Prayer

So, after a conversation with a friend, I think it is time to post this entry. It has been a long time coming, and I pray (ha) that you can connect with it and, perhaps, change the way you pray.

Prayer is an interesting thing. Prayer requests seem even more interesting. Do you remember being a child and praying for the most mundane things? Your dog, to get a day off of school, for a different color hair… any number of things. One day, if you were in Sunday School and mentioned during prayer request time the people overseas, or kids in Africa, or soldiers in the war, everyone thought you were “so sweet” or “so smart”. It was a good thing that you were thinking outside of yourself…

As you get older, this is kept up. Everyone is always requesting prayer for the big things in the world, and they forget the mundane. Of course, at 30, the mundane is different than it was at 4, but it is never spoken during prayer request time.

Why? Why do we only pray for the big things (friends and family with cancer, soldiers overseas, and dying children in Africa), and never the mundane? Now, don’t get me wrong, I pray everyday for the people around me who are not well, for our men and women in the armed forces, and for all the children around the world who don’t have people to care for them. However, it seems we have forgotten how to pray for the little things. And maybe we do in our own quiet time, but it is not wrong to be among your peers and request prayers for yourself. Isn’t that the point of prayer requests? To ask for prayer and support in what you’re struggling with? When prayers are always requested for those farther removed, aren’t we actually the superficial church? The depth in the church is in becoming honest with those around you. Becoming personal, and going past the point of those ‘distant’ prayers.

Why are we not comfortable with asking for help? If you can’t ask for help in a small group within your church, how can you ask for help from anyone else? It lends itself to people bottling up what is going on in their life. And what good does that do? It just keeps everyone separated in a way that is dividing the world. In the same way we are all removed from each other by technology, the world is becoming more and more superficial. Seems the depth is missing in all aspects of life, including where is should be the basis.

Now the question: How do we change it?

In no way am I saying to stop praying for the BIG things. They should be on the list every day. It is helpful with a white board prayer list to permanently write these constants at the top. The rest can be transient, erasing things as they are resolved and adding new ones as they come up. Constantly keeping up with what is going on in your life will help you realize just how many things there are in your life, and when you share them with others, just how many people care about the ‘little’ things in your life.

I challenge you, the next time you are in a setting taking prayer requests, to ask for something PERSONAL. And it doesn’t have to be that you are sick. Maybe you are stressed. Maybe you are tired. Maybe you are working for a promotion. Share yourself with the people around you. THAT is what church is about.