Prayer

Prayers and cancer seem to go hand in hand.  Whenever you hear of someone with cancer it’s common to say; “I’ll be praying for you.”  On the flip side, if you have cancer you’ll hear from dozens of people, even strangers, who say the same thing.  Unfortunately, there isn’t a prayer meter to check whether people are actually praying for you;  so you’ll need to take them at face value.  Still, the fact they say it always makes you feel better, so I personally know it works.   The challenge for prayer is it’s different from a miracle, but often people get them confused.   Some people believe that if they pray hard enough a miracle will occur; even if they never pray for anything.  Then they are angry and disappointed at God when the miracle doesn’t happen.  Remember God had caller ID long before Verizon, so if you call more regularly rather than just emergencies, She’ll probably pick up.  Miracles, unlike prayer, are actions that defy physics and rarely occur.   You can’t count on miracles because they’re not part of our natural world, even though they sometimes happen.  Prayer, on the other can be counted on since it’s just a chat with God; but remember it’s not a contract.  Just because you ask God for something, it doesn’t mean its going to happen.  For instance, when I was in 8th grade one night I drank 4 Schlitz’ tall boys and smoked 2 Marlboro’s at Leerke’s farm and got horribly sick, so I prayed to God; “please God make the bed stop spinning and I promise I’ll never drink or smoke again.”  God knew I was lying since the answer to my prayers was passing out and vomiting on myself.   That’s not the outcome I was envisioning.  Be careful what you ask for; especially when you are bargaining with The Almighty who controls the universe.  The purpose of prayer is to make people feel better; either because you prayed for someone else or someone prayed for you.  Also prayer motivates you by charging your batteries with additional energy you didn’t realize you had.  Sure, scientists have wasted all kinds of time and effort trying to debunk the power of prayer, but people still find strength through praying.  Even though you can’t measure it, Prayer raises your hope and fortifies your will power to take on the tough chores ahead of you.  Finally, when groups of people all together pray for a common good sometimes unexpected results happen.  The picture in this post was taken before my sons’ high school football game.  Statistically speaking, there was no way on Earth they were going to beat this team.  Not only did they win, but they won by a huge margin.  Was it a miracle? Was it prayer? Coaching motivation?  Collective positivity?  I’m not sure, but when the odds are against you it never hurts to at least ask our lonely God for extra help.  At a minimum, She’ll be happy you called.