There are some 300,000 churches in America, and I could have picked any one to attend on Easter morning, but I liked being in this one. Especially the kids. They didn’t need Reverend Henderson’s prayer techniques, or the high-tech mantras of the Brooklyn Tabernacle. Their prayers weren’t Rabbi Gellman’s suburban Jewish prayers of Thanks! offered to whom it may concern. They didn’t pray to de-center their egos or find transcendence or to set off on a lifelong therapeutic spiritual journey. They prayed to a God with whom they were on a first-name basis, and they believed their prayers gave them power, which they used on behalf of their asthmatic sisters and infirm grandparents and a kid they knew with burns on his body. Sitting in church on Easter morning, I realized that I was probably never going to become a praying man. But if, by some miracle, I ever do, I hope my prayers will be like the prayers of the kids I met at the Love church in Berkeley Springs. Straight-up Gimme! on behalf of people who really need the help. –ZEV CHAFETS in the New York Times Magazine
This is quite an interesting article about prayer (and long if you know the Times magazine). This last paragraph was so powerful to me. The author is an agnostic and goes to all kinds of Churches, Synagogues, therapists, etc. to find out about prayer.
In the end the most powerful expression came just as Jesus said it would: like a child.
I want to come to God like that. So often when I pray I’m concerned with “squeezing it in” or getting to everyone on my list rather than just coming to Jesus with my heart open to the possibility that He can do anything. Anything for me. Anything for those I love and care about. All I have to do is believe.
So, this week, I’m going to lay my heart open before the Lord and be like a child. Imperfect and full of anticipation.
Just like a little kid.