Warning!

Photo by Carie Rickenbrode Turner

 Church worship bulletins, websites, and all other ecclesial communications should contain a bold warning: Prayer is a dangerous undertaking. Those who regularly engage in its practice do so at their own risk. 

Most of the time, it’s subtle. You won't notice the ground shaking at first. You'll just be carrying on a conversation with God. Your part of the conversation might be thanksgiving, intercession, or even personal plea. 

The risk you're taking by your engagement in it, is that something's going to change. Not only that, but you never know what – or even who – that will be. You won’t know when or how either. 

If that doesn't have you quaking in your kicks – falling off your Sunday-best shoes – there's an even bigger jeopardy: No matter what you think needs to change and no matter how effectively you lay out a plan for something or someone else to change, if you keep at it, the change happens in you. 

You! You, who are fervently pleading your case to the divine, already on the way toward God through religious practice, if not faith; you’re the one who’s going to change. 

Wait for it. Maybe you don't want to watch for it. Just be patient, and keep asking and listening; always listening. 

First, it might be your thanksgiving that grows, as you become more attentive to the ways the whole world is stitched together by grace. Perhaps your intercessions also expand, and instead of feeling overwhelmed by the world's gaping maw of need, you feel more secure in doing what you can and being who you are, nothing less and nothing more; because you realize that God’s in charge and not you. 

As for your pleas, maybe it's prayer's vista that nudges your expectations closer to God's, as you find strength and peace in surrender. Maybe you recognize that regularly peeking through God’s glasses gives you a much broader view of all that’s right with the world, and also gives you courage to call out our own cultural and systemic injustices that tilt creation toward fear and away from hope.

Yep, there should definitely be a warning. And now that you’ve heard my version, I hope you and I will have the courage to throw caution to the Spirit and risk it all anyway; to take a leap of faith, placing our hope in the infinity of divine love. 

Pray on, surrender onward, hope upward.

© 2015 Todd Jenkins