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Jun/091
Jun/091
Prayer
Another interesting graphic on Prayer in America from the Pew Forum:
Prayer in America
I don't pray every day. I'd like to, but I don't think I know how. Either I don't think about it, or if I do I'm not sure what to say. I don't have a habit of prayer, and I'm not sure how to start one. So I guess that fits me nicely into the statistics - looking at those percentages for my sex, age, and income I wouldn't guess I'd pray daily.
July 5th, 2009
Really? I would think that graphic suggests a slightly greater than 50% chance you would pray daily, but I’m estimating your income. I know your age and religious tradition!
I find it interesting that a person who is examing his religious beliefs/searching for a greater commitment to his religion wouldn’t start with prayer. I think this is an assumption/bias I’ve obtained in my own religious upbringing. For us, conversion starts with prayer and ends with commitment. It’s very fundamental to us that without a sense that you have reached God through prayer and found answers that seem to transcend your own understanding there is little point in the many other facets of religious involvement.
I would not be a religious person at all if I hadn’t performed what I call a repeatable but not independently verifiable experiment. You see, I have prayed many times in my life where I sincerely felt God’s presence and communication with me. And my religious tradition teaches me that there is nothing surprising about that and it doesn’t really make my anybody special – God loves all his children and will respond to all who reach out to him with faith and humility.
I call this experiment repeatable because I’ve repeated it many times in my life. I call it independently unverifiable because no one else can replicate the experiment the same way and expect the exact same results. Answers to prayer vary greatly by person.
I’d like to ask you a question – why pray at all? What are your expectations and purposes in approaching God?