A congregation was asked to brainstorm the program of their church. Unofficial minutes were taken of the oral questions and contributions. The list was given to me, to respond in evaluation and comment. Among the items was a question about prayer, with the implication that something may have been left out of the program of the church, in that there was no period set for the corporate prayer of the people. It is interesting that Scripture identifies the church as a house of prayer, but during recent decades, there has been relatively little prayer offered. It is also interesting that other religions accent prayer to the degree that monks will spend hours turning wheels of written prayers so to activate them. Islam has several times in every day when the faithful take time for scheduled prayers. One wonders what has happened to this fundamental feature of Christian faith when the place of prayer is evaluated as a reduced activity of Christians, devout or casual. At this writing, respected prayer is made increasingly a private matter.
I recall attending a church with my mother during my early high school years, and before I made my own Christian commitment. It was a morning service when, in an announcement, that I remember as somewhat forlorn the minister stated: My wife and I were here for the Prayer Meeting last Wednesday. There were five of us, my wife and I, the sexton and his wife, and the choir director. Three of the five are paid to be on hand, and two relate to their mates for church duty. We will not schedule another prayer meeting until the people of the church ask for it. The people never did, at least during the years that I knew about the programming and practices of that congregation. I quit the Sunday school there when I was the only boy with ten girls. Few seemed to care about church prayer and Christian education. I dropped out.
In the growing cacophony of social sound-bytes involving tens of millions of persons in fits of texting communications, some of which is useless, one wonders why persons have little or no corporate time for prayer. In a nation taken with vacuous gossip, celebrity nonsense, shallow culture and distractions, is there no time, or little time, for prayer? Even if one did not believe in God, there is argument for meditation that, for some persons, may be called a secular substitute for prayer. From prayer a person is inevitably motivated to function at least a bit better than before prayer. In prayer one is inevitably going to use the quiet time for thinking that it will make a difference in life and good works. Some analysts, with no religious background, argue that meditation (human prayer), even with no God to hear it, serves the persons at prayer – whether alone or in a group. There are studies relative to the presumed benefits of prayer. I have not seen one study that arrived at a sound negative conclusion. The persons I know, holding belief in God, and addressing prayer in the name of Jesus Christ – all declared benefits for their devotion.
Trouble and tragedy appear to trigger prayer, or presumed prayer, even in some profane persons. In contexts that mean to avoid reporting on religion, there appear notes that prayer has been the only recourse for persons in some situations. And, they would not take away something that provides peace and acceptance for persons faced with tragedy or circumstances in which they have no influence or escape. This appears in the old adage: There are no atheists in foxholes. Surrounded and bombarded the soldier has nothing more, to keep sanity and face fear, than prayer. The statement appears often in peacetime.
If prayer can prove so forceful and wide ranging in the general culture, it might be well to investigate its real virtue to persons, even if much of the value can’t be documented in nature’s methodologies. Prayer is a faith issue. God likes it. It is a probe for truth, a means for understanding our mortality, a factor that makes better persons of us, a necessary feature in finding genuine humility, and a way of lifting burdens from our minds and lives. Humility of prayer is one path to truth for the thinking animal possessing a living soul loved of God. For some reason, beyond human understanding, God has made prayer the most important factor in the participation of a person or a group of persons in the divine plan. It was factored in to God’s program, made important to it. Before you ask I will answer. (Isaiah 65:24) When a person takes on faith prayer, life changes from negative to positive context. Prayer affects thinking. *Mark W. Lee, Sr. — 2016, 2020