Opus 2025-435: He Doesn’t Come for the Tea

I continue to meditate and contemplate the concept of prayer.  As I believe I said before, I do not understand the common understanding of what prayer is all about.  I remember seeing my thoughts expressed in an article online written by a Jewish author for the Jewish press.  He may have been a rabbi.  His basic point was if God knows everything and is all powerful then what is the point of telling Him what we want in prayer?  He already knows.  He already has the ability to do something about it.  Why do we waste His time with our grocery list?

That’s what I call much of the prayers I hear and the time spent in prayer:  grocery list intercession.  We have a long list of requests and we lay them out.  In our Wednesday night service and then Sunday school people will share their requests.  The person in charge will write them down.  If everything goes perfectly, the leader of our prayer team will make a note of them and send them out to us in an email.  It’s all very well meaning and supportive.  And we have a good time in prayer.  It serves to help us communicate with God and each other.  However, I wonder if we don’t understand that God heard it when we told the pastor, He saw it when the pastor wrote it down, He was listening when further information was asked for.  So what is the point of going through it all again?

As I sit on the porch in the dark, I am doing what I consider to be prayer.  I’m sitting.  I am listening.  I might do some speaking.  I contemplate on the attributes of God.  I think about different Bible verses where God has interacted with people or made statements.  In the process I get a better feel of what God wants me to know for the day.  God is there with me.  I have no doubt about that.  I don’t believe, though that He came with an expectation of little sandwiches, tea and gossip.  I think He came to interact with one of His believers, one of His children.  I don’t think He wants to hear about my opinions about how my neighbors are raising their children.  He doesn’t want to hear all the social things that are on my mind.  He wants to deal with me on eternal matters.

The journey continues.  The questions continue.  What’s vitally important is that I continue to listen because I know God is speaking.  I will drink my coffee, but He doesn’t need any. 

homo unius libri