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Oh God, help - an extract from Godbothering
Why bother with God? Do you know what matters in life? What are the limits of kindness? Why doesn’t God intervene? What are you worth? For twenty years, bestselling novelist Rhidian Brook has pondered such questions on Radio 4's Thought for the Day. 100 of his thoughts have been recently published in his book Godbothering. We're sharing one of these thoughts in this blog post which is on the subject of praying in uncertain times.
Oh God, help
It is said that in times of great uncertainty people pray more, so we
can assume the lines are jammed right now. With a recent report,
from the Thinktank Theos, suggesting that praying together is good
for us whether we believe prayer ‘works’ or not, maybe we should all
be looking for somewhere to pray and someone to pray with.
Twenty years ago, a friend of mine started a prayer group that
met every Friday in his garden shed. Over the years the sheds and
heads have changed, but the group still meets. In 20 years you end
up praying through a lot of wars, government collapses, stock market
crashes and England football fiascos. Were all our prayers for
peace and stability answered? Clearly not. Did we carry on praying?
Yes. 20 years has also seen a lot of prayers for help and healing
shot out from sheds, front rooms and allotments; was every single
request met? Not really. There was a man we prayed for who came
out of a coma, but there was also the mother of two who didn’t
come through the cancer. Did we give up praying after that? Of
course not.
In its widest sense, prayer is a universal human activity, as elemental
as breathing. For some it springs from a yearning far deeper than
simply needing to get stuff we want. We know (unless we’re deluded)
that we can never completely control our personal lives or events in
the world. We thus bridge the gap between what we can do and what
is done to us by wishing, longing, despairing and hoping. All of these
can be forms of prayer.
We might pray because we are grateful or we might pray because
we are desperate, but we still pray. As Abraham Lincoln said, ‘I’m
driven to my knees by the overwhelming conviction that I have nowhere
else to go.’ At its most basic, we utter prayers in the hope that
there is something good underpinning all of life, something at the
core of existence that can bring stability to our wobbly lives in this
volatile world.
These prayers don’t have to be long or eloquent and maybe don’t
even require great faith. My friend’s preferred prayers were usually
‘Oh God, Help!’ and ‘Jesus, please do something!’ Jesus himself said
the shorter our prayers the better. When the disciples asked him how
to pray, he gave them the Lord’s Prayer, one of pithiest mixes of poetry
and practicality ever uttered. Be thankful, be direct and bring
your requests, but do it all with a confidence and hope that prayers,
whether offered up from sheds or cars, cathedrals or beds, do not go
out and come back void, but are heard by a God who is a very present
help in times of trouble.
29.6.2016
Over 100 of Rhidian Brook's Thoughts are presented here, forming a kind of alternative history of the 21st century, and inviting us to reflect on the deeper spiritual dimensions of our lives and times.
Learn more >>
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