It’s meant to bring you closer to Him and make you grow in knowledge and love of Him. What should my prayer look like?įirst and foremost, prayer is about your personal relationship with God. But even if God chooses not to directly intervene to help restore electricity to an island in the Caribbean, or raise a dead man back to life, that doesn’t mean He isn’t acting, and it certainly doesn’t mean my prayers were for naught.īut that also doesn’t mean that prayer is enough. In fact, we may never know this side of heaven. No, we may not know how God intends to answer an individual prayer. It can seem trite, and there are people who are tempted to question - and even mock - the merits of prayer.īut Christians know better. When a tragedy happens, like when a hurricane wipes out most of Puerto Rico, or when a 26-year-old man loses his life, people like me offer “thoughts and prayers” to those suffering and mourning. They see prayer as a waste of time and that praying about something is just taking away time from more important things - like finding a real solution to whatever problem you’re praying about. And that’s for our own good.īut there are others who consider all prayers unanswered. The great Garth Brooks has a song about unanswered prayers, which provides great imagery into the insight that whenever we think God is only responding to our prayers with silence, sometimes it’s just a big loud - yet loving - no. Although at our worst, we tend to focus on the more selfish prayers, or the lazy prayers, or perhaps worst of all, we pray expecting no response. The truth is prayer ought to encompass all of those things. And, believe it or not, I was blessed with that gift, which in some ways prevails to this day, thanks be to God. At Confirmation, I prayed for the gift of piety, which I understood to be the ability to enjoy praying and going to Mass, which was a struggle for me at the time. I’d pray for miracles (like growing to be as tall as Michael Jordan, when my dad is as tall as Earl Boykins), or normal-enough things that might require divine intervention (like acing a test I didn’t study for).įinally, around the time I was confirmed, I learned that I should pray for spiritual things, like the gifts of the Holy Spirit. Later, I learned I should also pray for things I want, like that girl in the sixth grade to notice my nerdy sixth-grade self (she did!) or pray to avoid what I don’t want to happen (like a car accident). So, from day one, I knew it was important to pray for others. Although I tried that, too, once or twice. I could pray for anybody, except God and the devil. My dad would tuck me into bed at night and ask me who I wanted to pray for, and I would name all the people I could think of. What is prayer, anyway?Įver since I was a kid, I remember saying my prayers. My prayers for John and his family - and their result - have made me realize that I may have been underestimating the power of prayer. A get-out-of-hell-free card, if you will. I admit that sometimes I treat my prayers as an obligatory thing to do so that I can go to heaven when I die. My prayers actually worked, and I wasn’t expecting that.īut that’s the point of prayer, right? We pray to make things better, easier somehow in the face of tragedy or hard times. But I was surprised that the prayers seemed to have already had an effect. I wasn’t surprised that Joe was grateful for my prayers - that seemed fairly predictable. And it’s what’s been getting us through this difficult time.” “Yours and everybody’s - we definitely felt them. Then Joe said something I didn’t expect him to say: “We felt the prayers,” he said. I went to his funeral, and told his brother Joe that I was sorry for his loss and that I had been praying for John and the family and that I’d continue to do that. I did the only thing I could do: I prayed. It’s the kind of unthinkable tragedy that leaves you speechless and, well, actionless. I received a text a while back with some terrible news: an acquaintance of mine had died in his sleep at the age of 26.
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