Saturday, October 6, 2012

Praying Our Lives


It comes with the job.  Preachers are often called upon to pray on command: a lunch gathering here, a sick parishioner there, church on Sunday goes without saying.

We hope we’re speaking for all the gathered when we open our mouths.

We hope that our belief that God listens is true.

We hope that our prayers matter.

And it does.

Separate from how prayers enter the consciousness of God, a thing very presumptuous to claim, there is the comfort our prayers bring to the hurting, the in-gathering our prayers reflect to and of the faithful, the settling into quiet they presage, the sending of blessing and well-wishing into the cosmos.

Of late, I have begun to see prayer more expansively, literally coming to understand our lives and every heartbeat of them as their own form of prayer, an offering, a supplication, if you will, to The Highest Power, whom I call God.

Whether we mean to or not; whether we’re particularly intentional about it or not, the lives we live are an offering – to God and to the world.

Seeing my own life this way changes how I live it.  It makes me more mindful, more thoughtful, more caring.  May it always be so, for there is much to mind, think on and care about.

May the life I live this day be acceptable and pleasing to You, O God.

2 comments:

  1. I think praying is always an open channel that god moniters 24/7.....i think god prays back to us and each of us spend a life time learning how that prayer from god comes to us...ann

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  2. So glad to get this , I haven't got one in ages.
    I am going to a Baptist Church almost next door to where I live .
    I read my Bible almost everyday and pray very often through the day .
    I am soo Blessed. I have had a few medical issues but nothing I can't deal with .The recent one has come close . I had surgery on 9-13-16 on my right eye for a Macular Hole . It has nothing to do with the Macular Disease . Doc says it is caused by " too many birthdays. " It is very frustrating as I still can not see out of that eye and can not drive .
    R u still at the same Church ? My Pastor is very good , almost as good as you! Mickie

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