Letters to Angels: Misunderstanding Prayer

Realized (perhaps again), that I'm not really understanding prayer right now.... tonight at church we had a lady from Serve Nepal in again. They're an organization that works with the sex trade workers in Nepal to help provide intervention services & various mechanisms to help women & kids get out of prostitution. This includes small businesses to provide the women with jobs and an economic solution to help give them a source of income so they don't need to go to prostitution to pay the bills. Lots of it is absolutely brilliant &, while small, they arepositioning themselves in all the right ways to make an impact in their area.....

...but yeah, when she was done talking we were instructed to pray about it all & to deal with the "spiritual warfare" around the whole thing... and yeah, I ended up flipping in my Bible to Isaiah 58 where it says stuff like [this is all out of the Message - still not sold on the poetry of the message, but it's maybe easier to catch than the shakespeare stuff I'm used to] "But they also complain, "Why do we fast and you don't look our way? Why do we humble ourselves and you don't even notice?' "Well, here's why: "The bottom line on your "fast days' is profit. You drive your employees much too hard.You fast, but at the same time you bicker and fight. You fast, but you swing a mean fist. The kind of fasting you do won't get your prayers off the ground."...."This is the kind of fast day I'm after: to break the chains of injustice, get rid of exploitation in the workplace, free the oppressed, cancel debts.What I'm interested in seeing you do is: sharing your food with the hungry, inviting the homeless poor into your homes, putting clothes on the shivering ill-clad, being available to your own families..... "If you get rid of unfair practices, quit blaming victims, quit gossiping about other people's sins,"

Jewel, in her song "A Life Uncommon" put it like this, "There are plenty of people who pray for peace/But if praying were enough it would have come to be/Let your words enslave no one and the heavens will hush themselves/To hear out voices ring out clear with sounds of freedom" and I used to think that was horribly blasphemous, but I've listened to it again recently & thought, maybe she's not as far off as I thought...

there's an aspect where I still believe that it's important to talk to God about stuff - not because it changes things, but just 'cause I like talking with God about stuff... He's pretty fantastic & I like Him &, while He's not always a great conversationalist in the traditional sense of the word, He listens well... and lots of times now I get the feeling that as I start to vent to him & panic about the world around me & the turmoil in me, that He just puts a finger lovingly over my lips & whispers, "Hush, Love"... and I keep being reminded of the sense that He's aware of it all already.....

..but yeah, i think I've created an 'idol' of prayer - this false image of what prayer is meant to be - of me somehow causing something to happen with my prayers - that they are not conversation, but magic incantations that, if done right, evoke this great & terrible genie to come out of the bottle & grant me my wishes.... and oddly enough, the incantations have failed & God remains at large, outside of my control & not captive to my whims.... (which, ultimately, I think is a good thing 'cause I have some weird ideas some days).....

....but yeah, I think, like Jewel, that there are places where we become the answers to our prayers... which is maybe sometimes why God asks us to pray... we ask Him to change the world & then He points us to love someone... and then we snub them in our selfishness & piety & go off to pray more & God brings us another person to love & the cycle continues... every so often the cycle gets broken & we learn to love, but yeah, it's a slow & stubborn process for a slow & stubborn people....

and yeah, I think there are places where the issues get too big for us to handle & we can't be answers to prayers... or at least not the complete answer... it was cool to hear this lady's story & how she saw what was going on in Nepal & asked this lady who was working there already how she could help & the lady told her, "it doesn't matter what you do, you just have to do SOMETHING" (the lady said it better, but it was her story after all)... and yeah, it makes me wonder - I'm not sure i have the courage to do anything some days.... some days praying is maybe the most courageous thing I can do, but yeah, I'll back away from that, too....

The hard part about prayer, the part that has left me most burned/jaded/whatever, are the places where the prayers really counted for something... crucial moments where you needed a divine intervention... the worst are when its the people you love who are at risk, when it's their lives or hearts on the line & you've got no resources to help & you watch powerlessly as the wolves come & look like they're going to tear them to shreds.... these are the places where God is often most needed & also the moments where His apparent lack of presence, lack of response are most noticeable.... it's asking for mountains to move, believing that God can do anything & then seeing the mountain, defiantly staying put, it's Mary & Martha asking Jesus, "where were you? If you came when we called you, our brother wouldn't have had to die".... we long to rescue those we love, long to shelter them from the storms.... we'd trade our own souls, our own lives for theirs, but yeah, instead we'll often watch as those we love go through the hardest times....

...and yeah, I guess though, in hindsight - and, in some cases, the hindsight is still coming... it's these places that shape the people we love.... in time the rains & snow erode the mountains, pebble by pebble... in time Lazarus is raised, in time we see those we love walk out from their trials, shining, refined, radiant.... they come out as beautiful gems, beautiful gold, pure radiance & light... they come out as swords, forged in the furnace, ready to battle for what was taken from them.... they walk out stronger, the sense of having survived the fires leaving them with a fire in their eyes & a sense that they can over come anything since they've endured the worst.... they walk out softer, with scars they'll carry for the rest of their days, but yet made more whole, more at peace with who they are & with the God who walks with them through the fires as He did with Daniel's friends, as He did on the cross & through the tomb... wearing the scars He bore in His passion to walk with us wrapped in our skin