God helps those....who listen.

This is a perpetually interesting line of inquiry. I say "perpetually" because it seems reasonable to assume we won't ever know the bottom line, not in this life, to the question of whether our prayers are "heard."

I often pray in the form of a petition, as in "please can I have" or "please protect" or "please assist." I also try to pray outside that format -- to consider my prayers as a good practice for focusing my thoughts where they need to be. In that sense, praying for "the greatest good" and maintaining "positive energy" makes sense to me, even if the language used by the aforementioned landlady is a little too New Age pour moi.

There are lots and lots of books written about prayer as meditative practice. There are at least as many books written about "the habits of highly successful people" which devote chapter after chapter to mindset, goal-identification, visualization of the desired outcome. One book is written in the context of faith practice while the other is not, and both are valid; often the phrases used to describe "prayer" or "mindset" seem interchangable. Self-help books have their place in faith formation.

Does God always help those who help themselves? I can't answer that question, though people with a sense of empowerment and determined ambition do seem to do better overall than people who feel relentlessly oppressed by circumstance.

As I pray my petitions, I try to keep in mind the underlaying reason for my prayer. Do I need reassurance, some sense of relief from constant anxiety? Perhaps praying gives me a sense of control, or even a sense that there's someone I can really be honest with about my fears. Every morning I watch my young son being buckled into his car seat by his father, and as the two of them drive away, to daycare and work, I pray to God to protect them out there on the road, to be with them through their day apart from me. What will I feel if one of them is injured in a car accident or some other unforeseeable situation? Will I feel ripped off by God, as though all my prayers had been bitterly pointless? I don't know, but I'm inclined to think not -- because it seems to me that there are rules even God has to follow. Of course, I'm praying I won't have to find out.

It makes sense. Life is full of rules, abounding with principles that can and should guide our behavior. As a parent, I know my kid is going to break the rules, because kids learn best sometimes by getting into trouble. If an adult breaks the rules -- say, by exceeding the speed limit -- and hurts my child, is that God's fault? If my child grows into adulthood, and in the course of careless behavior harms himself or someone else, would you blame me? Do we blame "God the Father" for not giving that adult child a better upbringing, one that would have made him more careful and considerate of others? In this culture, that's what we do -- we blame our parents for our failings, all our lives. We lay the accountability for our problems on everyone else's doorstep, and with the expertise of the kitchen psychologist we determine ourselves to be victims to at least some extent. But for me personally, it makes a whole lot more sense to blame the guy driving the car for that car accident. It wasn't God behind the wheel, and I suspect there are rules against divine intervention that are seldom broken. If I do everything for my kid, and never make him accountable for his own actions, he will be a failure as an adult. The human race could never advance, morally or philosophically, if God intervened to protect us from the consequences of our actions every single time. We were created to learn, and that's the only way we can grow, as individuals and as a society.

So what's the point of praying?

In my experience, God is relational. If I'm listening, God is there to point the way and to reassure me, most of the time. Petitioning happens; but I suspect real prayer is about listening. And I believe real listening is rewarded. When I take my problems to a friend, it's only polite to listen to any advice they might want to offer. I'm not sure it should be any different with God.

Praying for the 'Greatest Good'

My very eclectic and a 'poco loco' landlord mentioned recently that she was praying for the "greatest good." Now, she said this in relation to finding successful, nice, compatible renters for the unoccupied upstairs apartment in the duplex where I live (need a pet friendly apartment in NE? Call me, Dahling!).



Thinking about praying for the "Greatest Good" is pretty interesting (and a bit perplexing!) when you start to think about it - or at least when you start to think about it in relation to any specific problem. In this case, for example, what if the true 'greatest good' was that the place burned down so that a home for disabled children could be built? Or what if the greatest good means that she won't find renters for that apartment for several months?



My delightfully quirky and granola landlord insists that this thinking is perpetuating the "energy of fear and doubt" and that praying for the greatest good "contains the vibration of success". She also says, that the answer to my 'energy of fear and doubt' is "Faith! Buh-LEEVE!"


I am very willful. Stubborn. Obstinate. And I'm REALLY bossy - so it chokes me everytime I say "Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven." Hey! What if I don't like God's will? Huh? What if I have a better idea? How about *MY* will be done? Could we try that for a while?



I suspect that I choke on this partly because I am currently unemployed, and have been (mostly) unemployed since last September. Many very well-meaning people have tried to comfort me with assurances that God just has something else in mind for me, that the right door or window just hasn't opened yet. I long to have that kind of faith and that kind of calm acceptance. I'm impatient. I'd like it a whole lot if God could just get on with it, because what I'd really like is a PAYCHECK and HEALTH INSURANCE. It might not be the GREATEST good, but it'd be pretty darn good! Darn-it!

So, for the moment, I will continue to pray like I'm writing a letter to Santa: "Dear God! I've been a very good girl! Can I please have a JOB for Christmas? "