Prayer And Our Spiritual Autobiography
It's important that we think about the place of prayer in our spiritual stories
. It's important because the way we pray becomes a part of our story. It also becomes a part of the story of the person we pray for. Our spiritual autobiographies are not complete without exploring what we believe, how we behave and how we join together in respect to prayer. Our spiritual story is limited when we don't choose to consider the impact of our lives, joined together with the lives of others, in prayer.This is a controversial subject. People are uncomfortable about the boundaries between church and state to the point that The National Day of Prayer, created in 1952 and signed into law by president Harry Truman, is now of questionable status. According to snopes.com, on April 15, 2010, a federal judge ruled that the National Day of Prayer was unconstitutional. The Obama administration was the defendant in this case, and in favor of retaining the National Day of Prayer, although no ecumenical service has yet been held in the East Room of the White House in conjunction with the National Day of Prayer. Looking at the facts, it appears that we are becoming a nation that is unwilling, afraid, or unmotivated to pray together.
What are your thoughts on prayer? How do you feel about joining together with others to pray? Will you pray in unison with those who have different beliefs but are united with you in praying for the same cause? Is your life story dominated by praying in isolation? Will you pray with different groups joined for a cause? Will you join hands with those whom you share the same or different beliefs? Maybe you don't pray at all because you don't believe that your own prayers will be heard? What do you really believe about corporate prayer?
If you believe that a prayer can change things it probably has a place in your personal story. This is the case for people across the nation and beyond. The full impact of prayer, though, is unmet if it is restricted to our personal lives and experience. Without allowing our prayers to become a part of the stories of others what we ask for is limited, singular and minimized. If we pray that our own family won't suffer great loss as the flood approaches we have reached beyond ourselves, but our reach is restricted. What about our neighbors, our nation and our world? Do our prayers really have to be such a small part of our story? What stops us from being willing to pray bigger prayers?
Our reservations about uniting in prayer are certainly influenced by prejudice: we do allow our differences to hold us back. The issue here is bigger than prejudice, though. The larger issue is our belief that our prayers don't really reach across the world. It's also about our conviction, or lack thereof, that praying together will really change things. Somehow, so many of us have come to believe that praying just isn't powerful enough. The tragic result is a world of disconnected people who have put down the biggest weapon that we have: praying together for the same cause.
If we do pray we will find that the devastations of life are a part of our spiritual story. Yet, we can say bigger prayers and tell a bigger story: a spiritual memoir that's far reaching. We can allow our spiritual autobiography to grow into something much larger than ourselves. Embracing every day as a National Day of Prayer, with enthusiasm for what unites us, makes our world one of infinite possibilities. If we believe that prayer can change things why aren't we doing it together: more and more, with passion, enthusiasm and great expectation? Isn't it time that we join together in ways that we have never done so before? Isn't it time to let prayer tell our story?
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