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Thursday, September 27, 2012

We *Can* Be United...When We Pray


I go to a MOPS meeting on the 2nd and 4th Thursdays of the month, and am in charge of devotions for this year, so on those Thursdays I'll be posting here what I say there.

When Kelli sent me the list of topics that she already had for this year, I had to laugh that prayer was one of them. 

I stink at prayer—so I’m hoping to learn something from the speaker this morning.

When I attempt to pray, I get distracted.  I don’t set aside a regular time for it.  And I hate praying out loud in front of people.  It makes me feel like someone is eavesdropping on a private conversation and I end up being more focused on the people who are listening to me rather than the God to whom I am praying.

Or I hear about books like The Power of a Praying Wife (which I own) or The Power of a Praying Parent and all I feel like is that I’m a failure at prayer because I don’t follow everything they say. Or even finish reading them.

And as I was preparing this and trying to figure out what to say about prayer, I found out that my dad was admitted to the hospital.  And then I posted about it in the Facebook group for a Bible Study I go to.  And then I remembered last spring when I used my blog to solicit prayer for a guy named Matt in Kansas City.  
And I remembered praying so hard when my friend’s newborn baby was not healthy, and she died.

And I sometimes wonder what the point of prayer even is.

But then I remember my own words from a sermon I gave a couple of years ago about prayer.   I said that I don’t know how prayer works or why it is sometimes answered and sometimes not.  I only know that when we pray, all of our differences no longer matter.  What a person believes theologically or politically is of no importance.  Instead, prayer brings us all on equal footing before God.  In prayer, we are truly united.  In prayer, we are praying together to our Father in Heaven. 

So let’s do that now.

Our Father, who art in heaven
Hallowed be thy name
Thy Kingdom come
Thy will be done
On earth as it is in heaven
Give us this day our daily bread
And forgive us our trespasses
As we forgive those that trespass against us
And lead us not into temptation
But deliver us from evil
For thine is the kingdom,the power, and the glory, forever

Amen

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