God is Great, God is Good or....
What’s up with all this praying stuff???
Dear
Squirrely Girl,
I notice
that you say you are praying for people all the time on Facebook and you
request prayer sometimes too and I was just wondering, do you really pray that
much? I mean if you stop and pray for every person you say you do on Facebook
you would just be praying all the time. How do you have time to make a living
and write all the crazy stuff you write if you are praying all the time? Do you
think people just say they are praying for people to be nice? It all sounds a
little crazy to me because I am not really a church goer but I think prayer is
good I just don’t know if people pray as much as they say they do.
Signed, Amen
Dear Amen, (Well...AMEN!):
That is an excellent question and I am going to do my best
to answer it as honestly as I know how.
Do I really, actually, literally bow down on my knees and
say a prayer for every person when I say, “praying for you” on Facebook? No, I
do not. But I will tell you what I do. At that moment when I finish typing “praying
for you”, I stop whatever I am doing and I pray in my heart and in my soul. I
stop, I pause, I close everything else out and talk to God.
I may be very wrong (it has been said I have been numerous
times) but I think praying is how we communicate with God. I
think a ‘personal relationship’ with God means I can talk to him any time I
want or any time I need. Just like my mama and my daddy and my sisters and
brothers and my best friends…I need to be able to call up and gripe, complain,
cry, laugh, be sad, be joyful, tell them I love them and how much I appreciate them. Sometimes I need to share my deepest feelings with someone
I know loves me, unconditionally. And I will be completely honest with you,
even your parents, family and friends are human and they might not always be
available…you know who is? God.
If I had a friend who was very sick and my daddy was the most
excellent physician in the world, I would call him faster than you can say Jack
Rabbit to take care of them. To me, God is the Great Physician and He is
available at all times..I don’t even have to make an appointment, all I have to
do is stop long enough to take my ADD brain off myself and focus on the needs
of someone else. The bible says all we have to do
is ask and it will be given to us. Now does that mean every single prayer is
answered to my satisfaction? Absolutely not, because I don’t always know what
is best for me or another person, but I trust that God does. It is called faith. So I pray for God’s will
to be done. It is not as mystical as it sounds. I once asked Mama Bess and
Daddy Frank for a monkey, a pet monkey to call my own. I whined and I cried and
I pleaded for a pet monkey or “Mighty Joe Young” because me and my sister had
watched that movie like 54 times and we were both convinced we needed one. Thank goodness, our parents knew Mighty Joe Young was not a ‘monkey’ but a baby
gorilla that would grow up to be bigger than our entire house. Over the years I have learned the difference between praying for what I want and what I need.
You said you are not much of a ‘church goer’ so I have some
really excellent news for you. You don’t have to go to church to pray. How ‘bout
that? AND..you don’t have to get dressed up or put on make-up or even move a
muscle physically. What you do have to do is a little harder though. You have
to be still and be present in the moment. You can’t text or FB and talk to God
at the same time. He pretty much needs your full attention as any good parent
or teacher would.
Here is an example of a prayer I had one morning when there
was no one around and no one else needed to hear it but God, but I still shared
it with some folks who were going through some of the same things:
Dear Lord, today I feel weak. My intentions are good but I
don’t think I have the strength to do what You would have me to do. Today, I
feel like the enemy is attacking me from every side and I realize I cannot do
it alone. Father, you are the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end.
You said you knew me before the foundation of this world, so you already know
about my problems and my worries and I think maybe You are just waiting for me
to look up at You instead of down on me. I am putting my trust and faith in you
today. I am leaving the doubts and fears at the foot of the cross where victory
was won. And for just today I am going to forget how small I feel and remember
how big You are! Thank you for listening once again today…Talk to ya later. Amen
To try to answer your question more clearly…I don’t think
prayer request and prayer chains are required for God to hear our prayers at
all. I think He said “Where two or more are gathered” to keep us connected to each other because He knew we should never face anything alone. Let’s get real... God knows He
would hear a drug addict or alcoholic cry out a lonely prayer in a gutter
without one single other human being around, but He also knows if that precious
person’s family and friends were also praying for them they would have a safe
place to come home to and heal. He knew we need each other. A prayer request, a
prayer chain a National Day of Prayer, whatever we call it, we need it! God doesn’t need to hear a number of prayers to answer one. He just needs a
number of people to believe one prayer can be answered.
Hope this answered your question and you are right…. if I
had to go to church or be in a formal setting to pray, I would NEVER get a
single thing done. And who would rule over the Ninja Squirrels to defeat the Idgets??? I am so happy that no matter where I am or what I am doing,
I can talk to God. So go ahead and have
a little talk with Jesus! It does a body good!
Signed,
Squirrely Girl
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