THOUGHTS AND PRAYERS

“Maybe I’ll just plug it in and it’ll just work…” said one of the students, referring to a microchip board he was hoping he’d configured correctly.

“I’m praying for that to happen,” said the other, hopefully.

Interesting. People often say they’re praying. When I told my work colleague about my Dad, she typed back that she was sorry and that her ‘thoughts and prayers’ would be with me. So interesting.

Now, I don’t want to assume that these people aren’t actually praying. Let’s give them the benefit of the doubt; they could genuinely be asking God to help me directly, or perhaps to fix their board and save their student project. However, I think it’s much more likely to be a nice or desperate thing to say when ‘hope’ isn’t quite a strong enough idea.

There’s a cheeky part of my brain that always wants to say, ‘Thanks - but to whom?’ when someone who doesn’t believe in God says they’re praying. I never do. I’d get a sort of offended look, I reckon. I mean, it is a bit rude to throw something nice back at someone and turn into a massive question for them. It’s probably better to just say thanks and treat it as a kind gesture, which undoubtedly it always is.

If I think about it though, there’s a glimmer of something deep. It is a kind gesture, or in the case of the students, a desperate hope for a miraculous fix, but it’s also a tacit acknowledgement that hope, thoughts, and wishful thinking… are not enough.

Not enough. Sometimes we need something more. ‘Thinking of you’ isn’t sufficient. Hoping that our project will just work somehow isn’t going to cut the mustard. We need help. We need an intervention beyond our ability, something more, something much more than we can see or hope for. We need God.

Sigh. I’ve probably just lost the atheists. I doubt I can persuade you guys that ‘praying’ is more than a platitude. Perhaps it is just a cultural foible, a leftover like the idea of blessing someone after they sneeze as though we believe they’ve just released a demon, or swearing an oath on a Bible when serving on a jury or something. Fair enough, I suppose. But I guess at least it’s worth considering why we think ‘hope’ or ‘good wishes’ sometimes don’t feel like they’re enough.

Personally, I think there’s only one reason. We need more help than we’re willing to admit, and deep-down the God-shaped hole can’t be filled by anything but him.