Rector's Blog: What To Do With Prayer

Throughout Easter, my blogs and our podcast, Interrupting Grace, are exploring The Way of Love – a Jesus centered rule of life composed of a set of practices that help to define the Episcopal approach to faith. The 7 practices meant for daily use are Turn, Learn, Pray, Worship, Bless, Go, Rest. This week we are focusing on Pray. I have written to you about prayer before, and I always feel like I’m trying to convince you something about why prayer matters, or why you should do it, or how Episcopalians pray. It always feels forced to me. So today, instead of talking to you about prayer, I decided just to pray to God and let you see it. What follows is my prayer.

God, I don’t always know how to talk to you. I don’t know how to pray, and I certainly don’t know how to talk to people about prayer. Of all the things that Christians do – or are supposed to do – this is the thing I feel the last capable of helping people with. I’ve talked to you a lot over the last 40 years. Sometimes I will just stream-of-consciousness talk out loud to you. I’ve gone through periods where I practiced meditation, and I’ve somehow been ok at making a daily practice of thanking you for the food I’m about to eat. You already know this, God, but I’m sort of crushing it at praying with my children before bedtime. They’ve got a couple prayers memorized, so I feel a little proud and braggy about that. Maybe they’ll be better at talking to you than I am.

I’ve already gotten off track. I wanted to really pray to you, and now I’m talking about my kids.

God, I want to understand my relationship with you better. I want to know more clearly what you’d have me do right here and right now. And, truth be told, I wouldn’t mind a little feedback from you about how I’m doing: I’m tired of guessing. Am I supposed to be so in tune with you after years of being religious that I just know when I’m getting it right, and when I’m missing the mark? Sure, that happens sometimes, but, how about something a little more obvious than my conscience or intuition? These things have limitations. You’re apparently infinite.

This prayer seems anxious, I know. I’m anxious right now, God. It seems like nothing is settled. It seems like nothing is certain. And I know you never promised certainty in this life, I know that a life of faith does not mean a life of ease. I know that for Abraham, faith felt like testing, for Jacob faith was wrestling, and Mary’s faith was like a sword that pierced her own heart. I’m not asking you to make things easy on me – at least I don’t think I am. I genuinely believe that you’ve got this – that you’ve got us all. In some ways I’ve never felt more like I’m living in your time and not my own. And at the same time, I’m worried for my country. I’m worried for how divided we are, and how unwilling we seem to be to see the truth right in front of us. Our belief that facts are only facts if they coincide with our existing ideologies scares me. Lord, we are literally responding to a worldwide pandemic as if it’s a partisan issue. I am not always a fan of the freewill you seem to have given us. We don’t seem to have the power within ourselves to help ourselves. I believe that you have us. I believe we belong to you. But I don’t know what we’re going to look like on the other side of this thing. We’ll still belong to you, but who will we be?

God, I think a lot about when you were healing people in Galilee and you told one of the people who asked you for help that anything is possible for one who believes. You remember his response: He said, “Lord I believe, help me in my unbelief.” Lord, I believe that my prayers matter. Help me in my unbelief. You told me to pray. Again and again, you have told me to pray. In Jesus Christ, you told me repeatedly, and you even taught me the words to pray. You remind me again and again to say “thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” And I believe it’s happening. I believe your kingdom is coming, and I believe your will is going to be done, and also, I have a whole lot of unbelief around that. Help me in my unbelief.

All excuses aside, please forgive me. I’m sorry I don’t give you enough time. I’m sorry I don’t talk to you enough. I’m a professional Christian, and here I am saying how I don’t know what to do with prayer. As I pray to you, I’ve got prayer beads wrapped around my wrist. I will wear them for days without actually using them. And I know it’s not enough for me just to wear them, God. I know I’ve got to take them in my hands and touch the beads and pray the prayer: “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.” I am asking you for mercy, not because I don’t always get it right, but because sometimes I don’t even try to get it right. In the words of my favorite singer, “I wanna do right but not right now".

I think that’s all I’ve got for you today, God. I will try to come back tomorrow and talk with you some more. I actually feel better when we talk. Speaking of which: Thank you. For all my feeble fear and fretting, when I’m being honest and brave, I must admit I see you all over the place. I am so filled with Love right now. My current tenderness is not all fear – a lot of it is that I’m so overwhelmed by your presence, by the kindness and tenderness of the people around me; by the people who would sacrifice their time and money and comfort, and even their livelihood, for the safety and health of others; by the resilience and soft hearts of my children, by the steadfastness of my wife, by the ridiculous talent, ingenuity, and graciousness of my co-workers. I don’t always know what you’re doing, but I know you’re working for good – for reconciliation, redemption, and recovery. I catch glimpses of it every day, and it reminds me that I was made for this, made for you, made for the relationships you’ve given me. So, thank you for that. Thank you for lifting me up out of the mire of my own shortsightedness and thank you for giving me eyes to see your kingdom in all its tender fierce glory.

Every day, Lord, with your help, I am learning how to love your world, and love my life, just as it is, and not as I’d like it to be. Keep me in your heart. Keep me faithful.

In Jesus' name, Amen.