I am happy to share more on prayer in a postmodern world with the following thoughtful perspective by Alisan Rowland. Alisan and I have served together in ministry for years. She did her clergy internship at our church and currently works as a hospice chaplain here in San Diego.
Many of us have heard before that God calls us to action and that God calls us to love with actions and not just with our words. In the Christian tradition, we tend to think of how God calls us to act in two ways: The Great Commission and the Great Commandment. God calls us to share what we believe and how our beliefs have impacted our lives; and God calls us to love one another.
We could feel overwhelmed if we thought that God called us to perform great acts of love or justice on our own, but the good news is that God doesn’t do that. God gifts us with the guidance and support of the Holy Spirit. I like to think of that guidance as nudges from God or the “ideas” we get on how to reach out to someone else.
To give an example of what I mean, I’ll share one time I listened to a nudge from God and the result.
Several years ago, I was sitting in the back of our worship space as the sermon was concluding. A congregant walked past me to return to his seat, and suddenly I had the thought that I needed to buy him a grocery store card! I wondered where that idea was coming from – how strange.
I tried to refocus on the service, but the urge to buy the card persisted. The thought came into my head that if I waited, this person would leave right after the service and wouldn’t get the grocery card. The urge got even stronger. I had the sense this was something God really wanted me to do, now. So I got up, left the service, bought the grocery store card at our Scrip Table, came back and, as I went up to serve communion, I handed the card to the person and said, “God wanted me to give this to you.”
That was the end of that, or so I thought. I had no intention of ever talking to the person about it and felt he likely thought I’d lost my mind. Then several months later during my internship, I received an email from him, via another staff member. He wrote that he regularly got migraines and took a prescription medication, which helped alleviate them. But he was on a limited income and that month hadn’t been able to pay for his migraine prescription. He’d been praying for some relief for his pain. He was able to use his money to purchase his prescription and the card to buy his groceries. I was overwhelmed when I read his email. I had no idea that he suffered from migraines, no idea he had a limited income. I replied to his email and let him know that. The only reason I could think of for God to use me in that way was to let him know that God was listening to his prayers.
Prayer can be one way in which we counter our own resistance to the acts of love or justice that we are called to do in the world. Even for those of us who have made prayer a habit in our lives, it’s not always that easy to decide when and where to pray. Even most of the retirees I know have a packed schedule. In our postmodern world, unlike the world in Jesus’ time, we have so many wonderful distractions and entertainments. And we need our play time and our rest time, but we also need our time alone with God.
So, how do we move from a place of feeling resistant to God’s call to act to a place of joy in God’s presence? So often when we try to hide our feelings from God, we only feel more distant from God. Being honest in our prayers helps us to cope with what is challenging us, even if God doesn’t answer a prayer in the way we hoped. Secondly, being persistent in our prayers can help us to understand what is important to us. Our circumstances may not change, but what we learn about ourselves can be transformative.
Finally, if we really believe in a God of unconditional love and compassion, then we should be able to believe that God ultimately wants the best for us and that we can trust in God’s will for us. When we trust God’s will in situations in our lives, we can receive a great deal of relief. We don’t have to know all the answers. We don’t have to make everything work. We really can say, “God, Your will be done,” and let it go.
Rev. Dan Koeshall is the Senior Pastor at The Metropolitan Community Church (The Met) in San Diego, California, themetchurch.org.
