TO PRAY OR NOT

A doubting Thomas once asked, “If you believe in God and His plan, why pray? The Serenity Prayer makes sense but where does that leave the other types of prayers in the face of God’s own plans? If God answers some prayers, is He not effectively influencing the person who prays to become more of a believer? If God does not answer others, does He not create doubt in view of the fact that He has got his finger on a scale and influencing outcomes in who believes and how they believe?”

My initial response is summarized below.

God answers every prayer, sometimes the answer is just NO! Sometimes the answer is “be patient”, and sometimes there is an amount of change you need to go through before you can even recognize the answer.

There is an analogy of an adult restraining himself while playfully wrestling with a child which is the perfect mirror to Jacob wrestling with an angel of God. Jacob fought the angel, but could not overpower the angel, and even when the angel told Jacob to stop, Jacob persisted. The angel then used a move beyond Jacob's power: the separation of his hip. At most times, I feel it is God's intention to bring us to an understanding by not overwhelming us, but then again, scripture easily demonstrates the opposite - A stubborn people require a more forceful hand. God has been wrestling with humanity since Adam, but the 40 years the Israelites spent in the wilderness are a great example of how we had to learn the hard way that we cannot get by with religious laws and the Ten Commandments. We need grace, and the law was but our schoolmaster.

Yes, it is a lot easier to believe in God when things turn out well for you in life and belief in God is harder for people who have suffered terrible losses in spite of working hard and doing everything right, but remember that even Jesus the Christ asked God “my father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me; yet not what I want but what you want.”

It is therefore worth concluding that we at the mercy of God’s own plans in relation to our requests. Prayer is talking to God and meditation is God talking to you. Assuming you set praying as a goal, it has been proven that you are likely to achieve something you have repeated in your mind as a goal. Reality has it that, sometimes the goal is not realistic hence does not happen. Replace prayer with goal setting and it has a similar if not same impact. PRAY!

[Mandela Sepenu]