#PrayForBoston

Allow me to introduce you to my big brother, Josh, my first ever guest blogger.  He's all grown up now and doing very adult things like buying a house, getting married, doing yard work and going to bed at 8 p.m.  

(Sorry, Josh, an old photo.  But it's all I
 could find of us together!)

He texted me the other morning and said he had some thoughts he needed to get on paper to share with others regarding the crisis in Boston, but Facebook and Twitter's character limit would surely cramp his thoughts.  I said I would welcome his thoughts - and my blog could use the boost anyway.  So, allow this brief commercial break to read some thoughts from my brother.  (After that, we will return to our regularly scheduled programming where I will tell you about my adventures of having my car break down in the middle of Route 23, at which point I felt like half the town of Circleville showed up and I was just waiting for the circus tents and elephants to arrive shortly after them.)    

In the hours since Monday's attack the hashtag #prayforboston has been popular on social media. While in every way we should pray for the physical, emotional and spiritual healing of those afflicted I wonder - who are you praying to? 

Too often our society invokes prayer in times of trouble because that's when we are most needy. I wonder how many of those who prayed for Boston Monday night woke up Tuesday morning and prayed a prayer of thanks for another shot at another day. I fear our nation most often prays to a god of convenience and a god of relativity instead of the God of creation, justification, sanctification, salvation and redemption, the one true God.

It is important to tread lightly on a subject such as this as some might read this and think I'm passing off Monday's events or skimming over them, being calloused. I feel it is just the opposite - I want Monday's events to give pause to our prayer life and examine how we go about communicating with the Lord (or THAT we go about communicating with Him at all!).

In addition to praying for healing of those directly impacted, did you also pray for the healing of a nation which has strayed from God all together?

While giving thanks your loved ones were safe, did you add hope for their protection on Tuesday - or did you just spew those prayers Monday in the wake of what happened and hope it was enough?  Did you toss out a few words of prayer as an SOS, hoping that will somehow cover your backside because in all honesty, you don't remember the last time you talked to Jesus?  Did you flippantly cast up a prayer to the heavens, hoping that somebody or something would hear you?  Each day we wake up is a gift and it's an overwhelming thought to know God not only kept this country from more harm yesterday but that in his infinite mercy He chose to do it all over again yet today.

As the moments since Monday have unfolded, our news feeds have filled up with minute-by-minute updates as more information was available in the aftermath. Our country uttered the old faithful cliche "thoughts and prayers" many times throughout that afternoon and evening. Meanwhile, my mind was plagued by the thought that while our media is busy covering this story as headline news - and surely it was - it simultaneously ignores hundreds of other innocent lives lost everyday to injustices such as abortion, human trafficking, preventable diseases and the like. Dear Lord, let us not forget that every day in this country is as frightful as Monday though our media will not cover it!  We must make sure that we are not lulled into a sense of safety and complacency, for surely every day should be spent praying as fervently as we do in times like these.

So I ask - which God are you praying to? Are you looking to a god of convenience and relativity to heal us or to the God of Peace and Justice? What are you praying for? Are you praying for immediate healing so we can go about our lifestyle of instant gratification and self-indulgence or are you praying for a nation to repent and seek the face of a holy and faithful God? Make sure you pray.  But also make sure you know WHO you are praying to and WHAT you are praying for.