I had early childhood experiences with prayer – my senses were being imprinted before I was born, as prayer was common in my family, and we were part of a church community that placed high value on our congregational, communal prayer habits. This early imprinting demonstrated to me that not only was prayer important, but that it had a prescribed methodology that needed to be paid attention to – tone of voice, inflections, volume, verbiage modeled from the King James translation of the Bible, lots of words and often. I listened and observed, and I dutifully “prayed”, and I had lots of questions as I grew in my faith, and the answers weren’t as forthcoming as I wanted.

In the movie Shadowlands, C.S. Lewis is purported to have made a response concerning prayer that, “it doesn’t change God, it changes me!”

And it’s reported that Mother Teresa responded to Dan Rather that when she prays, “I don’t say anything. I listen.” And further responded that, “He doesn’t say anything. He listens.” And finished with, “And if you don’t understand that, I can’t explain it to you.”

While both of these famous references could be tagged as simplistic, to be sure, I would further counter that some of the famous books that have been written on the subject of prayer have offered me no greater understanding than these two icons of the Christian community have suggested.

Then, over the years I’ve had conversations with guys who would not seem to be likely candidates to be quoted on the subject of prayer, but who made responses to me in conversation that, “I pray all the time. I pray every day. I couldn’t make it through if I didn’t.” And I blink, and take them at their word, and I don’t ask them what they say to God in their prayers, or tell them what I think they should have said to God in their prayers, and I didn’t ask any of them about their success rate in prayer – how often God gives them what they asked for in prayer – as I listen to their simple reports on their prayer relationship with almighty God.

We’re results oriented, and I think we’re fairly stuck on results for our prayers – simply stated, we expect God to give us what we ask for, on our terms, and within the time constraints we set up for Him. And people who write books on prayer usually suggest to us that they’ve gotten it down to a predictable formula, and if we’ll buy their book and follow their formula, we’ll enjoy their predictable results as well, you know how that works!

Yes, I’m treading on sacred ground, and I’m not only messing with a sacred cow but a whole herd of ’em, and I’m as results oriented as the next guy and I want some answers to this prayer stuff! The Bible has stuff to say about prayer, but it doesn’t seem as neat as some want me to believe!

I’m gonna take my leap now – over 50 years ago Mary, my wife, was struggling with a serious gall bladder issue. Our first son was a new-born and Mary was so sick she couldn’t take care of him. We were in our first pastorate in a little farming community in Oregon, and the so-called faith prayer movement was in full swing so her healing was dependent on how well we prayed and if our faith was deep and strong enough, which lead me to deep soul and Bible searching. My searching took us through a successful surgery for Mary, and her physical recovery was miraculous.

The biggest answer to my prayer questions came after her recovery was well underway, when she was joyfully attending to our infant son and life was returning to some semblance of normalcy; I concluded my faith is in the Healer and not in the healing. And I confessed to God, on several occasions, that if He never gave me another blessing, or healing, or answered another prayer in some form of affirmative action on my behalf, that I would still trust Him and follow Him as faithfully as I could get it figured it out, and I’d never look back! So far, so good!

In my early, prayer-formative years, children’s prayers seemed to be looked at with amusement, and as a learning process for us to be guided through so we could mature into more profound praying habits as we got older. I’m older now, and thinking that some of the most profound attitudes around prayer were unwittingly gifted to me as a very small child. I’m content to recapture something that seems to have slipped so easily through the cracks of my mind: “God is great. God is good. Now we thank Him for this food. By His hand we are fed, now we thank Him for this bread.”

“Now I lay me down to sleep. I pray Thee Lord my soul to keep. If I should die before I wake, I pray Thee Lord my soul to take.”

Jesus said His kingdom is most readily accessed in child-like faith and humility (See Matthew 18:1-6), and it appears to me He was speaking of His kingdom on earth as well as how His kingdom will appear on the other side of deaths door. I’ve become just simple enough to want all His good stuff for my life, both in the here-and-now and in the there-and-then. So, this is me, recapturing simple appreciation for today’s bread, and tonight’s rest – for both my body and my soul – and a simple faith that my eternity is all good as well!

So there!

You can reach Pastor Dale Pratt at dale@cedarcommunitychurch.org.