PRAYER- Art Somers, Certified Lay Servant Very simply: I want to talk about prayer. Prayer is the act of conversing with our God. More importantly, the unseen God, who has no form or specific residence to claim. We are able to communicate from any place, at any time, about whatever we decide is important, at the moment. I was baptized at the tender age of 3 days. My Grandmother Lottie had told me repeatedly that I was very cute, something I have not been accused of since. While my prayer life did not begin then, my earliest prayer, in my memory, is the 1700 AD prayer first published in the New England Primer, which goes like this: Now I lay me down to sleep I pray the Lord my soul to keep. If I should die before I wake I pray the Lord my soul to take Which, if one thinks about it is a pretty depressing proposition. Any child might question am I going to die in my sleep tonight? However, I did not question this at that time. I just knew it was a ritual I was supposed to go through, so I could go to sleep. Which brings us to the reason our childhood evening bed time request concerns praying, asking God to care for us in death, especially concerning something, even to this day, we seem to know very little about. As Pastor Kathryn, a couple weeks ago, brought up, we should always have faith. The prayer acknowledges first that there is a God and, gruesome as it is, will take care of us both in waking as well as in sleep. Some wags have opined that in the sleep state our souls are closer, with a more direct communication line, to God. I don t know. If we could put ourselves in a test tube and observe them under laboratory control conditions, we would have a better idea what and who we are. But, we can t do that, so what we do know about our soul has to be taken on faith. It s only as we get older that the true meaning that we are cared for becomes critical in the
comprehension that as our parents protect us, so God also cares for us, both in the material as well as the spiritual. I have long since outgrown that old childhood prayer. I use the following prayer of protection multiple times daily: The Light of God surrounds me. The Love of God enfolds me. The Power of God protects me. The Presence of God watches over me Wherever I am, God is. Many wives use this prayer for their husbands, particularly if the husband works as a fireman, law enforcement officer or miner or on construction. Not so oddly, all wives want their husbands to return to hearth, home and family well and uninjured. Mothers have long prayed for their children whether off to school or summer camp. There are many additional specific prayers. One that pastor Kathryn told me a nun friend of her passed on, to locate lost articles, a prayer to Saint Anthony (the finder of lost things): Tony, Tony, look around. Something s lost and must be found These prayers, and more, are tested many, many times as we proceed in our daily lives. Sometimes the finding lost items works and sometimes not, mostly, for me NOT. But I still pray it. Possibly, we grow to think if we need something, we ask God for it. Health, wealth and happiness. These we learn through church how-to-pray books that we must be specific. Example: One must not ask for transportation in a new vehicle, for God might get confused and award one with a horse. Personally, I doubt God could get confused about what one wants. From my experience God knows what we want before we want it. Also, God understands what we NEED better than we do. I have been praying, when I grow up, for a 1974 Corvette, with a deep maroon finish that looks 6 inches deep. A cream naugahyde interior with
rugs to match. The engine compartment painted the same color as the cabin interior. Chrome on the 350 engine where possible. Fuel injected with balanced crankshaft accompanied by oversized pistons. A 5-speed transmission coupled to the engine with a heavy duty clutch. I could list more, but you get the idea about praying specifically. So far, no 1974 Corvette. Apparently I have: 1) not grown up; 2) do not need a 1974 Corvette. How does God do that? Christ tells us in the Gospels we will learn what we need to know as it becomes necessary. We all have inquiring minds, thusly, we want to know why, how and where and who does what. What do we have to do to earn God s favor, to answer all of our prayers? First, Christ states one musk ask. In my study, all prayers are heard by God. None are rejected as improperly couched or shunned because of poor sentence structure. I m convinced all prayers are answered, just quite possibly not in the way or time frame we have constructed in our minds. Proof of prayer being heard by God takes a lifetime of hard work and study. I have only to offer my own journey as testimony that prayer indeed does work. Each of us has to try and try again before we become thoroughly convinced our prayer life is working. The main thing is to get over the idea that the only time to pray is when we are in mortal danger or when our power bill must be paid. Let us not forget the plea all of us have, to be loved. Faith answers the above questions and experiences. Soooo, there you have it. Keep the faith Baby. Prayer works, just be confident that God notices us and all will work out just fine. Not much solace for my family when our house caught on fire making it uninhabitable. John Wesley was a fan of sacrifice; indeed, when one s living abode burns, we come up close and personal with sacrifice. From personal experience, when bad things happen to me, it s not because of my prayer life. It could be that I m a poor listener. This too improves over time. There is a knowing that results from constant effort in understanding our invisible God. This so-called knowing is
produced by persistent attempts in communing with God. Through all the frustrations, vicissitudes, misunderstandings we have with God, there emerges a quiet confidence that we are being heard. Vigilance is the key factor. Even in Christ s prayer life, the last night in the Garden, where his disciples could not stay awake, he fought, presumably alone, on the eve of his death. First of all, he was not alone. He knew full well his tour/mission was coming to an earthly end. I m convinced we will be afforded that same knowing courtesy when our end dips in close to enfold us. venture to. The childhood prayer our soul to keep will be honored no doubt, no matter how old we Oh, by the way, as an aside, we do get out of this life alive. We cast off our current mansion, to go live with God in a more advanced existence than we know here on this earthly plane. I think we came here to learn, with real life emotion and consequences, what will make us a better part of God s existence. The mystery will be removed, our prayers realized, in one fell swoop. Each and every one of us has to answer the question, why we are here. I guarantee it is not because of some random act of nature. How do I know this? Prayer. My questions concerning why I am here have been answered to my satisfaction as to why I chose to manifest in this life. Why I chose to make all the decisions I ve made, both good and bad. I don t fear death, but my personal prayer is to postpone death until I learn what I came here to learn. I have discovered I am a slow learner, so that one of my prayers is that, please, Dear Lord, give me the time to learn what I had on my grocery list of items of things I said I wanted to learn. I have learned not to drive 90 miles an hour down a dead-end road. I have learned not to tempt doing crazy daring things that easily could terminate my life. Driving 18-wheelers without adequate sleep is just one lesson. I learned this one by narrowly averting a devastating crash not once, but twice. Something about slow learning means the lesson will be repeated until learned. Showing God I can do it on my own was and is a common error. I ve been saved from physical death many times, so many that the reality of lasting long enough gives me time to learn
yet another lesson. I used to pray, God why did you do that? Changing to: Oh, now I see why you did that, or allowed that. I believe the process is something like changing the old man into the new man. I take this scripture to mean we spend our earthly life to change our material existence into a spiritual awareness. A spiritual awareness that comes from the heartache of loneliness that morphs into I now know God, through His angels, always has and always will love me. These are lessons I want to share with you. Maybe you have witnessed the same or similar disappointments. I have looked across the chasm in my life to see others breezing through life with no apparent difficulty. Others, obviously, are contending with the same pitfalls as we are, truth be told. They just don t show the stress we sometimes manifest. Does that mean their prayer life is better? Possibly yes, more likely no. Most importantly, do not allow others to define us. That work in progress sliding scale is for God and us to determine. No one else. Prayer is the only way I know to keep a running daily tally. Prayer is something that is what we can do to aid us in the constant give and take between us and God. As early as 300 AD the First Monk Saint Anthony of Egypt (251-356) established a monastic life even as we know it today. He presented to us in his hermitism that God is in every living organism, even in organic material. Very quickly and briefly, if then that is valid, what is to prevent us from stating God is also in us? I say that answers a lot of questions for us. One such question is: How does God know when and what we pray for? The Supreme Force is in us and we are in Him, giving credence to Christ s statement Abba the Father is in me as I am in the Father. We don t doubt God exists anymore; we don t doubt God loves us anymore. We may be confused as to why bad things are allowed to happen to good people. The fact is, a main gift comes with us as we enter the earth s plane. That gift is free will. We are allowed to do as we want. Yes, it s that simple. Where the selection is made, is through prayer. The first truth of our first prayer is God is intensely concerned with our souls. Whether we spend all day in the
orchard, or hire on just before quitting time, if we get the lesson we will make our souls golden in wisdom, knowledge and splendor. Material position, gain, has a great lesson in earthly judgment. Our neighbors can see if we are doing well or poorly. The truth is, God s judgment is the criteria we should follow and we know God s judgment through the function of prayer. As we are in constant contact, minute by minute, through prayer, it is the perpetual motion we are talking with God in a give and take, truly virtual conversation with the Supreme Being. If you don t feel the knowing with God s constant care and concern for each one of us, I have a suggestion. Pray about it. The knowing will follow.