A Prayer

I just opened my email, and found a gift. I am honored that its writer has consented to allow me to post it on the blog.

I am convinced -- convinced -- that my husband has been given a gift by God -- the ability to pray heartfelt and authentic prayers, guided by the Holy Spirit and sent to the heart of God.

This is what I found in my email this evening -- a prayer written by Steve:

Dear Heavenly Father; “We Worship You”. Standing together, almost as if on the tip of a wishbone, we, with our Christian brothers and sisters, shout our beliefs and testament of faith. Then, while the words are still warm in front of our faces, we begin our separate journeys along our separate sides of the wishbone, staring across a chasm so wide and so deep, never to agree again. Each side taunts the other and we dare each other to come up with the winning piece when the final break occurs. How can we be so far apart in our mission when our goal, at the beginning, was EXACTLY the same? Our mission takes on our own agenda and ceases to focus on you. We don’t agree on when to worship. Sunday morning early, Sunday morning late, Sunday evening, Wednesday, Thursday, everyday? All or none of the above. How do we worship? A formal sermon from the pulpit, a moving minister, costumes, organ, piano, brass, and, oh yes, do we dare clap with praise and enthusiasm and joy at what has just moved us? Who should worship? Clergy, laity, children, men, women, the homeless? To feed or not to feed. Can we truly nourish our souls when the only sound heard is the groaning of a hungry body? ‘Where’ is a monumental question. Are you, God, only in the beautiful sanctuaries? Are you in the kitchen, the parking lot, the wooded camps? Have we offended you by carpeting our floors, padding our pews or enhancing our experience of your message by projecting a computer generated image onto a freshly painted wall or pull down screen? The count of your followers also represents the number of opinions to all the questions asked here. We know we have choices. Our ability to think and reason and agree and discuss are among our greatest gifts from you. But when we use those talents and gifts to only outwit other Christians for our own end, wow, have we missed the point. When we bully a friend with our size, age, church position or community position then WE have become the mission and you aren’t even invited to the meeting. Lord, don’t let us rise above our station. We are servants. You are the Master. Every fiber of our being should be to glorify you. Line us up as if at the mouth of a mighty river, flowing swift and true. We move as one. When we encounter a rock, an obstacle to our progress, we flow around it and come back together on the other side united as if never divided. Spare us from becoming as the single drop that splashes on the rock and is evaporated in the noon day sun.
In your Son’s name
Amen.

And Amen!