In Reply to: Prayer posted by Seldom pray on November 03, 2002 at 14:29:46:
I also have a hard time with prayer. I think it's because I was so convinced that I was so dedicated that God would surely hear me and protect me from any evil that when I found out what a fool I had been to follow Berg and do the things I wouldn't normally do, that I had been not only physically raped, but spiritually raped, I was at a loss as to what to do. If all those genuine prayers added up to nothing, then what was the point in praying? I lost my innocense and my trust.
I look at prayer differently now. In my health class we looked at the brain and how it is run by kinetic energy. Little sparks of electricity that shoot back and forth in the brain that gives it the signals of what do and how. I thought that we were like that and when we "pray" and/or have good thoughts for someone it's like sending out these little sparks of energy and somehow, it moves the big huge brain to think and act. Somewhere I read that prayer is our concern for others and that moves God.
Of course, you have to watch out because if you get so fanatical in your thinking and the prayer doesn't do what you think it should do, it could have devastating consequences. There was a girl in a Christian college that had had an accident and was on her death bed. The administrators arranged a prayer chain and everyone loved this girl so much that they prayed desperately, all night and all day, and they fully expected her to recover. Naturally, she died. It just wasn't meant to be, but it had devastating consequences on the students, they were so convinced that God could not turn them down since they were praying so hard. The administrators said they learned a lesson and how to approach prayer. We may pray, but in the end, we are not the deciders of people's fate, not even our prayers.
I think prayer creates a positive energy that changes the mood and relaxes people. But I don't pray like I used to, head down, shouting out things to God, or mumbling familiar jargon in some hushed tone. Rather, I feel and think within and hope and pray that the creator of all of us feels it too. I don't know if that explains it, but that's what I do now.