Let Us Pray

A while back. . . like over a year ago, I made a blog entry concerning my views on politics and God.  I won't rehash either but, it serves this entry to know that I do believe in God.  That is to say, I believe in God but I don't necessarily believe in religion and the by-product of it all is that I am having a crisis of prayer.

I'm not looking for debate on whether prayer is good or helpful.  I'm not looking for specific instructions on how to pray either because that seems to be from where my problems stem.

My church classes, both as a child and an adult, taught me that God is all knowing and all forgiving.  God makes the plan and as Christians, we live to honor His name in our actions. Ideally, we are to offer ourselves every day to Him and ask Him to use us to do His work.  I accept that.  I also accept that in bad times, He always provides a gift.  So, in considering the above, this is where my crisis of prayer comes into play.

In church I was taught to pray specifically.  "Dear Lord, we pray that you guide the captain, the co-captain and the navigator of this plane.  We pray that you are with the mechanics as they ensure the safety of the craft.  We pray this in God's name. Amen."  That's pretty specific; a targeted prayer . . . except that it flies in the face of the whole acceptance of "God makes the plan" part.  No amount of praying is going to change the course of His plan, right? So why are we praying?

On a daily basis, friends ask for prayers, sometimes for sick loved ones, sometimes for healing, sometimes for something more tangible like getting a job or a part in a play.  And I dutifully respond - "Praying", "On it" and I expend energy on whatever was requested.  But what if what is being asked is not in His plan?  What if His plan is to NOT let the asker get the job, or (hard to accept) not recover from an illness?

Prayer warriors,  prayer chains, prayer groups; prayer is a common bond among many.  Our beliefs might be 180 out from one another in many subjects but we come together in prayer.  The question, though, that keeps going through my head is this: If God is perfect and He made the plan, then aren't our prayer efforts in groups or alone really just collective wishing?  And if having faith means, at its core, that I trust that His plan is perfect even when is seems utterly horrendous, then isn't praying for a change like saying, "I don't like what your doing and I want it to go this way instead?" And isn't that line of thinking the opposite of believing in God is all about? Specific, targeted prayer flies in the face of Faith. It seems to me that the prayer should be more along the lines of "Please allow me to accept what is happening" or "Thank you for this difficult situation because I know You have a gift for me in all of this." I struggle with this daily, trying to realign my thoughts and prayers to be less specific, less about what I/we/others are asking for and more about how to find the Easter Egg, if you will, in what is happening around me.  What would Jesus do?

I'm seriously looking for input here, in fact, I've been praying about it. Anyone want to weigh in?

On The Soapbox: Marriage, Race and God

I don't normally climb up on my soap box and preach, but this week I have three times been poked just hard enough to make that climb.  I am sure I will get a lot of hacked off readers for this, but the beauty of it all is I really don't care.

I loathe politics.  I am neither red or blue and I think politicians lie.  The other day I read some diatribe written by some dude that proclaims to be just to the right of republican.  His beef?  Gay marriage.  I refuse to reassemble his arguments here but suffice it to say his bottom line is that gay marriage is sick, immoral and disobedient to God. His platform included a proclamation to Republicans that if they were true Republicans, they would agree.  I don't remember the guy's name and I wouldn't print it if I did because I do not want to support anything he says.  If I were a Republican, I would be appalled that he is single handedly undermining the more relevant issues of the Republican platform.  I would stand up for the more critical issues of my party and leave love alone.  Love is not heterosexual and it is not partisan.

Cheerios has a commercial where a little girl asks her mom if Cheerios is good for the heart because daddy said it was.  The mother confirms - yes it is.  The little girl then goes to her father napping on the couch and pours a box of Cheerios on his chest (knowing that is where his heart is located.)  Cute?  You bet.  I love that commercial.  I saw it at least three times before it registered that the couple is bi-racial and the beautiful little girl is of mixed race.  I loved the commercial even more.  However, there has been a very public backlash against this commercial - name calling, complaints, outright proclamations of disgust.  I am shocked and disappointed. I thought we, humanity, had evolved from that.  And I wonder - IF the parents were both Caucasian and the little girl bi-racial;  the unspoken message that the couple had adopted her, would it THEN be acceptable?  Love isn't race specific.

Finally, I had a discussion with a friend who is heavily involved in her church.  I admire her dedication to her church family, I respect her deeply held beliefs.  She believes that those who have not accepted Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior as the ONLY way to salvation are damned to hell. And that's where we part.  I believe in God but I no longer attend any churches or belong to a specific religion.  I was once asked by a pastor why I had not become a member of the church I attended for quite a few years.  I told him that I could not stand up and proclaim that Jesus is the ONLY way to God.  I cannot believe that a loving God would create so many vastly different, beautiful people and cultures, so many different belief systems, only to make the sweeping majority wrong in the end.  The more I think about it, the more I feel like organized religion is a function of the mortal demand to manage God.  If God is love, He loves us all.

I do not feel a need to back-up my beliefs with Bible quotes, philosophical arguments or political facts.  It's what I believe and I don't have to justify it to anyone.  That is freedom.

Judi Coltman is an author of mystery books.  She is currently working on her fourth novel.  Follow her at 
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