Prayer worthy investment

Greetings from the Ridge.

Say what you want about prayer, it’s cost-effective. It’s cheap. In fact it costs nothing and according to about 80 percent of the world’s population, there’s a hefty return on your investment.

I received a flier in the mail this week telling me that May 1 was the beginning of the worldwide week of prayer. According to other sources it’s a 10-day vigil, and others say it started somewhere back in March. Since time appears to be a relative thing to God, I’ll assume that any of the starting dates would be just dandy and his admonition would be to simply “get ’er done.” 

I had a young girl tell me once that she prayed when she danced. She said, “Freida, most folks would think I’m crazy, but I wait until it gets dark, I take my CD player into the backyard, put on some music and I pray while I dance.” I have a suspicion that God enjoyed not only the sincerity but the creativity in such a conversation. 

My cousin lived in Los Angeles during her college years and said that she made it a pact to pray every time she got tied up in traffic. Due to the traffic jams around the city she learned the meaning of St. Paul’s admonition to “pray without ceasing.”

Frank was an old farmer who tilled the soil of the Mississippi River bottoms near the Quad Cities. He told me that he used an 8N Ford and a two-bottom plow on milelong rows. With equipment like that, you basically plow to the far end of the field in the morning, eat your lunch, then plow back as the sun is setting. 8N’s were good tractors but speed was not their selling point. Frank told me he’d put his Bible in one fender toolbox and his hymnbook in the other, put the front wheels into the deep furrow then read from one box or the other all morning as he prayed. When I asked Frank where he kept his tools, he told me, “Oh hell, I kept them in the shed. I never could fix anything.”

About 10 years ago I met a lady from southern Illinois whose method of prayer stopped me short. She said she’d lost her husband three years earlier and that she missed him most in the mornings when they used to sit and chat at the 6 a.m. breakfast table. In her words, “If somebody walked in on me now, they’d probably think I’ve gone loony, but I put Christ in Bob’s chair. I sit and talk to him every morning.”

There’s a lady in our town known as “The Potato Lady.” She’s raised eight kids and with a single farm income she and her husband have scrimped to put them all through college. The result was a lot of hand-peeled potatoes to feed her ravenous crew. She made a pact with God to pray for her family and our community every time she peeled potatoes. That’s a lot of peels and a lot of prayer. When she considered switching to instant potatoes a few years ago, we had a small uprising in Coonridge and appealed to her to keep peeling. 

Maybe the most humorous and sincere prayer tale I’ve ever heard happened two summers ago at a local youth camp. A group of fifth-grade boys were about to do a dance for the assembled campers and an adult counselor followed camp tradition and whispered to them, “Ask somebody to pray for you.” 

What followed was what seemed like a two-hour silence as the young lads peered out into the crowd, not being able to see a single face in the darkened auditorium. Finally a small dancer’s voice said, “Joey, you go ahead and do it.” Apparently, Joey was the one kid in the dance troupe who’d once attended church. His prayer was succinct and powerful. “Uh…God…? Us guys here in the back row ain’t too good. Help us not to screw up too bad. Amen.” 

I often wonder that if I’m truly honest in my prayers, then perhaps that young boy’s prayer is my only earnest supplication. Us guys here in the back row ain’t too good. Just help me not to blow it.

Whether your world day of prayer falls in March or May or just sort of gets scattered throughout the year, the prospect of world terrorism, economic shakiness, a looming environmental crisis, skyrocketing food costs, and the tremor that hits your hand when you grab the gas pump ought to be enough to consider spending a little time talking to a higher power than yourself. 

“If my people who are called by my name shall humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, will forgive their sin and heal their land.”

Not a bad return on a few minutes’ investment.

You ever in Coonridge, stop by. We may not answer the door, but you’ll enjoy the trip.