What if you turned your prayers upside down?
What if instead of praying for others to change, we prayed change for ourselves?
What if instead of praying God would purpose us, we prayed purpose in him?
What if instead of praying for God to accept our will, we prayed acceptance of his?
All too often I get caught up in prescriptive prayers.
I fill my prayers with caring wishes for friends in critical hours.
I express angst for my anguish, apprehension for my anxiety.
I say “Thank you” for my blessings, “I’m sorry” for my sins.
Most of us do.
55% of us pray every day, according to Pew Research Center. Only 21% of us never do.
The older pray more than the young.
Women pray more than men.
If nearly 80% are praying what do we pray and how?
LifeWay Research gives us a top five list of what we pray for:
- Family and friends (82%)
- Our own problems and difficulties (74%)
- Gratitude for good things (54%)
- Confession of our own sin (42%)
- Victims of disasters (38%)
Seems about right, doesn’t it?
But is it?
What if we turned that top five around?
What if we pray from the bottom up?
Let’s pray for the disaster of sin in the world, for the guarded hearts that lie wounded in brokenness, for the collapsing hope that chases away light, for the rubble we create when we look away unmoved.
Let’s pray for the inside of ourselves, bruises that stretch across our memories, baggage that stays tightly packed, boundaries we violently cross, daily. Let’s pray for the Physician to inaugurate a healing, a reverie, a brand new heart with less sin, less stone.
Let’s pray for the true graces from his hand. Not just the sky of sunshine and the friends gathered round, but the beauty that rose from the ashes and for the ashes themselves. Without the suffering we can feel no spring. We can thank him for the sorrow too.
Let’s pray for those places where our lives are cracking and ask him, exposed, to break us open not break us apart. Let’s let him rain on us however he wants knowing that there’s a point to our walk through the foggy forests and floods.
Let’s pray for the people who come around us in community that we would have one agenda, be one picture of Christ. Let’s pray for the increase of the image and for the decrease of the discord. That in us, and through us and all in between, that Christ would be glorified, realized, seen.
What if we prayed upside down?
Less expressing. More encountering.
Less speaking. More believing.
Less uttering. More unifying.
Less tallying. More trusting.
Less striving. More surrender.
When we come to God in prayer he wants our needs, but more he wants our very selves. When we come to God in communion, not just communication, we turn prayer upside down.
What is your upside-down prayer for today?
Michael Lipka, “5 Facts About Prayer,” PewResearch.org, May 6, 2015, http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2015/05/06/5-facts-about-prayer/, Accessed October 8, 2015.
Bob Smietana, “Americans Pray for Friends and Family, but Rarely for Celebrities or Sports Teams,” LifewayResearch.com, October 1, 2014, http://www.lifewayresearch.com/2014/10/01/americansprayforfriendsandfamily-2/, Accessed October 8, 2015.
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