Lately, I've noticed another insidious way secular culture has tried to replace religious notions with "safe", watered-down (and therefore meaningless) imitations. The attempt to replace "Merry Christmas" with "Happy Holidays" is a classic example. Another is one I've written about previously regarding Thanksgiving--the idea of having a posture of gratitude toward "the universe" for the blessings in our lives instead of giving thanks to our Creator, the true source of all our blessings.
The concern I'm addressing today is the attempt to replace "I'm praying for you" with "I'm sending good thoughts your way". While it may be a nice gesture to tell someone you're sending good thoughts their way, it actually does nothing to change that person's situation.
Of course, non-believers and believers alike would be able to cite countless examples where someone prayed for something and that something did not work out the way they wanted. So, it could be argued that praying also does nothing to change that person's situation.
But that's only true if you have the wrong understanding of God, as many people do, that He is a sort of cosmic vending machine. You put in your prayer-dollar and get your bag of Cheez-Its or your illness is cured.
If that's your view of God, I have some bad news for you: God is not here to grant all your wishes, nor mine.
But there's good news--great news!--regardless of your opinion about God: He is here to help us lead abundant earthly lives and even more abundant eternal lives in heaven.
You might at this point accuse me of contradicting myself. On one hand, I said God is not here to grant all our wishes, but on the other, I said God will help us lead abundant earthly lives. Which is it?
Both can be true because God's abundance is not the same as our definition of abundance. Our definition may focus on material possessions--a nice house, a vacation home, a late-model car, and all the latest gadgets. There's certainly nothing wrong with these things, but God may define abundance in terms of deep, loving relationships, or laughter and smiles, or an inner peace that baffles everyone around you because they see how your world is falling apart.
God often offers us what we need, but how many times do we miss that because we're consumed with begging for what we want?
What Is Prayer? What Does It Do?
Anyway, to address the topic at hand--sending good thoughts vs. praying--it might be worth reflecting for a moment on what prayer is and what it does.
In giving us the sample prayer known as "The Lord's Prayer" (Matthew 6:9-13 and Luke 11:1-4), Jesus shows us clearly that prayer is meant to be an intimate conversation with a dad who loves us very much. Prayers do not need to be long or full of flowery language. They simply need to be sincere, spoken from the heart. And they need to be directed to God (Father, Son, or Holy Spirit--take your pick).
There's also the question of what prayer does. Having said that God doesn't grant our wishes, I should point out that there are examples in the Bible where that's exactly what He does. In Isaiah chapter 38, we see the story of Hezekiah. Through the prophet Isaiah, God told Hezekiah that he was going to die. Hezekiah prayed and wept bitterly, so God told Isaiah to turn around and go back to Hezekiah to give him the good news that he was going to live another 15 years.
But generally, it seems that God does not answer prayers so quickly or directly--he usually seems to answer prayers in His time and in His way. So what does prayer do and why bother doing it?
I think one of the many blessings we get from praying is that we can develop our relationship with God. I mean, it would be ridiculous for me to rarely speak to my wife but then expect our relationship to grow and flourish. Further, since God is the only source of true peace--shalom--praying helps us to lean into and lean on Him, and reminds us that since our (believers') eternal destination is already decided to be paradise, what happens tomorrow or next week might not be as painful or earth-shattering as we might be imagining.
So, hopefully, you can see now that there is no alternative to prayer. "Sending good thoughts" for someone does nothing for them, whereas praying for them can lead to immeasurable blessings for you and the other person as well. Praying is talking to the God of endless power, the Creator of the universe. Sending good thoughts is like talking to yourself. I'm sure you're a swell person and that you mean well, but when was the last time you performed a miracle? It's been a while (never) for me, too!
So why not choose to talk to God?
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