WHERE IS GOD WHEN WE PRAY?

12 Feb 2018

WHERE IS GOD WHEN WE PRAY?

The room was full. Various people had gathered there that Sunday morning. Wealthy and not-so-wealthy. Infants in car seats and aged in wheelchairs. Giggly children and stern-faced, weather beaten old folks. Married, single, widowed. Some sang. Some whispered among each other. Others checked their phones, or just gazed with blank stares at whatever caught their eye…or mind.

One gentleman was holding his son. He always holds him. He’s a boy of about four years old. He clings to his dad until it’s time for him and the other kids to leave. While the congregation was standing, facing front, the boy—arms around his dad’s neck, legs dangling on each side—was facing the back. He was lost in his own little world. Or so it seemed. Sometimes his head was up, looking around. Sometimes it was gently leaning on his dad’s shoulder.

Then something interesting happened. The music stopped. The pastor spoke for a moment or two, then said, “Let’s pray.” Just about every head (of the still standing congregation) bowed on cue as if it were something rote or practiced.

But the little boy, still held by his father, with one arm wrapped around his dad’s neck, took his free hand, lifted it up above his head and pointed upward with his little index finger. He didn’t look up, he just pointed up. While the congregation, with heads angled downward listening to the prayer, this boy had his eyes open looking around and was pointing upward. He held his position for the entire prayer. When the pastor said, “Amen,” his little arm came down and wrapped it once again around his dad’s neck.

I didn’t bow my head during the prayer. I didn’t close my eyes. I watched. I was intrigued. I glanced around at the bowed heads. It was almost as if this boy was pointing us upward to our Heavenly Father. Yet we were missing it. Everybody in the room was seemingly downward focused. (Perhaps there was something interesting on the floor?)

I wonder…

Where is our mind when we pray?