When a tragedy like a school shooting or a natural disaster happen, people feel helpless. They wonder what can be done and look for solutions. Then a cycle begins that repeats itself every tragedy.
Often they look for someone to blame. One group sincerely believes the answer is a simple, practical one. They propose legislation and new government regulations. They shame anyone who disagrees as callous and uncaring.
And when someone responds to the tragedy with their “thoughts and prayers”, they pounce on the uselessness of those two words. They see this as avoiding responsibility.
But the ones who offer their prayers honestly feel the answer to most tragedies is beyond anything they can fix. They know not even an act of congress can change the human heart, and cruel hearts are where tragedy is born. So they admit their weakness, bow their heads, and go to the one Person they believe can actually do something about it.
When they see someone affected by that tragedy, they offer their sincere thoughts and prayers. Because that’s all they know to do that will make any difference.
I know some believe that praying is just floating a few niceties in leu of actually taking action. They say things like, “You can keep your hypocritical thoughts and prayers to yourself! Shame on you for not doing more!” To them, “doing more” means signing on to their own radical agenda, usually by supporting a highly partizan political non-solution.
How arrogant we’ve become, that we assume every problem has such an easy fix! Instead of acting to help social problems, we pretend our vote is all that’s needed. So we watch the homeless and never roll up our sleeves to help, we see children overcrowding a foster system and never offer our homes.
We actually do NOTHING, and them shame others for not adopting our empty symbolic gestures.
We’re as silly as Job, standing before a God of unknowable depth and demanding an explanation for why something bad happened. When people with greater minds than ours have struggled for centuries looking for unfathomable answers about why evil exists, we arrogantly think we’ve got it all figured out!
I know something about that helplessness people feel when tragedy strikes. It’s something I get to see a little too often as a pastor. There are times I feel completely useless praying for a patient’s healing in the hospital, when all indications are they are going to pass away.
I visited a pastor in the hospital once. His 7 year old son was a healthy active boy until late the previous summer. As I sat by the boy’s bed where he now lays unresponsive and moaning, the dad tells me how a few months ago something in the boy’s body began attacking his brain. His sickness came of nowhere with no obvious cause.
Now this little boy who was playing ball last year can’t even tell his dad what hurts. That father now has him back home as they pray for a miracle but also wait for what the doctors say is the inevitable.
I’ll be honest. I had no idea what to say, much less what to pray. But praying is what I’ve been doing ever since I left that hospital room, and each time I see the father’s updates on Facebook.
What about meditation? No thanks. Meditation only helps you accept the way things are. When someone’s son is dying they don’t want acceptance, they want intervention.
So when I’m overwhelmed and powerless to fix a problem, I pray. My prayers ask God to intervene, believing that He can, but I do not presume to tell Him how or when. And I trust it with Him, knowing that the answer to my prayer may indeed come back as “no”. But if anyone can do something, He’s the one.
Sadly, people without faith can not understand the importance of prayer.
It is not an imaginary exercise.
It is not avoiding responsibility to take action.
In an age of hubris and self-empowerment, it acknowledges you don’t possess the power to change some things.
Prayer is humbling yourself before the One who is greater than you, and acknowledging His ultimate control beyond your own.
It is seeking to change things by contacting the only One who truly can affect change in any situation, no matter how bad.
So just a piece of advice: you might want to be nice to some of us thoughts-and-prayers folks. When you’ve run out of easy answers one day, you might find yourself wishing you could find one of them.
God forbid that one day the doctor gives you those test results you were hoping never to hear. Or you get that call about your kids in the middle of the night. Or some other overwhelming situation overtakes you that you feel powerless to face alone.
Or when a world-wide pandemic hits that no man has the power to fix.
Or when it’s your kid’s school on lockdown.
That’s when you might see the wisdom in shutting up about your favorite political solution. It’s about that time you might just want a few of those prayers for yourself. And I’ll bet you won’t be reminding me how ineffective #thoughtsandprayers are.
Know that when I pray for you, I’m doing the most powerful, effective thing I know how to do. So just in case, here are my thoughts and prayers for you that God protects you from any of those tragedies I mentioned. That’s the very best I’ve got.
You’re welcome.
