On Prayer

Is it just me, or has the world become a lot scarier in 2015?

Last night before I went to bed, I sent my final tweet of the night. In it, I explained how I can barely watch the news anymore. I can barely watch the news anymore, because it seems that all that graces my TV when I turn it on is hatred. Or fear. Or anger.

We’re living in a visceral world. It’s a world filled with a lot of hurt and anger and confusion.

I spend a lot of time on social media for my career. In the last few weeks, my eyes have been stunned by posts and headlines denouncing the power of prayer to solve the world’s problems. The New York Daily Post went so far as to run a front page headline after last week’s San Bernandino shootings reading, “God Isn’t Fixing This.”

While the New York Daily Post’s headline was a clear push towards the need for gun control or gun reform in America, the sentiments on the page have been echoed elsewhere frequently as of late. “Prayer is not enough.” “Take your prayer, I’ll take my guns.”

I have a hard time with those sentiments. I have a hard time with those sentiments, because they signal that God is not enough to overcome this world and its problems. If God isn’t enough, then what is? If we give way to fear and let it control our ability to “solve” this world’s problems, how much worse might this Earth look?

When it comes to the power of prayer, I can only speak to personal experience. And in my personal experience, every one of my prayers has been answered. Literally. Some have been answered favorably, others have been met with resounding “No’s.”

The thing, though, is that when I reflect on my life, the times in which I have put my full trust in Him are the times in which my life has been met with the greatest ease and peace.

Just last week I prayed a huge, great prayer. It was a prayer for something personal that was burdening my heart. It was an issue that had been looming for literally years that I had worried about often. Yet, it was only last Sunday that I realized I had never prayed about the issue. For as many tears as I had shed about it and as much as it kept me up at night, I never asked God for His help.

So last Sunday night, in tears, I prayed. I prayed a true, honest prayer and laid out my petition to God. Less than 24-hours later, my prayer was answer. My burdens and worries were carried away. A new day arose.

I’ve never lost a loved one to gun violence or war or malnutrition or injustice. So I know that the above might sound smug and insensitive. Please know, that is not my intention. My intention, rather, is to merely defend the power of prayer. I can defend the power of prayer, because I have seen firsthand the effects of it.

I have seen my life restored when I thought it was on the brink of destruction. I have seen joy restored in places that were only filled with darkness. I have seen kindness arise in the least likely of sources. I cannot attribute any of this to chance or circumstance. Rather, I can only attribute it to prayer.

It’s easy to say “God Isn’t Fixing This” about the rising, growing, potentially catastrophic problems this world is facing. When you know the God I know, though, you recognize that is wrong. To me, God is love. And what this world needs more than anything right now is love.

And so tonight, it is love for the world that I will pray for, because that’s the only thing that’s fixing this.