Thoughts and Prayers

For me, there are two parts here:  Thoughts and Prayers. I have heard them used individually and together in a sentence.  I must admit, I do wonder what it means when someone says I will be in their thoughts.  At my age, thoughts don’t stay long unless I write them down.  How long or how many times would they think of me? Will they sit down and spend intentional time thinking about me? Will their minds drift to other thoughts or questions related to me? Are they thinking that my hair is not naturally purple?  Are they internally weighing how I will handle this disaster or that emergency? Maybe, he or she will think of me overcoming whatever the circumstance might be!  When there is a disaster, are they going to just think of me standing in the flood looking for my rubber duckie? (Don’t laugh, I lost him in this last move.)  Will the thought of my failure come up each time they think of me?  I don’t really get it.

Prayers are different to me.  If I am in your prayers, I am assuming you will purposefully be praying that God will heal, help, and/or protect me.  This will take more time than a thought.  Hopefully it will feel very important to you. You are going before the King of the universe to ask for help for me!  

Am I just being one-sided?  Maybe thoughts are more than I give them credit for.  What are human thoughts compared to our prayers?  I wanted to have a spiritually- “educated” opinion on this topic, so I did a search on the words ‘thoughts’ and ‘prayers’ in the Bible. (You may get different results if you search using a different translation.)

Thought or Thoughts:  I found 132 occurrences. 

• he majority of thoughts were negative (58%), all from humans
• some were neutral (25%), again all human,  and
• the remaining 17% were positive thoughts. Most of these were God’s thoughts, not human.  

So,  to be a thought in a human mind may not be as good as you think.  If we are a positive or even neutral thought, is there any compulsion for the thinker to do more than give a thought? 

 Moreover thoughts of humans tend to be negative. (She is never going to find that rubber duckie!)   I am not saying that we don’t act on our thoughts at times.  However, there is not a lot associated with just a thought.  Furthermore, thoughts seemed to be internal and not relational.  How much can one thought by one person do?

So what about our prayers? I narrowed my search to prayer or prayers to stay in alignment with the concept of thought and thoughts above.  I assumed I could divide prayers in a similar way: positive, neutral and negative.  I quickly realized that this comparison was not going to be apples to apples. 

There were 154 mentions of prayer or prayers in the Bible.  Some of those were simply in a title added by the editor as in the Psalms.  In the end 141 mentions of the words were found.  How would I categorize a negative prayer?  A prayer against an enemy?  That might be positive in the end.  Would it be neutralized after that?  How do I count ones that we don’t know if they will ever be answered until the end times?  Would neutral be when prayer is just mentioned as a thing, a definition.  Positive prayer is what?  Answered prayer? Shared prayer?  Praying at all?   I decided to follow the nature of the prayers and not try to fit the positive, neutral and negative categories.

When I finished categorizing, I had prayers that were prayed and then answered.  There were prayers prayed, but the individual would not know if the prayer was answered, corporate prayer, prayer against the enemy, etc.  I had over 10 categories, so I combined some.  Below is the best that I could do.

• A prayer was made and answered in one way or another  31%
• Prayer without yet knowing the answer 26%
• Corporate prayer or long-term prayer (David’s songs/Psalms) 21%
• Neutral mention of prayer 13%
• Not heard or returned (wicked or disobedient or blood on hands) or against someone or some negative portrayal 8%

Interestingly, prayer for others or their situations, whether the praying one knows the outcome or not, is 78% of all mentions of prayer. Why is that different than humanities’ tendency to think positively? I think part of the difference is that prayers are conversations.  You communicate with our Lord, and He communicates with you. You are assuring an individual that you will make a time for conversation with the Lord of the universe in their honor or for their situation!  Saying you will pray means, you will listen (hopefully) for any aid God shares with you through the Holy Spirit. Can this be a negative thing?  NO.  We rise above our own tendency toward negativity toward the higher levels of God.  Does praying have any impact on the issue at hand?  YES.  God has a great track record for answering prayers throughout the Bible.  Furthermore, we see and hear of His miracles today, even in the midst of hurricanes and earthquakes. They may not get much press, but the miracles are still there if you look for them.

We also pray corporately.  This means in or as a group.  That time when church service pauses for the mention of prayers, that is our corporate prayer.  During this time, we all focus and hear/read/speak the names of those who need prayer. When you do this for someone (GET that permission) on the prayer list, now, the phrase becomes “we will be praying for you.” We can pray as a group for someone or a disaster.

Maybe, just maybe, God hints to someone a humanly way to help in that exact situation.  To me, it seems if there are multiple people praying, there is more of a chance someone may feel they can act on that information too.  What if each time there is corporate prayer during our service (that time when we pray for people and look at the prayer list) each person took one person or issue from the prayer list and did something for that person or that situation? It might be a donation, time, knowledge, anything. Ok.  I am getting really excited about this.  Let it be said that LifeStream prays with action.

I cannot answer for the politicians, but I personally want friends to be praying for me in tough times. I want folks to know I am really going to pray for them too.  What do I say when it seems there is nothing I can say?  What about this:  I am here for you.  What can I do for you? I will be praying for you. (It’s my way*)

*It’s my way:   in sticky situations, adding “It’s my way” or “my belief,” means  I usually don’t get any push back- even in DC.  We should ALL be allowed to have freedom of religion.

Prayer:

Dear All-Powerful Lord,

So much violence is occurring in the world.  Help us know how to pray.  Help us to be good neighbors.  Remind us to check on the sick and the elderly.  Let us not be afraid in our workplace and community to say “I am praying for you.”  Help us to keep that commitment.  Let us listen to your Holy Spirit so that we understand how to put actions to our words.

In Your Holy Name,  AMEN

Pastor Charlene