#2: Prayer

My book is called “10 Things I Hate About Christianity: Working Through the Frustrations of Faith.” You can click here to read a sample. But what are those 10 things? Today I am talking about the second thing.

Of course, I am not going to post the whole chapter this time. I have to leave some mystery so you’ll buy my book. But I do want to talk about the idea and I’d like you to share your experiences with me on the subject.

#2 is PRAYER.

Pretty much everyone prays. Christians, Jews, Muslims all pray. In my life I have even had an atheist or two ask me to pray for them during a time of crisis. Even agnostics and atheists pray. It might be before crashing into the car in front of them, “God…HELP ME!” But I am convinced at some time and at certain points everyone prays.

Some people pray a lot. They pray long and hard. I have often heard them called ‘prayer warriors.’ Some people pray fairly regularly, just short and to the point. That’s me. These have been called ‘Nehemiah Prayers’ (see the Bible to explain that). Others mostly pray when there is a problem. That’s me too.

I pray and sometimes it makes me mad.

I often wonder if it works. You see, I don’t have things work out exactly like I’ve prayed or even at all most of the time.

Sometimes I think that my morning breath has greater force and effect than my prayers.

This leaves me to wonder:

1. What is prayer?

2. And why should we pray?

These have been some of my reoccurring questions with regard to prayer.

How would you answer them?