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Pastor's Blog
from Rev. Dr. Gary L. Torian
We have just completed a Prayer Vigil, one of the initiatives that came out of the study on The Five Practices of Fruitful Congregations. Over 50 of our members spent time up here in the Sanctuary in prayer and I am sure others have been praying at home as well. This is a step in discerning where God wants Central United Methodist Church to go, and it is my hope, to move us ever forward toward fulfilling our task of making disciples for Jesus Christ. And like all that we do in ministry and mission for the Church, it all begins in prayer. So, today, let me share some thoughts with you on prayer from that favorite writer I mentioned a few weeks ago, from Frederick Buechner’s book, Wishful Thinking: A Theological ABC.
According to Jesus, by far the most important thing about praying is to keep at it. The images he uses to explain this are all rather comic, as though he thought it was rather comic to have to explain it at all. He says God is like a friend you go to borrow bread from at midnight. The friend tells you in effect to drop dead, but you go on knocking anyway until finally he gives you what you want so he can go back to bed again (Luke 11:5-8). Or God is like a crooked judge who refuses to hear the case of a certain poor widow, presumably because he knows there’s nothing much in it for him. But she keeps on hounding him until finally he hears her case just to get her out of his hair (Luke 18:1-8). Even a stinker, Jesus says, won’t give his own child a black eye when he asks for peanut butter and jelly, so how all the more will God when his children— (Matthew 7:9-11).
...[When praying] Believe Somebody is listening. Believe in miracles. That’s what Jesus told the father who asked him to heal his epileptic son. Jesus said, "All things are possible to him who believes." And the father spoke for all of us when he answered, "Lord, I believe; help my unbelief!" (Mark 9:14-29).
What about when the boy is not healed? When, listened to or not listened to, the prayer goes unanswered? Who knows? Just keep praying, Jesus says. Remember the sleepy friend, the crooked judge. Even if the boy dies, keep on beating the path to God’s door, because the one thing you can be sure of is that down the path you beat with even your most half-cocked and halting prayer the God you call upon will finally come, and even if he does not bring you the answer you want, he will bring you himself. And maybe at the secret heart of all our prayers that is what we are really praying for.
See you in church on Sundays.
September, 2009
Write me at cumc@web-access.net and tell me what you think.