Piloting Faith: What is prayer?

A Word for the Day...
One of the great mysteries of 2014 was the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 with 239 people on board. Many days into the search, an Australian military officer got on television to outline the next steps. He basically asked us all to pray. He asked us to pray that God would lead them to the plane.
When the interview ended, the newscasters seemed dumbfounded. Finally one of them said, “We have moved to a new phase where clearly have very few options left if the military officers are asking us to pray.” I understood what he was saying. When the people we count on for action and results are telling us the best option at this point is prayer, it does feel like we are running out of options.
What do you believe about prayer? Why do you pray? What do you believe prayer does in the world?
I have always believed that prayer is a practice that we need more than a practice that God requires. I have never been able to believe that God refuses to intervene in life because you or I have not said a prayer. Instead, I’ve come to understand the power of prayer as a practice that helps us reconnect with the sacred centeredness in us, the quiet place where God can speak and we can hear. Connecting to that sacred space day after day over the span of a lifetime changes the way we live and move and have our being in the world. Prayer changes us; it doesn’t change God.
But I also believe that we have the capacity, through prayer, to tap into a larger energy source (I call that God) where we can collectively channel love so powerfully that it can change the world precisely because it changes the way that we live. I believe we can literally create heaven on earth just as dependably as we have created hell on earth.
Does this sound crazy? As I reread this, I think perhaps it does. Yet my life speaks to its truth. Prayer has changed the way I live and imagine possibilities for our shared life together. But something more powerful happens for me when I am living prayerfully – much like awakening to a sixth sense. You can sense a non-judgmental energy guiding you, urging you on, coaxing you into working towards all of creation’s wholeness.
I’m still not sure what finally I believe about prayer. I don’t know that praying will help us find a plane in a vast ocean. But I do know that the more I ground myself in this beautiful practice, the more comfortable I become in my own skin and the more assured I am that we have capacities for goodness far beyond what we know.
Give it a try today. Try again tomorrow. Maybe even try it the next day. As the Australian military office reminds us, if you have tried everything else in your search, maybe it’s time for a new phase. Let’s pray.
- Rev. Cameron Trimble, author of Piloting Church: Helping Your Congregation Take Flight

Prayer for the Week
Lord, make me an instrument of your peace;
where there is hatred, let me sow love;
where there is injury, pardon;
where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope;
where there is darkness, light;
and where there is sadness, joy.
- St. Francis of Assisi
