Whether Christian, Jew, or... Miscellaneous.

DREWISM #909: BE CAREFUL WHAT YOU PRAY FOR

It doesn’t take much for me to dislike a person or a practice. This is a simple fact. I have tried to explore this “negative” characteristic in detail, but I find I cannot disregard how arrantly stupid, pointless, and trivial most people’s conversations are.

I attend a private religious university where, as an implement of forced spirituality, most classes begin with a brief devotional. Sometimes this is conducted by the professor, other times by the students. I’m not sure how this trend started, but before the prayer (which ceremoniously concludes the devotion) it is most often the custom to ask if anyone has prayer requests. This, I realize, is a very sacred practice in Christianity; obviously, as a community of those who share and regard similar spiritual beliefs and practices, prayer in numbers is accredited in the Bible as being a very powerful thing.

At 8:15 in the morning, my eyes and mind both battling against me for ire of going back to sleep, I find it very hard to humble myself before the Creator of the universe and all life between prayer requests for Jane’s cat who has been stricken with an advanced case of hairball-coughing and John--for the express ability to understand his Physics homework (actual prayer requests, the names have been changed to protect the idiotic). Other trivial prayer request I have been witness to are: for knowledge on how to get a guy to like her; for strength to make it through one remaining class because he only slept four hours last night; for patience in dealing with a bad haircut or hairstyle; for strength in dealing with a bad test grade; for a someone who wants to be included in certain social circles.

Many of you might think I’m going to hell for slandering those “needs” others find worthy of prayer. But until you’ve listened to someone on the brink of tears asking for prayer for her father who has a malignant brain tumor, only to hear someone pipe in immediately after her, “I’m so busy that I’m not eating enough,” maybe then you’d want to constantly decry this behavior as well.

And like me consumed with disgust.

I don’t much give a great deal of credence to old clichés, but “God helps those who help themselves.” Perhaps most of these individuals actually believe that God is a Supreme Being who holds their hands through life, helping them out of every single problem they encounter, no matter how infinitesimal; those who have failed to explore or understand what the very nature of mankind entails-- a painful separation from God.

Prayer works. I believe God moves everyday through prayer. I have, in every situation I deemed beyond human control, consulted God to be sovereign over such. But forgive me a loathing, for those who use prayer as a crutch in places where they can tread just fine, full-bodied and able.

I don’t believe in regulating what people can and cannot pray for--by all means, pray for your car to quit making that “funny noise”-- but please do so in private, because I really don’t care and I don’t need your trivial problems to belittle a facet of my religion that I hold to be sacred.