Why Pray?

A curious woman in the adult education class Sunday asked me this. Why pray, she asked, when God's in charge and we're not? Why pray for healing for someone else if God already knows the plans he has made for us? Why intercede? Does it do any good?

Great questions. Love them. Keep it up. Since, you asked, a few thoughts.

First, what is prayer? It means different things. Here's a good excerpt from a book by Philip and Carol Zaleski who wrote Prayer: A History, "...a recovering alcoholic reciting the serenity prayer, a Catholic nun telling beads, a child crossing himself before a meal, a quaking Shaker, a meditating yogini, a Huichol Inidan chewing on a peyote button, a Zen monk in satori, a Lubavitcher dancing with the Torah, Saint Francis receiving the stigmata, a bookie crossing his fingers before the race, Scrooge pleading for just one more change, dear God, just more chance."

Cool line up, I think. At Bible camp as a young counselor, I was trained to say "prayer is just talking to God." And I still think that's part but not the whole. It's also listening.

Maybe prayer is more. Maybe it's getting quiet, getting in touch with yourself, taking stock, being honest. In the Christian Century, September 9, 2008, Marilyn Chandler McEntyre, speaks of the power of prayer. She says prayer that works is "prayer that yields clarity, or insight, or a course of action, or leaves you more accepting of uncertainty. It can work by opening your heart in spite of yourself, or by enabling you suddenly to imagine a point of view other than the one you've been clinging to."

Perhaps this where the listening comes in.

But there is still this matter of why pray if God knows all and isn't changing God's mind?

We pray, then, to stay in relationship with God. We pray to stay connected. We pray to humble ourselves and remember that we weren't really all so much in charge anyway. We pray to practice trust and letting go, the essential practice of living.

So does it work? Well, yes, it works on us, but does it work for others, for healing or for the world? A doctor in our morning adult ed class reported medical studies that suggest patients with people praying for them do better than those with no known pray-ers. So does it work?

Prayer is an act of hope, and hope is good for us, deep down in our souls and, apparently, our bones. Does God change God's mind? Why does God heal some people and not others? These are unknowables. I still believe in a merciful God, not one who goes about zapping people with disease and affliction. Bad things just happen. Perhaps when we pray, we place our trust in the one who walks with us, through good times and bad.