Praying With Faith

There are times when we pray our prayers with a measure of uncertainty and, maybe, even some guilt.  Whenever bad storms are on the horizon, it always seems appropriate to pray for protection.  Perhaps, we have even held up our hands and prayed that the storm would cease, or pass another way.  Of course, to pass another way means ill for our neighbor.  When the storm is over and we have been spared its destruction, we then find ourselves wondering if our prayers did have an effect, or was it just the way the storm moved. 

 

Of course, what we know is that prayer is not a science with rules and laws to follow, but a discipline which can only be practiced in faith.  Though I have been about this thing we know as praying for a life time, it seems that I know less about it than I did in the beginning.  It is not that I have lost the sense that prayer is at its core a simple discipline, but that the more I have prayed, the deeper seems the mystery.  I can understand well enough the mechanics of the ritual, but all that is unleashed in the spiritual realm is an entirely different thing.

 

Still, I pray.  I could not live without prayer.  I pray and I appreciate knowing that others have prayed and are praying for me.  I am one of those who believes that life is only diminished when prayer is removed from the spiritual equation.  Whether our prayers are long or short, filled with down to earth language or the holy ritual of the ages, it is important we pray.  God uses these prayers we offer.  I seldom understand exactly how that works, but faith calls me to know that such is true.  And so I pray.  Just as you pray.  With faith.