Thoughts from Mark "Hat" Rackley

“Watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation. The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.”

• Matthew 26:41

Then Jacob prayed, “O God of my father Abraham, God of my father Isaac, Lord, you who said to me, ‘Go back to your country and your relatives, and I will make you prosper,’ I am unworthy of all the kindness and faithfulness you have shown your servant. I had only my staff when I crossed this Jordan, but now I have become two camps. Save me, I pray, from the hand of my brother Esau, for I am afraid he will come and attack me, and also the mothers with their children. But you have said, ‘I will surely make you prosper and will make your descendants like the sand of the sea, which cannot be counted.’”

• Genesis 32:9-12

“This, then, is how you should pray:
“‘Our Father in heaven,
hallowed be your name,
your kingdom come,
your will be done,
    on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us today our daily bread.
And forgive us our debts,
    as we also have forgiven our debtors.
And lead us not into temptation,
    but deliver us from the evil one.’

• Matthew 6:9-13

“Dear, I thought I’d drop a line
The weather’s cool, the folks are fine
I’m in bed each night at nine
P.S. I love you

Yesterday we had some rain
But all in all, I can’t complain
Was it dusty on the train?
P.S. I love you

Write to the Browns just as soon as you’re able
They came around to call
And I burned a hole in the dining room table
Now let me think, I guess that’s all

Nothing else for me to say
And so I’ll close, but by the way
Everybody’s thinking of you
P.S. I love you

Write to the Browns just as soon as you’re able
They came around to call
And I burned a hole in the dining room table
Now let me think, I guess that’s all

Nothing else for me to say
And so I’ll close, but by the way
Everybody’s thinking of you
P.S. I love you, love you, love you”

• Johnny Mercer, P.S. I Love You

As for the Scriptures, we can be tempted to not pray or get bored halfway through the prayer. Can we be as emotional and as in tune as Jacob was. Yes, he feared his brother, but he knew who could bless him. And, we know the Lord’s Prayer, but why do we forget the first half of it when we go to God in prayer?

This is another of those songs that would not make a good worship song, but in a way, it is like some worship songs.  They get the emotion, but did they forget to mention Jesus?  Again, they forgot?

But I digress.

I heard this a few times before it struck me.  It sounds like a lot of the prayers that I hear.  Okay, some of them that I hear are prayers that I am saying at the time.

We do a few things in our prayers that seem silly.  We cover the banal.  “The weather’s cool, the folks are fine, I try to be in bed by nine.”

We do the supplications as if that is the only part of the prayer.  Even when we are not saying that we need a new dining room table, we mention we burned a hole in it.

If we have praise, it is usually something rote that we have said hundreds of times.  We might have even borrowed it from a psalm, nice touch.

We could sing this song, and it would sound about the same.  We might replace “I love You” with something like “P. S. I glorify Your Name.”

Here is Billie Holiday singing P. S. I Love You. And after listening to Billie Holiday sing the song a few times, it brings back memories of being on business trips that lasted more than a month… You have so much to say, but the words do not come as far as the lips. Let’s just say, Billie Holiday has a way of putting in the emotion that you are afraid to say out loud to the one that you miss. But remember, God is there all the time. We will never get a busy signal. And whatever we need to say, He has heard it before. There is no need to fear saying something that will start the waterworks.

Why have we become bored in our prayers?  Do we realize who we are talking to?  And when we honestly seek Him, He replies.  But when the prayer is all about me and my precious problems, and oh, I glorify God as a postscript (an afterthought after you close the letter, for those who did not know what P.S. meant).  It’s almost like God is not on our minds while we pray to Him.

Soli Deo Gloria.  Only to God be the Glory.