Why pray?

I can't pray worth shucks. I've tried and tried and haven't given up. But with my track record, I'd suggest one think twice before asking me to pray. People have met their maker and otherwise had the wheels fall off their trucks while I'm praying.

Many years ago I volunteered to pray for an older gentleman in a small church in Texas. His reply has stuck with me, "Couldn't hurt and you could use the practice."

The heart of my problem is that I've read about prayer, answers, miracles, and known some remarkable pray-ers. I understand about prayers of profession, confession, adoration, intercession, and intervention. I understand one should pray believing in the unseen. I understand prayer is conforming to God's will and that prayers are empowered by the Holy Spirit. I understand if I had faith the size of a mustard seed a mountain could be moved. I understand "when two or more are gathered in His name," "ask and it shall be given,"  "ask anything in my name," "the prayer of the righteous" and more.

I get it. I HAVE seen some near miraculous things. I once prayed for some much needed money and mysteriously got some. I may have been in the presence of angles. I've prayed for my children and they are all still here. I've had just enough glimpses of the Holy to keep me at it.

But I don't really get it. I suppose I'd keep praying if I struck out every time. Couldn't hurt and I still need the practice.

I've prayed and fasted. I've trusted the Spirit for healing and deliverance. I've prayed for children to love and serve God. I've prayed when I didn't know how to pray, like in Romans 8. I've uttered and meditated on the Lord's Prayer at night and while driving to work. I've tried to teach others to learn to pray. I'm pretty sure I'm talking to the Spirit at night before falling asleep.

I've prayed hard and long for some really important things and I've been disappointed more than once or twice. I pray for my children's faith at least 4 times a day and have been for over 30 years.

I'm coming up empty more often than not. I was SO SURE the Spirit was going to heal someone a while back after I talked with the Spirit into the wee hours of the morning on his behalf. So much so I was thoroughly convinced it was as good as done and I said, "Thanks." I told others about my  conviction a bad situation was going to work out.

My friend passed away. Just like my father, years ago. Just like my best friend in high school. Just like others I've known and lost.

But I still pray. Another friend DID survive a really critical illness, so....

Not much of a chance of prayer vanity here. If something great happens, it's probably not me!

I'm an ineffective pray-er. I'm sure I must be missing a key ingredient. I suppose. Feel free to comment here. After 55 years, well, 50, years of practice I'm pretty much a failure at intercessory prayer. Though I'm a bit better than average at confessing. I think.

I pray to not suffer, then I do. I pray for patience, then trials come. I pray for healing, then someone dies. I pray for faith, then someone disbelieves. I pray for harmony, then get rebellion. I pray for peace, and get war. I pray for a child's faith, then they turn away. I pray to lose weight, then find another pound.

What's up with this?

Some of it is certainly me. Especially the weight one. But am I praying disaster?

Maybe prayer isn't at all about getting anything. Maybe prayer is sitting in God's living room by a warm fire while the rain falls outside. Prayer doesn't change the weather, but changes how one views the weather.

Maybe there's something good in suffering and I'm getting a double-, or even triple-, blessing....  I'm not kidding. Maybe God has shared suffering with me. Might I be special to Him in this way?  Not because I do it so well (I don't) but because Jesus did it so much and so well. Suffering provides a glimpse of the Father most miss. The Father who hurts and cares but doesn't interfere. The Father who had high hopes and plans for Hitler and Stalin, but things didn't work out.

Opps, I've just lost the Calvinists.

Anyway, if God awaits our falling in love with Him, he can, but can't meddle with our will. Love can't happen without volition. So I think God loves and waits for His children to get it. He doesn't have to wait, but He does. Sometimes in suffering and tears. I bet there are days he would say forget your confessing, praising, glorifying, and praying. Show THAT ONE I love him and have wonderful plans for him if he'll only come!

He's given me the opportunity to share His sadness and suffering. So, I continue to pray, we sit in His living room and pass tissues. I still don't get it. It's good though. We smile as we weep because we have each other's back during a sad time.

That's a good thing, right?    

A Tough Situation

When I was a teenager there were a couple of men in our church who were gay--secretly. I remember some of my friends being invited to a campout. There was a "hunting" trailer somewhere in the country for deer season. I didn't go and thought nothing of it. I wasn't invited again. Some of my friends went and I remember they had other gatherings with basically the same group.

I ended up going to college in my hometown. These men continued their secret lives while my friends and I attended college while attending our childhood church.

These gay men were generally nice to be around. One worked with the youth and the other taught a male Sunday School class. These men were considerate, funny, and caring. I liked them.

They were "in the closet" so I didn't know anything about that part of their lives. And they certainly weren't open about it. One was married with children. The church would not have appreciated their activities.

I remember hearing about these men being discovered shortly after I graduated from college. I was surprised and thought it was sad for everyone concerned. I later heard there were other gay men in our small church and small town.

I'll have to admit I was completely surprised by this revelation. I had no idea. I was so taken with the opposite sex I couldn't fit the concept of homosexuality into my mind. I was sheltered and naive. At first it was purely a scientific consideration. From a hardware perspective nuts and bolts are useless alone but mutually unite to fulfill their individual purposes. I had no framework for two nuts or two bolts messing around. I learned there's more to human sexuality than I suspected.

I also learned two of my high school peers from church and college came out of the closet soon after graduation. They aren't and weren't a couple when they came out. I remember a time when they dated girls, but I guess something turned them in a different direction. They evidently understood the finer points of homosexuality some time before I even knew it existed. I can't help but wonder.

These two were good friends to me when we were young and involved in church stuff. I assume they haven't disowned me. Even though we took separate paths after college, I haven't disowned them. They were talented, considerate, and funny when we were young and I'm guessing they still are. I have good memories of our growing up together. I'd do for them what I'd do for anyone who needed me.

I guess the elephant in the room is did the secret gay men in my church influence two of my friends into opting for a gay lifestyle? I wouldn't know what to do with the answer if I had it. It wouldn't change anything and they wouldn't agree with my thinking about alternatives. I'm guessing they aren't crazy about the Bible's teaching about homosexuality. It's sadly exclusive. They might say Jesus didn't speak against homosexuality, but I'd counter he didn't say anything about incest either. Knowing the answer to what may have happened 40 years ago wouldn't change anything now. That's how durable these changes appear to be.

But back then, if those men did influence young men, it's a crying shame.

I guess my concern is about the role of gays in the church. I'm confident gays and straights need equal access to God's grace and mercy in the sanctuary. However, the Bible speaks clearly about those who would subvert young people into any lifestyle contrary to what is written. Teaching youngsters to become insensitive to immorality, poverty, hatred, pride, or promiscuity, etc. is dangerous business.

This may be one of the biggest issues facing the modern church. I vote for grace and mercy in the context of carefulness.

Big Place, Small People

Last week (early December, 2010) the estimated number of stars in the universe was increased three-fold to 300,000,000,000,000,000,000 (give or take a couple). I'm smiling. I'm guessing that's how I'd say, "Don't really know." I'm guessing we're the only species offering doctorates on such things.

Whatever the case, we're part of a bigger picture. That's actually a scientific trend--wherever one stands, things get incomprehensibly bigger and bigger and smaller and smaller. Infinity lies without and within. So, whatever one believes, there is a greater picture and more details. Perhaps this is a fundamental glimpse of the divine--greater and finer than us. Mysteries great and small.

Divinity. We're cocooned in it.

I have a science experiment. Materials: a common nail and a coke bottle. Is it possible, in a single toss, to throw a nail across a yard and have it drop down the neck of a Coca Cola bottle? Scientifically, yes; it's undeniably possible; there's nothing physically blocking the nail from the bottle. Scientifically, no, it's impossible; the variables that would allow the nail to share the same space as the bottle cannot be controlled to meet such an expectation. A successful attempt would be unexplainable. 

So, if I throw the nail into the bottle, what's up?

Isn't it odd how something seems impossible until it happens, then it is undeniable to the witnesses and unexplainable to others. Sounds like religion.

If deity is what is beyond our understanding, candidates for divinity are infinite. Denying God is a waste of time. Intellectually, one system is as "god" as another if it explains things. Thus, a deity is where we go with mysteries and imponderables. Atheists profess no hope or expectation in "god," but I'm guessing they have hope and expectations in something else. We run into things that are unexplainable, but undeniable. In the end, the best we can do is speculate on what we think we know, test the waters, and leave the rest to hopes and expectations.

What do people crave? White Castles (www.whitecastle.com) AND answers, reliability, wisdom, power, joy, truth, transcendence, and more. We want someone to say, "I can explain mysteries." In my scorebook, science qualifies as a religion as much as anything else. Those who turn to science love it's willingness to take on any mystery, impersonally, amorally, and meet needs.

Religion is hope and we frame our religion with expectations. Hope and expectations are our faith statements. These days I grapple with high hopes and low expectations. My hopes are what I believe, my expectations are what I have experienced. This says more about me than I understand. This philosophy is so transparently safe and convenient. Finding older adults with this philosophy is easy. Call it, "learned helplessness" or "idealism meets reality."  I'm optimistic, but experience has taught me I'm not in control of outcomes and outcomes can be painful. When I was younger I had high hopes and high expectations. Many young people are this way.

Things haven't turned out like I expected. Up to a point I thought X would happen because I was doing Y. Something unexplainable and undeniable happened. Perhaps the nail went in the bottle or I assumed it would and it didn't. I don't know. Some people have things happen and then have no hope and no expectations. I understand why this happens--sort of a "deeds become creeds" thing. We all examine our experiences with providence and pain, then manufacture a coherent, logical life story. Some abandon hopes or expectations over unexplainable, yet undeniable circumstances. "Nothing works," they say. 

When things appear to go wrong, I blame myself for lacking the wisdom or will-power to make good decisions or make correct sense of circumstances. I know life has choices and actions have consequences. When someone says their way skips all that, I smile. Thus, I expect there must be some connection between what's happening today and what I did yesterday. Life is full of infinitely small and large choices and actions. How they all work together is a mystery to me. I hope and expect they all eventually work together for good. 

There is an unexplainable rhythm and harmony in the universe that is undeniable. My friends speak in proofs, hypotheses, sermons, commandments, precepts, and theories, but the topic is inevitably the greater without or the more within. My colleagues are all about extending boundaries, but there is always "greater and more." We speak of the unexplainable. What we do not fully know but perceive to be so.  

What's the point?

Well, that's the ultimate question. We are everything from atheist to fundamentalist and in every case our hopes and expectations try to cipher the point of existence. We find our faith in our hopes and mysteries. We hope in what we believe. Our hope is as big as our belief. Christians believe the "greater and more" wants to get personal and be the object of our hopes and expectation. Until Christians get more details and the bigger picture we lean into the Bible and affirm the Apostle's Creed.  

The Psalmist says, God names all the stars and holds the universe in the span of his hand. I like that. My hope is that this is so and my expectation is that I will someday get to see more of the universe than I do now. What do your hopes and expectations have to offer? Reality is what it is regardless, so hope big. If God is for us, who can stand against us? If God isn't, I still have no regrets.  Perfect hope wishes hope for all.

This note borders on being silly because I think I know something. I'm also pretty sure there are 299,999,999,999,999,998 stars in the universe. They counted two stars twice.