I've been thinking about prayer. I'm not very good at it simply because I don't understand it. I recall growing up being told God always answers prayers and if I had the faith of a mustard seed God would move mountains. Being a kid who still believed anything adults told me, I believed completely. So I prayed for God to move Walkers Mountain. Not far, just a little. It didn't move. At all. Not one little bit.
When I asked about it I was told that although God COULD do it, he sometimes said NO. Oh, NOW you tell me. God says no a lot.
I was told prayer was simply talking to God like you would another person. That left me two problems, I was terribly shy and didn't talk to other people to begin with, and God never talked back. I was also afraid of praying for the wrong thing. What if I prayed for money to pay bills, so God "offed" my parents so I would get an inheritance? There was the money to pay bills, but shit, I killed my parents!
I have been told that yes, you can change the mind of God with prayer and in the same paragraph told God never changes. Then I have been told that "his will be done", but I should pray anyway. Well, if he's gonna do what he's gonna do, what's the freaking point?
Prayer has made absolutely no sense to me over the years. What kind of God would help me, who has made some bad financial decisions (mostly out of stupidity), pay my bills, but let little kids starve? What kind of God would heal me from a disease and ignore the person in the hospital bed beside me? A God who plays favorites? But wait.....you said he plays no favorites (Acts 10:34). So I just don't get prayer.
I started to think that prayer was what you did when you really didn't want to do anything. "I'm sorry, I don't want to sit with you while you are ill, but I'll pray for you." It was simply an excuse.
Then I read something that made a lot of sense:
"Prayer is valuable not because it alters the circumstances and conditions of your life, but because it alters you" ~ James Freeman, Unity Magazine, March 2001
So prayer does not change the mind of God, it changes ME. Hmmmmm.
What if we have already been given everything we need? It was given to us when we were created. Thus, the purpose of prayer, is not to ask for something you do not have, but to recognize that you have the answer inside. That makes sense to me.
Shit happens. That's just the way it is. Its part of life. If there is a Divine Force, I don't believe for one second that he/she (if personified) sits around a table and decides who gets sick, and who gets healed, and who doesn't. I just don't buy as asshole of a god like that.
If anything, I believe, that this Divine Force, is part of what is within us. It is the stardust, the spirit, that creates both earth and sky, animals and people. It is what ties us together. We have been given what we need to survive. Science is not the enemy of God, but the epitome the gift of curiosity. It is what humans can do if they are allowed to think without the box of religion covering the light.
We have developed the knowledge as to how to avoid illness and prolong life. We know good and well that smoking, obesity, lack of exercise, and poor eating habits bring on illness much earlier than it needs to. We know that stress and the constant release of cortisole and adrenaline can wreak havoc on our bodies, yet we insist on living large, requiring us to work unhealthy hours, never have time for our families, and thereby cause more stress. Then we get sick.
Next, we get angry when we get ill and ask God to take it away. We want a deity to take away the pain, to heal, all for something we caused. We know that if we lose weight, eat better, improve our habits and exercise we can heal ourselves and maybe even reverse the negative impact WE HAVE CREATED, yet we sit around and wonder why God doesn't make everything better.
The answer to prayer is within. It has already been answered. The answer to prayer is YOU.
I'm not saying that we can fix everything. Shit happens that is beyond our control. But how we react to it, is not beyond our control. People are gonna die. People are gonna get sick. That is the nature of life. Our bodies IN THIS FORM, is not eternal. But we can determine if we are going to waste our time here in life wondering if some magic deity is going to be a genie in a bottle, OR we can be the answer to prayer for others and ourselves. We can go see them when they are sick and scared. We can offer to go to doctors appointments with them. We can offer to share the $5 we have to get an icecream. We can get off our defeated asses and exercise. We can learn about the disease we have and what we can do to improve things. We can use it to find a way to connect with others and to help them.
And when we pray, pray for wisdom to open our minds to the gifts we have been given. Pray that you can see the power of knowledge and of learning within you to find a solution. Pray that you can tap into the survival instinct that has brought us so far that gives you the will to fight and survive.
Then you will see that your prayers were answered long ago and the answer was NOT no.
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