!  I realized that I wasn't wishing for my grandmother to survive her illnesses because there would only be more comas, amputation surgery, and more indignities to await her if she merely lived.  I didn't want her to suffer; I wanted to have her back whole, well, and pain-free.  She was 83 years old.  That was not going to happen.  Finally, before I finished my walk, God put in my heart that it was time for me to let my beloved grandmother go if I really loved her, so I prayed for a merciful end.  "Please, dear God, take care of my grandmother."  She died peacefully a day later--slipped quietly away, surrounded by her ever-faithful husband and eldest daughter.  Prayer answered.

Not knowing what to pray for can be a problem.  Sometimes, when we pray for what seems like a lost cause, the time comes to say "Thy will be done".  That takes us off the hook, doesn't it?  No matter.   Focus on what you need and what you want, then behave appropriately...and accept that you may or may not get it...but pray anyway.  Pray for mercy.  Pray for understanding.  Pray for peace.  Pray for others.  But all the time that you do that, understand that YOU are the one who needs prayer:
"It's me (it's me) it's me, O Lord,
Standin' in the need of prayer.
Not my brothers, not my sisters, but it's me, O Lord,
Standin' in the need of prayer."

So while you are praying, please add me to your list!