"I'm Thinking of You"

I Said to God, "I'm Thinking of You"
Nevertheless, the rain continued.

Christopher Howell

A simple prayer, please God don't let it rain. A simple prayer not answered, the drizzle slowly covered the tips of the grass, the concrete parking lots, the local tennis courts. A simple prayer God didn't seem to hear. Then, weeks of broken relationship.

"Struggles with God," the name given to the people of God, seems very accurate most of the time. Though I know the Old Testament story well enough to understand the fatal flaw of the Israelites, which is that they let go. Nothing is ever easy in the God-to-human connection, but I know that it's too important to let fall aside because one prayer goes completely unnoticed.

Yet, when these things happen, it does feel like a punch to the gut.

If there is one part of practical theology that I could use a primer on, it's prayer. First of all, it's awkward and I'm not very good at it. What I mean is, I feel like I repeat the same things all the time. Things like "bless my family" or "be with us today." Requests that aren't very concrete, not very visible.

Then the real problem comes when I do pray about concrete things. Do I hold God accountable? If I pray for my wife to find a new job that allows her to stay home with the kids, what if that doesn't happen? Or simpler, what if my son wakes up in the middle of the night wailing and I pray that he could just go back to sleep, but instead I spend the next 3 hours cradling and consoling so that he can fall asleep just before I get going to work? Or what if four senior tennis players, myself, and all the rest of the team's season rests on whether it rains or not on an October Saturday morning, and it painfully drips and mists and all the work, effort, hours turn into tears as the end comes unfairly?

What good is prayer if I can't get God to do what I want?

The poem at the top of the page jolted me into this post, and posting again in general. It ends with these lines (not exactly an answer...)

I said, "Dear God, if you remember
me, remember us."

The italics there are mine. If you remember. At times, prayer seems like a big "if." And that's the problem. If it's just an "if," my very practical side says, "I can control it better than God's 'if'." Then, I go about controlling the problem, taking care of things instead of leaving it in God's hands.

I suppose the question I should be asking though, what is the purpose of prayer? And what is the nature of our God? As I begin to think through these questions, one thing becomes entirely clear. My focus is always the wrong place. My focus is always on me and what makes things easier for me, it is never on God.

If I could focus on God, maybe I'd remember things like the way He saved my uncle's life. Or the time when my grandpa had emergency surgery and God protected him. Or the way that little prayers are answered throughout the day. Or the fact that God always answers the broad and general prayer that I spew out of ritual as much as anything: "Be with us."

Is prayer a practice of answering me by giving me what I want? Sometimes. But if it were always that way, I would own the power in the relationship. I can't own the power to simply boss God around, and that reality means that God will not answer every prayer the way I want. That's a tough reality.

Yet, the practice of prayer is much more about presence. Presence and relationship. Remembering that God is with me. Remembering that I can trust God, because of all that He has already done for me. Perhaps He will remember me. But at least he will stay with me.

"And we wrestle in the mud and in the blood...
Break my jaw, I don't care
Just stay with me, stay..."
- Blindside, Fell in Love with the Game

There may be pain of "unanswered" prayer. But we should talk about it, because You are right here waiting to do that.