The Groundwork of Faith

While three ministers were having a discussion about prayer they began to argue over the most appropriate and effective position for praying. As they were talking, an electrician was hard at work in another corner of the room. One minister stated that he felt the key to good prayer was in the hands. He said that he always held his hands together and pointed his fingers upward toward heaven as a form of symbolic worship. The second minister believed that it was an absolute must to be on your knees for real prayer. The third argued that the only position worth it’s salt was to pray while stretched out flat on one’s face.

Listening intently to what they were saying, the electrician could no longer stay out of the conversation. He walked over to their table and said: “I found that the most powerful prayer I ever made was while I was dangling upside down by my heels from a power pole, 40 feet above the ground.”

I bet that was a heartfelt prayer!

In the Bible people pray standing up, laying down, kneeling, hands folded, hands raised, during times of trouble, times of joy, times of discernment. What matters most is not when or how we pray – but that we pray.

Prayer is simply a conversation with God. It lays the groundwork for faith. It deepens within us gratitude… trust… and peace…, allowing us to operate in life from a more centered sense of being. And then, when we face those more crucial moments, we know exactly where to turn.

Our prayer today was written by my friend Roger Kunkel, founder of Dial Hope. Let us pray: Loving God, help us to trust the journey of life, to believe in your leading, to seek your guidance, to appreciate your will, to follow with joy so we may become that which we have been called to be, your very own. Like dormant seeds in winter soil, we wait for your sunshine and your rain to nourish us, to call us out of the ground and into the light of day with the new hope that comes from your radiant Son, Jesus Christ. We pray in his name. Amen.