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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Prayer for the mundane.
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balaam
Making an ass of myself
# 4543
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Posted
To narrow things down, I'm talking about supplication here, praying for stuff.
There are always big things to pray about, things that are beyond our control that the only thing we can do is turn it over to God to deal with, but what about things within our power?
Should we be praying about the chocolate bar we want when we have money in our pockets and the shop is ten minutes away. Or for that elusive parking place, or that the screaming child in the same train carriage will be quiet (we could ask to help).
Should we concern God with the small stuff?
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Posts: 9049 | From: Hen Ogledd | Registered: May 2003
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Brenda Clough
Shipmate
# 18061
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Posted
I believe it was the Pharisees (unless it was the Saduccees) who held that one should not pray to God more than five times a day. I assume that his email box would get too full, or his Twitter feed would clog. I do not think that God's server is so limited.
We are told to pray like children. I can think of nothing more childish than praying for a chocolate bar. (Salted caramels are also acceptable, Lord, just in case you have any to spare.)
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Science fiction and fantasy writer with a Patreon page
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balaam
Making an ass of myself
# 4543
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Posted
But is there a difference between childlike and childish?
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Posts: 9049 | From: Hen Ogledd | Registered: May 2003
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Doublethink.
Ship's Foolwise Unperson
# 1984
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Posted
I suspect it is intended to be the difference between trusting innocence and immature triviality.
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All political thinking for years past has been vitiated in the same way. People can foresee the future only when it coincides with their own wishes, and the most grossly obvious facts can be ignored when they are unwelcome. George Orwell
Posts: 19219 | From: Erehwon | Registered: Aug 2005
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Kelly Alves
Bunny with an axe
# 2522
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Posted
I think St Francis or St Therese would say we should load up a lot of our prayer time with praise for the mundane. Other than that, I don't think God will fault anyone the occasional, conversational " Please let the line be short"
God knows how mundane thing can fling themselves into the focus of our attention. Maybe praying about them is less about getting what you want and more based on the simple desire to have a sense that someone is in on the mundane struggles with you.
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I cannot expect people to believe “
Jesus loves me, this I know” of they don’t believe “Kelly loves me, this I know.”
Kelly Alves, somewhere around 2003.
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Raptor Eye
Shipmate
# 16649
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Posted
Pray without ceasing, said Paul (Thess. 5:17).
This means that in everything we pray, in the sense of inviting God in through conscious focus and sensitivity to the presence of the Holy Spirit. We will be guided, so that God will help us to serve in the small everyday things and not only by giving us an obvious audience.
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Be still, and know that I am God! Psalm 46.10
Posts: 4359 | From: The United Kingdom | Registered: Sep 2011
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by balaam:
... Should we be praying about the chocolate bar we want when we have money in our pockets and the shop is ten minutes away. Or for that elusive parking place, or that the screaming child in the same train carriage will be quiet (we could ask to help).
Should we concern God with the small stuff?
We should pray about why we are concerned about such trivia. Go for the deconstruction. The metanarrative. Confess our pathetic frailty and weakness that drives us to superstitious impulse, lay all this nonsense at the foot of the cross and seek head space, enlightenment and mercy from ourselves to ourselves for our foolishness.
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Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
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ChastMastr
Shipmate
# 716
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by balaam:
Should we be praying about the chocolate bar we want when we have money in our pockets and the shop is ten minutes away. Or for that elusive parking place, or that the screaming child in the same train carriage will be quiet (we could ask to help).
Should we concern God with the small stuff?
Why not? It's not like there's a queue or a need for Divine prayer triage.
quote:
Originally posted by balaam:
But is there a difference between childlike and childish?
Yes.
quote:
Originally posted by Martin60:
We should pray about why we are concerned about such trivia. Go for the deconstruction. The metanarrative. Confess our pathetic frailty and weakness that drives us to superstitious impulse, lay all this nonsense at the foot of the cross and seek head space, enlightenment and mercy from ourselves to ourselves for our foolishness.
If it bothers you personally, of course you should ask Him for guidance in such matters, but I think asking Him about the small things and the big things are just fine, and not "superstitious" in any negative sense, nor nonsense nor foolishness. God cares about atoms. It's OK to ask Him about a chocolate bar. ![[Smile]](smile.gif)
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My essays on comics continuity: http://chastmastr.tumblr.com/tagged/continuity
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Jengie jon
Semper Reformanda
# 273
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Posted
Let me turn it round the other way. Do you remember what the master says to the faithful servants in the parable of the talents?
Well let me ask how you will manage to trust God with big things if you do not trust him with small?
The snag is that unfortunately when you pray about things you have to get used to God expecting you to do your thing, such as walk to the shop or help with the crying child. Also remember to thank God when he plays his part. It is good manners after all.
The habits and ways of interacting with God that develop around praying for small things are the preparation of the soil of our lives for the planting that will allow us to bear much fruit.
Jengie
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"To violate a persons ability to distinguish fact from fantasy is the epistemological equivalent of rape." Noretta Koertge
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Posts: 20894 | From: city of steel, butterflies and rainbows | Registered: May 2001
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Lamb Chopped
Ship's kebab
# 5528
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Posted
A question worth asking, maybe--
do we not want to ask for tiny and embarrassing things because God is too important?
Or because we are?
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Er, this is what I've been up to (book).
Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down!
Posts: 20059 | From: off in left field somewhere | Registered: Feb 2004
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Brenda Clough
Shipmate
# 18061
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Posted
If God does not want me to pray about an issue, there is an easy way for Him to ensure that I do not. No, not the Jovian thunderbolt from on high. But there are masses of things, possibly most things, that simply do not rise to my attention. A good example: toenails. My toenails are fine. I don't pray about them, because they do not obtrude themselves upon my attention. If they did -- anything from stubbing on the cat to ingrown nail to broken digit and on up to cancer and amputation -- I am sure prayer would be one of the many things I would resort to.
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no prophet's flag is set so...
Proceed to see sea
# 15560
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Jengie jon:
Let me turn it round the other way. Do you remember what the master says to the faithful servants in the parable of the talents?
Well let me ask how you will manage to trust God with big things if you do not trust him with small?
The snag is that unfortunately when you pray about things you have to get used to God expecting you to do your thing, such as walk to the shop or help with the crying child. Also remember to thank God when he plays his part. It is good manners after all.
The habits and ways of interacting with God that develop around praying for small things are the preparation of the soil of our lives for the planting that will allow us to bear much fruit.
Jengie
The sometimes-present-god we pray to may ignore the prayers for the important as well as the mundane. I fear that the harvest from the soil when praying for the mundane (the parking space, the chocolate bar, the turning of a traffic light etc), creates superstitious thinking and a personal Jesus who isn't really so personal. Or perhaps others have a better friend in Jesus than I?
Reportedly, Jesus healed a few special people while he strolled the earth, more often the lucky few who were simply in the right place at the right time. Many others retained their leprosy, illness, brokenness, suffering, and sorrow, having been at the back of the crowd or unacquainted with disciples and hangers on who could've done the introductions. Unless I am mistaken, most of us retain our leprosy, illness, brokenness, suffering, and sorrow. The praying merely helps us to be present with Jesus, as he might be be present with us.
I also fear the mundane prayers of the chocolate bar variety sound ridiculous to the nonChristian, so if they are being made, perhaps best be done quietly.
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Out of this nettle, danger, we pluck this flower, safety.
\_(ツ)_/
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Jengie jon
Semper Reformanda
# 273
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Posted
One of the biggest struggles with prayer is to deal with the capricious nature of God. We cannot control God. We must learn this with the small so we are prepared for the big. However, if rather than be disappointed we do not ask, does that not suggest a reluctance to relate?
The problem is that the majority of the time God does not answer with a "yes" or "no" but with an engagement. In my experience what I came with is only the presenting problem and God as often as not has other ideas about what is really the issue.
Jengie
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"To violate a persons ability to distinguish fact from fantasy is the epistemological equivalent of rape." Noretta Koertge
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Posts: 20894 | From: city of steel, butterflies and rainbows | Registered: May 2001
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no prophet's flag is set so...
Proceed to see sea
# 15560
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Posted
I'm of the thinking that the best prayer of asking is to request "thy will, not my will, be done". With the closest to mentioning the mundane being along the lines of "I feel troubled about Mars Bars just now" perhaps attached to the "your will, not mine" part, and perhaps examining oneself as to the types of trivial things that dominate one's thoughts, particularly as focussed on the self over a focus on others.
When you say a reluctance to relate, I presume you means God's reluctance to relate to us? I would agree.
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Out of this nettle, danger, we pluck this flower, safety.
\_(ツ)_/
Posts: 11498 | From: Treaty 6 territory in the nonexistant Province of Buffalo, Canada ↄ⃝' | Registered: Mar 2010
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ChastMastr
Shipmate
# 716
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by no prophet's flag is set so...:
The sometimes-present-god we pray to
I don't pray to that sort of god. I pray to a God Who is always present whether I feel like He is there or not.
quote:
may ignore the prayers for the important as well as the mundane.
I don't believe He ignores anything. His answer, though, may be "no" or perhaps more often "not yet."
quote:
I fear that the harvest from the soil when praying for the mundane (the parking space, the chocolate bar, the turning of a traffic light etc), creates superstitious thinking and a personal Jesus who isn't really so personal.
Not sure what "superstitious" means in this context. I think Jesus is more personal than we can possibly imagine.
quote:
Or perhaps others have a better friend in Jesus than I?
I don't think He treats people like that. <3
quote:
Reportedly, Jesus healed a few special people while he strolled the earth
Jesus heals everyone throughout all time and space; doing it via direct, more obvious (to us) miracle while on Earth is no more Him doing it than Him doing it the ordinary way through providence. I think most of the time we're praying for Him to work via providence rather than something special-effecty.
quote:
Unless I am mistaken, most of us retain our leprosy, illness, brokenness, suffering, and sorrow.
But all will be healed in the end, at least (in the case of brokenness and sorrow) if we allow it.
quote:
The praying merely helps us to be present with Jesus, as he might be be present with us.
I'd be very careful with using words like "merely" in general, especially with regard to God. I don't think anything He does is "merely" one thing or another.
quote:
I also fear the mundane prayers of the chocolate bar variety sound ridiculous to the nonChristian, so if they are being made, perhaps best be done quietly.
I definitely don't agree with this. We want people to see who we really are and what we really believe, not hide things. Perhaps especially if it's something important, like being childlike, rather than acting as if God can only be involved in our lives for things we consider "big."
quote:
Originally posted by no prophet's flag is set so...:
When you say a reluctance to relate, I presume you means God's reluctance to relate to us? I would agree.
I don't believe God is reluctant to relate to us at all; rather the reverse.
[ 21. October 2014, 19:05: Message edited by: ChastMastr ]
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My essays on comics continuity: http://chastmastr.tumblr.com/tagged/continuity
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Jengie jon
Semper Reformanda
# 273
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Posted
No, relationship always entails openness to being changed by the other; whether the other is a friend, your spouse or God. Superstition occurs when we think we can predict how God behaves (whether that is over nice things or bad things). It is in essence a denail of God being God. I happen to believe God wants real relationship but most of us are not up for it (self often included).
The thing is that most of us are willing to relate to God provided God behaves how we feel God ought to behave. We want God to have the same priorities that we have really. We want a predictable God that we can control. I do not think that God accepts relationship on those terms. It would be foolish of a human to do it because they never could be themselves within such a relationship. This does not matter if you want the horrid hellfire disciplinarian God, the absentee could not care less God or the sugar daddy God.
The "thy will not mine" sounds plausible but it is still a refusal to allow the other to change you. Rather than face up to the conflict between your will and God's you are just denying it. The problem is that real relationship only comes through the meeting of wills. That means that it is no longer about me asking and God delivering but a realisation that God asks of me as well. In the learning to respond to that request, and I do not believe God always even desires an automatic yes, is the transformation of the will.
Jengie
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"To violate a persons ability to distinguish fact from fantasy is the epistemological equivalent of rape." Noretta Koertge
Back to my blog
Posts: 20894 | From: city of steel, butterflies and rainbows | Registered: May 2001
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no prophet's flag is set so...
Proceed to see sea
# 15560
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Posted
If one is in church, quietly, earnestly, praying, and there is a desire for some connection with God, these ideas hold; I've had some rather persuasive experiences which I question more and more following less organized life experience. No, these ideas do not hold at the accident scene nor the crime aftermath, and I don't think they hold on the battlefield and they didn't in the death camps.
I think William Blake had it right (from the Poem to Nobodaddy):
quote:
Why art thou silent & invisible
Father of jealousy
Why dost thou hide thyself in clouds
From every searching Eye
Why darkness & obscurity
In all thy words & laws
Perhaps it is another thread, but I hold that God is reluctant to relate as much as we are created in God's image.
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Out of this nettle, danger, we pluck this flower, safety.
\_(ツ)_/
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ChastMastr
Shipmate
# 716
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by no prophet's flag is set so...:
No, these ideas do not hold at the accident scene nor the crime aftermath, and I don't think they hold on the battlefield and they didn't in the death camps.
Different people have had different experiences in all of these situations.
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My essays on comics continuity: http://chastmastr.tumblr.com/tagged/continuity
Posts: 14068 | From: Clearwater, Florida | Registered: Jul 2001
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
He nods and smiles and shakes His head and cries silently and reaches out His hand and mimes slapping His thighs and beckons with both hands and silently applauds and mouths 'YES!!!', 'Come on, come on, COME ON!', in the dark, in the window across the way, in the cold foggy park, behind us. And sighs and raises an eyebrow and does what friends do. And yearns.
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Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
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rolyn
Shipmate
# 16840
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Posted
In the seemingly mundane there can reside the great, the wonderful, the exciting. In the seemingly great, wonderful and exciting can reside absolutely nothing at all. Therefore it makes sense to pray for the mundane.
Not sure about asking for it to rain choc bars, sounds too much like King Midas asking for everything he touched to be turned into gold. All very fine until he realised he couldn't eat gold.
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Change is the only certainty of existence
Posts: 3206 | From: U.K. | Registered: Dec 2011
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Lamb Chopped
Ship's kebab
# 5528
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Posted
I am working on telling God the truth more often, instead of half-consciously telling him what I think he WANTS to hear from me (you know, reputation management--the kind of little voice in your head that tells you NOT to discuss your embarrassing medical problems in the work lunchroom).
Since God knows perfectly well that I'm consumed with desire for an available toilet or chocolate bar or parking space, I might as well admit it and let him deal with it. It's no use trying to fool him if I have improper or inordinate desires. Better just to say it and get it over with--and give him the chance to say "No" and even "What were you thinking?" if necessary. ![[Hot and Hormonal]](icon_redface.gif)
Plus, isn't it sort of an (unintended) insult to God to refuse to mention some consuming care to him, even if it's silly? It's sort of like saying, "I don't trust you enough to show you my broken and embarrassing side." He knows about it already, but there's a difference between knowing because of divine omniscience and knowing because we have intentionally trusted him enough to mention it in prayer. The second builds the relationship.
If you don't mind the analogy--it's sort of like getting naked in front of someone when you feel ugly or ashamed of certain bits. That person may know your body perfectly well already (shared room, locker room, etc.), but actually intentionally showing an ugly scar or embarrassing stretch marks is a different matter. It says "I trust you not to reject me."
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Er, this is what I've been up to (book).
Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down!
Posts: 20059 | From: off in left field somewhere | Registered: Feb 2004
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rolyn
Shipmate
# 16840
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Posted
Your analogy is a sound one LC, I also think the -"I trust You not to reject me"- is very close to the absolute apex of relationship with God.
A lot of the *white noise criticism* that can go on in our heads doesn't come from God but from other sources. If we practice openness to God, not necessarily in a prayer room with others present nor on a forum, but in the quietness of our own hearts, then it's hard to see rejection could ever would lie at the end of it.
Coming back to the mundane or the trivial. Maybe if we acknowledge God in these then ultimately we will see him/her in the bigger picture --that being the sum total of our lives, no matter how big or how small we perceive that amount to be.
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Change is the only certainty of existence
Posts: 3206 | From: U.K. | Registered: Dec 2011
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TurquoiseTastic
Fish of a different color
# 8978
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Posted
LC as ever is very wise. My feeling is that if something is important for you to worry about, it's important enough for you to pray about. Even if the answer to the prayer is a dawning realisation that perhaps that Mars bar isn't the most important thing in the world after all.
Posts: 1092 | From: Hants., UK | Registered: Jan 2005
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Lamb Chopped
Ship's kebab
# 5528
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Posted
I rely really heavily on that verse where Jesus says, "Whoever comes to me I will never drive away." Though I've told him a few times he has terrible taste.
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Er, this is what I've been up to (book).
Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down!
Posts: 20059 | From: off in left field somewhere | Registered: Feb 2004
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Pancho
Shipmate
# 13533
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Posted
I think the mundane is very underrated. It's where a lot of growth happens but people don't realize this. For example, praying about a long line at the bank or a chocolate bar at the corner store can lead one to exercise the virtues of patience and fortitude or generosity. It's related to what Jesus says in the Gospel of St. Luke, if you're faithful in faithful in little things you will be faithful in large ones.
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“But to what shall I compare this generation? It is like children sitting in the market places and calling to their playmates, ‘We piped to you, and you did not dance;
we wailed, and you did not mourn.’"
Posts: 1988 | From: Alta California | Registered: Mar 2008
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Kelly Alves
Bunny with an axe
# 2522
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Posted
Still a topic of interest when the Kempistry board closed, so transferring to Ecclesiantics for further discussion.
Kelly Alves, Admin/ Kempistry Host.
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I cannot expect people to believe “
Jesus loves me, this I know” of they don’t believe “Kelly loves me, this I know.”
Kelly Alves, somewhere around 2003.
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