Prayer

Powerful or not so much?

Every week, I get a request -- from the church I attended faithfully for a least a dozen years but which I have rarely attended lately -- to pray for pastors and others whom the pastors believe need prayer.

Sometimes I pray as requested. More often I don't.

Perhaps I'm not sold on the effectiveness of my prayers.

I have attended seminars on prayer, read books -- my favorite is Philip Yancey’s Prayer -- and gone to many altars, prayed for friends and family and for all sorts of folks in need. But still I feel like a rookie, at best.

I have known the Lord’s Prayer by heart (taught by my less-than-angelic paternal grandmother) almost since birth and have prayed it aloud and silently approximately 15 billion times, often pausing to attend  to the meanings of most every word.

I have even tried to be righteous because "The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective." James 5:16  NIV

Still, the only times I sense that my prayers might be at least considered by their intended audience is not when I make a request but rather when compassion for the prayer's intended beneficiary -- the prayee? -- comes over me.

I suspect my most effective prayers are simple loving thoughts. And I remember Olga Savitsky in Charis Church assuring us that the only valuable prayers are those given in love.

Ever since, my favorite prayer is, “Lord, please teach me to love better.”

I often wonder if I might pray most effectively when I am able to love someone I find offensive.

Say if I post something on Facebook. A few people might respond with a like or nice comment. Meanwhile, to my grave dismay, ugly posts get lots of high praise. A recent post -- which simply strung together a dozen or so Bible passages chosen to present the Bible as the worst sort of literary trash only worth reading for laughs -- received 79 likes.

I have attempted to love those 79 people, to forgive them for judging us believers, and to wish them blessings -- not like new motorcycles but like wisdom or new visions.

I could probably pray more effectively if I were better at forgiving, but I'm also a rookie at that pursuit. For years I have tried  to forgive Tom Robbins, the humorist who, in Even Cowgirls Get the Blues, gave his readers a character of supposedly great wisdom who claimed my favorite novel The Brothers Karamazov was the second worst novel ever, the very worst being the Bible.

Maybe he was the same nitwit person who rated my novel The Vagabond Virgins one star on Amazon and claimed it was the worst book he had ever read. Probably it wasn't the same moron person. Mr. Robbins is too clever to contradict his claim that the Bible was the worst.

This morning I wondered if I should give Even Cowgirls Get the Blues one star on Amazon.

But my pesky conscience warned that I'm more powerful and effective by trying to be righteous, though I rarely even get to first base.

By the way, for anyone who was disappointed not to receive this message on Sunday, apologies and my excuse, which is: I decided to try posting midweek for a while.

Happy forever,

Ken