Hyperlinking Everything to God in Prayer

Ordinarily I’d have a link for you, constant reader, to provide some appropriate background music for this blog post on Prayer. The song I would choose would be ‘What a Friend We Have in Jesus” because of its profound yet simple understanding of prayer as the key to an authentic and vibrant relationship with God. So I went looking for that perfect rendition and got stymied: Was it better in a slow jazz guitar, or saxophone, grand piano, accordion and harmonica, barbershop or maybe frypan guitar? In a Dixieland style, bluegrass, chamber trio, New Orleans gospel or punk rock? By Tennessee Ernie Ford and Odetta, Aretha Franklin, Bill Gaither, Willie Nelson, the Brentwood Jazz Quartet, Mahalia Jackson, Doc Watson or Ornette Coleman? In Chinese, Russian, Japanese, or Spanish? By a choir from Mississippi, Wales, Zambia or a small house church gathering of friends in Russia?

Pick one (or two or three) and play it. [Apologies for any commercials that get tacked onto these links!] Every person that plays or sings this song has a unique voice.

In Susan’s previous blog, prayer is defined as nothing more (and nothing less!) than our connection to God.

When I was little, we had family devotions and prayers for a while. It was largely, as I remember it, a litany without much change “Thanks for mom and dad, for my brothers and sister, for my grandparents, for our dog, Amen.” When I was a teen, my church was big on praying for social problems. When I got to college, I stopped praying. It seemed ….well, kind of pointless. Social problems didn’t seem to go away and the prayers of my youth seemed trite.  It took many years for me to embrace praying again – and I am still learning and growing. At first, it was just “ Bless this food” and “ help my friend with cancer” or “ help me get through this day”.  These prayers are good and I still do them – not at a proscribed time or place usually, but whenever I think about or hear about something.  I do a fair amount of that kind of prayer while reading Facebook.  I think of these as short form prayers – quick connections to God to ask for help or guidance or for a need to be met.

There is another kind of prayer I’m beginning to explore. This is the prayer that is less of the type of “What will you do for me Lord?” and more like “ How can I serve you-- be your hands at work, be your voice in the world today? “ This is the prayer I do while I am walking or biking, or while driving with the radio off.  I mentally run through the challenges ahead: an employee whose performance is suffering, a colleague who was disloyal, a client with unrealistic expectations, a relationship that needs mending. Then I pray for the right words to be said, the right actions to be done [and the strength to do them] so that I am the conduit of God’s grace in the situations I am in.  These are long form prayers. I want to open up a longer connection and have a dialogue to let God speak to me so that God can speak though the unique voice he created in me.

Lord, make me an instrument of your peace…..

Where I want to go with prayer is to have “constant contact”.  Where I don’t need to go off alone to mentally prepare, but am able to open myself to this connection all the time. To be in the present, to be breathing in and breathing out, mindful of God’s presence, spirit, strength, and will in all circumstances. Maybe this is the realm of mystics and saints, and like Salieri to Mozart I can only catch glimpses of that connection. 

Until then I will add my voice and take everything to God in prayer.