Prayer is a powerful connection to God. It opens our hearts and strengthens our faith. That sounds beautiful. But perhaps you have questions:
Since God is great and almighty and knows everything, why do we need to pray? Isn’t God the fixer of all things? Why do we need to ask God to fix anything? Why doesn’t God just go ahead and fix things before we ask? Why do we need to talk to God at all?
Great questions. I will start answering those questions with one question. Why do we need to talk to anyone in our lives? Don’t our friends, family members, and loved ones know us? Why do we need to tell them anything, or ask them for anything?
The answer is simple. When we are in a relationship with people, we need to communicate. We must share experiences and occasionally talk about how we feel about things. We need to ask for help from people who can offer advice or guide us during difficult moments of our lives.
Well, whether you know it or not, we are in a relationship with God. God is not a person, of course, but God is a being who loves us.
The essence of prayer is that we experience a connection between our human existence and the Divine. God is a powerful force who remains at our side. So it is natural that when we pray — when we talk to God, and listen to God’s voice — we are communicating with God, or our higher power. God is not Santa Claus, but God cares about what we want and need in our lives. So it makes sense that we reach out to God — we seek to make a connection to God — through prayer.
We pray because it helps us. We pray because an attitude of prayer changes us. We pray because when we are thankful in our prayers, we become more thankful and feel even more gratitude. When we pray for guidance and listen to the voice of God, we are learning to listen, and to trust God, and our faith grows and strengthens. When we pray for others, our hearts soften towards them. When we pray for forgiveness, we become better at receiving forgiveness and offering forgiveness to others.
Prayer helps us to feel at peace. Prayer helps us to trust.
Prayer is important in all the major world religions. There are morning and evening prayers, grace said over meals, and reverent physical gestures. Some Christians bow their heads and fold their hands. Some Native Americans regard dancing as a form of prayer. Hindus chant mantras. Jewish prayer may involve swaying back and forth and bowing. Muslim prayer involves bowing, kneeling, and prostration, while some Sufis whirl. Quakers often keep silent. Some pray to standardized rituals and liturgies, while others prefer extemporaneous prayers; many people combine the two.
Most of the time, we decide to pray because we are in trouble. We need help and guidance, or we are in an awful jam. Probably most of us have given the Help me prayer a few times in our lives:
“Oh God, please get me out of this situation. I will do whatever it takes. If you get me out of this jam, I will join a monastery. I will become a nun. Whatever it takes. Just send help.”
Another common prayer is the one I label the What do you want? I don’t know what to do next prayer, which differs from the help me prayer, because there is more seeking and listening than desperation followed by empty promises.
This prayer might go like this:
“God, I thought I was on the right path. I thought I was listening to Your voice, and so I did what I did. But now I can see that it isn’t working. Please tell me what to do. I want to do the right thing. Not the selfish thing. I want to fix this situation. What do you want from me? I am listening to You, now, God.”
Sometimes we are in so much emotional pain we don’t have the words to express ourselves. That’s ok too. Our silence can be felt by God. Our pain can be read by God. When words fail us, go ahead and pray. Those are the moments when it’s God’s turn to talk.
We are likely to offer up Prayers of thanks before meals or after we experience a shift in understanding or success. We thank God for what we have when we are filled with gratitude. Funny thing about that — the more gratitude we express to God or to others, we more our gratitude grows.
Not a very popular prayer, but a very effective prayer is the one called, Praying for others:
“God, you know I am struggling with this person who is just the opposite of me, and we have had a million conflicts. The only thing I know to do now is to quit fighting and pray for this person. Help this individual God. Help this person to grow more loving and compassionate. If possible, maybe I can eventually find something good in this person, God.”
A mother was headed to McDonald’s with her 5-year-old son and they drove past a car accident. The mother had a practice of encouraging her children to pray for those who might be hurt, so the mom said to her son, “We should pray.”
From the backseat, she heard his prayer, “Please, God, don’t let those cars block the entrance to McDonald’s.”
I will admit though, that every time I have prayed for someone else, there is a magic thing that happens. I begin to see that person in a different light. I never know if it’s because God fixed that person, or because God fixed me so I saw that person with new eyes.
Does praying always work? Do we get what we wanted? Do we feel like God answers our prayers? Sometimes. Sometimes prayer works. Sometimes God gives us an answer that doesn’t make sense at first. Sometimes we get what we asked for.
So a Pastor bought a female parrot that would only say “Come on baby, let’s kiss! Come on baby, let’s kiss!” While a married couple in his church had a male parrot that should only say, “Brethren, let us pray. Brethren, let us pray.”
The pastor asked the couple if they could get their parrots together. They planned a meeting and when the big day arrived, the young couple came to the Pastor’s hour with their parrot. The two parrots looked at each other and sure enough, the pastor’s parrot blurted out, “Come on, baby, let’s kiss! Come on baby, let’s kiss!”
When the couple’s parrot heard those words, he paused momentarily and then blurted out, “GLORY TO GOD, MY PRAYERS HAVE BEEN ANSWERED!”
My friends, the act of prayer is life-changing. It is a way to communicate with the most loving, least judgmental being in the universe. Prayer shouldn’t be something we are afraid of. It shouldn’t be something we feel uncomfortable about. It should be a source of comfort, a source of inspiration, and a source of hope for us.
When we feel alone, when we feel left out, when we feel like no one understands us, we should pray.
When we feel frustrated, angry, confused, or unhappy, we should pray.
When we need guidance or rescue, we should pray.
In other words, like this verse in the Bible, we should,
“Always keep on praying.” — I Thessalonians 5:17 (Living Bible)
Sometimes in the stillness of prayer, we find God’s presence strongest.
Earlier this morning we heard these beautiful words sung. It is God reminding us that we are not alone.
If you forget the way to go
And lose where you came from
If no one is standing beside you
Be still and know I am
And my friends, when we pray — if we don’t know what to say, or how to say it, all we need to do is just say whatever is in our heart. God will hear and honor those words. Amen.
E.M. Bounds has written these words:
“God shapes the world by prayer. The more praying there is in the world, the better the world will be, the mightier the forces against evil.”
That is a powerful reason for all of us to spend a little more time praying.
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