O Lord, mercifully receive the prayers of your people who call upon you, and grant that they may know and understand what things they ought to do, and also may have grace and power faithfully to accomplish them; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.
In the Episcopal Church, we use a different prayer to begin worship each week. It's called a collect, and this is today's. It touches me deeply this week, for some reason. We ask God to receive our prayers. Not to grant our requests, like a vending machine. We ask that God will grant that we will know what we are to do, and that we will have the grace and power to do them.
When we're children, we ask our parents for things, or permission to do something. They may say yes, or they may know that what we are asking for is not a good idea. In that case, they may just say no, or they may try to help us understand their reasoning, to help us learn to make healthy decisions.
Wouldn't it be awesome if prayer worked like that - if we could have those kinds of conversations with God? How would it be if we prayed for something and God replied in words we could understand, right away? "I know you're praying for x, but if you think about it, y is actually a better idea." And then we could talk about it.
me: "But I really want x."
God: "Why?"
me: ............
I wonder how we would pray differently if we were asking God simply to receive our prayers, and to help us know what we are to do, instead of asking God to do something for us. If we pray for healing, and do not receive it, perhaps we receive something else - the peace of knowing God hears our prayers and wants to be in conversation with us, no matter what circumstances life throws at us. Perhaps, as today's prayer asks, we receive the grace and power to accomplish what we we must do, even if it is to live faithfully in a place of suffering.
I will still pray for an end to suffering. And I pray God will help me know what I am to do, whether it is my own or another's suffering, and give me grace and strength to do it.
And here's a picture of a momma and baby otter, because I know you come here for the photos, and because there are few circumstances in life that are not made better by such cuteness.
