THINKING IS NOT P RAYING

THINKING IS NOT PRAYING
There's a big difference between just thinking something and praying it to God. Prayer has a direction. You're not churning it in your brain or sharing it with friends or talking it over with a psychologist or getting in touch with your inner self. Prayer is directed to God -- acknowledging not only God's existence, but also a relationship and even a certain degree of trust. Prayer's not a waste of time because God is hard at work in this confused, ambiguous world, to draw it toward God's good purposes. Prayer is your response to God's work. If there's noone there, if there's no way to relate or even communicate, or if a wrathful god would strike you down just for trying, why would anyone pray? There's an unspoken hope in each prayer, even if it hangs by a thread or is the size of a mustard seed, that somehow the mightiest being of all thinks you matter. God's response also has a direction : you will not be left adrift or be led nowhere (unless, like Israel in the Sinai, you have a lesson to learn from the drifting).