For prayer

Comments

1. Tim says

   04/08/2006 at 00:38

   Works a couple of ways
   Good question. I suppose it depends how one sees prayer. Some possibilities:

   a) supplicative: asking God things; insofar as Webster defines prayer *as* supplication, the request could be regarded as a prayer of one’s friends to do something;

   b) several denominations have an understanding & tradition of corporate/collective prayer;

   c) a state of you & God thinking the same thoughts for a time; nothing untoward with asking others to share in this meditative aspect as well.

   …and probably more.

   If it were me asking others to pray, it would be mostly option C: an invitation to share one’s thoughts about the requested topic with God.

   Reply
2. kimberly says

   04/08/2006 at 09:48

   prayer

   And did you pray?

   Do you think it’s any different blogging a prayer request than writing or speaking one? I’m sure there’s an exam question in there somewhere…

    

   Reply
3. Anonymous says

   04/08/2006 at 11:03

   prayer

   I just have this feeling that somwhere out there there is a supposition that if one puts such a request upon a blog, God will jiggle the world about a little bit more in our favour than if the blog post were never made.

   I don’t fancy the consequences of believing in that kind of a god. 

   Reply
4. Brannon Hancock says

   04/08/2006 at 12:41

   it all depends…
   …on whether you regard prayer as something that “influences God” to sympathize with us, see the world from our perspective and realign it according to what we want – or rather, prayer as something which, by our admitting our own weakness, expressing our concern, sharing our burdens, and enlisting the support of others with whom we are in community, serves to influence us to sympathize with one another and realign our perspective so that we glimpse the world as God sees it.

   (I’m going with the latter.)

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5. Tim says

   04/08/2006 at 14:38

   I can see that one potential consequence is that God’s nature and actions would be influenced by the biggest group / those who could shout loudest. Agreed, definitely don’t want that.

   And Brannon is onto something with realigning perspective. That gels nicely with my `meditative’.

   Reply
6. Kimberly says

   04/08/2006 at 17:22

   prayer

   Maybe it isn’t so much God jiggling the world around in our favour as God jiggling us around in God’s favour (which is slightly different to what Brandon is suggesting, if I’ve understood him correctly.)

   So — maybe by joining in the prayer, we are better able to see God in the situation and better able to embody God in the situation in such a way that the person asking for prayer can better see God too.

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7. Anonymous says

   04/08/2006 at 22:46

   Jiggling
   Perhaps, just perhaps, I have less trouble with a Jiggling God than with the expectations of those who expect God to Jiggle for Them.

   Reply
8. Ruth says

   05/08/2006 at 11:02

   Oooh, I like the idea of a Jiggling God.

   I reckon that if we are going to ask God to Jiggle for Us we ought to always add a little proviso… Thy will be done. 

   Reply
9. Brannon Hancock says

   06/08/2006 at 01:36

   hmmm…
   Is a Jiggling God anything like a ?

   Kimberly: I don’t think your point about “jiggling us around in God’s favor” differs from what I was trying, rather cryptically, I now realize, to express…

   And I’m with Kelvin…people who treat God like their cosmic sugar-daddy are scary.

   (Maybe that’s why I’m not a big sports fan…all those teams praying for victory…how does God deal with that?)

   Reply
10. Brannon Hancock says

    06/08/2006 at 01:38

    drat!

    my hyperlink didn’t work!  arg.

    Trying again for the Jesus Bobble-Head…aka, Jiggling God(-in-Flesh)

    Reply