Diagnosis America VI – Lack of Sustained Prayer

“I want you to pray, son"
"Umm. Lord, feed the hungry, aanndd... bring peace to all of mankind”
“How's that?”
“Great. If you wanna be Miss America. Now come on, what do you really care about?”

- Jim Carrey and Morgan Freeman (Bruce Almighty)

“I wished for peace on Earth, not this”
“Oh very nice! And just what did you expect?!?! Peace on Earth?? Come on! Ghandi couldn’t pull that off. Even Christ Himself couldn’t make that happen, but you Fox Mulder, are going to make everything right with one wish and the world will rejoice and give thanks to you.”

- Fox Mulder and Jen the Jaded Genie (Je Souhaite, The X-Files)

Two amusing (to me anyway) dramatic moments where our Hollywood culture actually got it right for a change. Jim Carrey (Bruce “Almighty” Nolan) offering up a prayer to Morgan Freeman (acting as God) that he probably heard on Miss America. Freeman calls him to the mat for that and instructs him to tell him what’s really buggin’ him. Then there’s Agent Mulder going to fix things on Earth once and for all and screws it all up by making a not so ironclad wish to a world-weary genie with a perverse sense of humor – “There’s no people!” “Yeah! Peaceful isn’t it?!?!”

The truth in that scene from Bruce Almighty is most people don’t know how to pray. The truth in the X-Files scene is we think we could fix everything ourselves if only we had the power, but we’d wind up botching it anyway. How many things have you screwed up on your own? Care to tackle world peace? Just don’t mix in Oil-for Food! O.K, a cheap shot but quite relevant to the X-Files episode theme. Once things are worse then they were, then what? Quite often when we Americans pray, we have not clue one how to do it because we’re inexperienced. So when we do, when it’s really hit the fan (like overdue credit cards bills, lawsuits, etc.) we wind up looking buffoonish, virtual mascara running down our cheek and so on, asking for HUGE, outlandish things that make little too no sense to everyone else, probably even God:

“I pray for world peace, Amen.”
“Yeah. Like I haven’t heard that one before. Come on son, what’s that mean anyway? Tell Me what’s really on your mind. Talk to Me.”

Talk to me. How often have people in your life said that to you? How often does your better half say that (hopefully not often!)? Your friends? Family? God???? God says that to you ALL THE TIME. Every waking moment and the sleeping ones, too.

“Talk to ME. Every struggle in your life, I want you to tell Me about. Ohhh, and quite frankly, your heart could use the work – little bit of plaque build-up in those veins there - so you’ll find a space out at the far corner of the mall parking lot.”

Either our prayers are buffoonishly large or stupidly simple. A parking stall closest to the store doors? Are we kidding? Some apparently not. Friends, God is not our errand boy, we are His! But we don’t know God and what He wants for us because we don’t talk to Him, hardly ever. A close parking stall ain't it! We do pray when we’re in trouble, as the Bible DOES instruct, BUUUTTTT, if only we had talked to Him beforehand we probably would have avoided the fine mess we made for ourselves. Ever offer up that piece of 20/20 advice to your own kids? Why should we not take it ourselves? As a matter of fact, do that right now. I’m going to stop typing and we all are going to talk to our God. Tell Him what you’re struggling with right now at this moment and then keep talking. Every day. Do it.