Struggles With Prayer

I've been thinking a lot about prayer lately, probably because my sister, who does not attend church and is not a Christian, asks me questions sometimes about prayer, like, "Why do people say that they will pray for you over the smallest and simplest things?"  "Do you believe in prayer?  Does it really work?"

I have also been thinking about it lately for some reason in connection to a man in our congregation who was diagnosed with cancer a few months ago.  This man is kind of, shall we say, a "challenging" personality, but I think he has a kind heart.  He has had some rough things happen in his life, and now the cancer...but lately my heart has softened towards him.  I have been visiting him in the hospital and have been keeping up with his journey of treatments along the way.  There have been times when I've walked into his hospital room and almost have not recognized him, even though I had seen him recently.  It's really amazingly sad what cancer (and cancer treatment) can do to the human body, and in such a short amount of time.  I have seen him on good days and bad days, and days when he asks why this is happening to him.  Luckily, he has been in good spirits the past few times I've spoken to him.

Anyway, this and some other things have me thinking about prayer, which is something that I quite honestly struggle with on occasion.  I am convinced that prayer is a special spiritual gift that some people really identify with and tap into, and some people do not.  I am one of those persons that does not feel especially connected to prayer, and I have come to terms with that.  I still pray over people in the hospital, I have blessed hundreds of church dinners, I pray before I preach, I pray at weddings, funerals, baptisms, and do the pastoral prayer every week in church.  Prayer is part of what I do as a pastor, but I feel like I do it more for those particular people who connect more with prayer.  What is prayer?  There are many definitions- talking to God, connecting with God, asking God for something, listening for or to God, being in silence to experience God, maybe even being angry with God.  The problem is that too often I hear of people who say that they prayed to God for XYZ to happen, and it never did, or for XYZ to not happen, and it did.  And then there is anger associated with the fact that "God did not answer my prayer," or one believes that "there is no God" because a prayer went unanswered.

So what do we do with that?  At the end of the day, prayer for me is that which leaves us open and vulnerable to whatever God is doing and working in and through our lives.  One of my favorite Rob Bell NOOMA videos deals with these questions about prayer.


At one point, Rob says this wonderful line about this idea that when we pray, we are tapping into the divine energy, that very energy that went into creation.  It doesn't mean that when we pray, we are going to get a direct answer or an answer at all.  It doesn't meant that we should get angry at God when something we prayed about doesn't go our way.  Prayer should be about tapping into that divine mystery of God, and praying anyway because we, as humans, need to connect somehow, some way.  We need to hook into that divine energy that surrounds us.

So maybe that's why I've been praying lately for this particular parishioner fighting cancer.  He has shared with me his questions, his struggles, and his successes, and at the end of the day, still asks for continued prayers.  I think he embodies for me what prayer should be- that no matter what we are going through, we need to simply remain open to the possibilities of God- not simply seeking the "right answers."