1 Peter 3:12 For the eyes of the Lord are over the righteous, and his ears are open unto their prayers: I believe that every day miracles are performed in our world that can be linked back to the days of Christ. His teachings, his commands upon us, the results of his life and times, his miracles impact our world as significantly today as when he walked the earth. In my opinion, prayer is one of those miracles. According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, this is the definition of the word, miracle: "an extraordinary event manifesting divine intervention in human affairs." Almost every time I sit in church I look around at the pews and take in the sight of hundreds of people engaging in simultaneous prayer. It inspires me. Then I expand the scope of my vision to include the rest of the city of Toronto; then I consider the time zone I live in, the population of the eastern seaboard and then I include the South American Continent, their great and heavily populated Christian cities, and I arrive at estimates of people in church, engaged in prayer, precisely or close to the same time as me to be in the hundreds of millions. Then I broaden that thought to include the entire world and try to wrap my brain around billions of people praying in different time zones, deeply engaged in the Christian tradition of community prayer and worship. Each time I do it boggles my mind. Ok, yes church can get boring for me and my mind can wander. But at least it wanders in the right direction. Click "Read More" to the right to continue.... Imagine, for a moment, the tremendous energy created each Sunday by Christians in prayer. Imagine the wealth of goodness that flows from this phenomenon that permeates every segment of our society: how we conduct our daily lives, our moral compass, how we treat others, how we react to evil, war, climate change, animals, plants; how we vote in elections, how we raise our kids – the great power of billions of people collectively sending out messages of prayer and hope into the universe is immeasurable.
We all know there is power in prayer. But how much power is generated by a billion, two billion prayers? I also take a look around my congregation and notice individuals engaged in prayer. I think of their troubles and try to imagine the context of their prayers. And sometimes I think about prayer services where clergy or monks will pray for people or about groups of people who agree to pray for a loved one or for strangers who may be in need of love and prayer assistance And I do the math and again: billions of prayers each and every day are released into the universe and into the ears of Christ and as I believe, somehow, they have an impact on the minds and hearts of everyone. Aside from being encouraged by Christ to pray, why do we pray? What is the purpose and what is the benefit? Hope. That is all prayer can do, actually. Prayer is one of the ways we anchor ourselves to Christ, to our faith, to each other; and as the tide takes out our prayer it returns with hope that we hold close to our hearts, that we hang onto as despair surrounds us. Hope is our greatest strength in life. It is a soft but formidable sword. Each Sunday billions of people engage in prayer that brings untold hope to the world. To me, that makes praying a divine act; it intervenes and impacts society. So, according to the dictionary, prayer meets the criteria of a miracle. It is a modern day miracle that happens all around us every minute of every day, thanks to a spinning world and changing time zones and to our adherence to the wishes of Christ. Try to imagine the power generated from this miracle, the great hope it has provided over the ages and gives to us right now, this second, and will continue to give in the centuries to come. The next time you are sitting in church and the minister calls out to bow your head in prayer, remember that hundreds of millions of Christians are doing that exact same thing, at the exact same time as you. And feel the miracle, the power of the community of prayer that you belong to and know the goodness that it brings to the world.
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