The Miss America Prayer

Tonight, I was flipping channels hoping to find something decent to watch on TV. Long gone are the days when I am happy with AFKN and one English-speaking channel. I have about 300 channels and rarely find much worth watching--aside from The Food Network and Fox News. (Pathetic, I know!)

Anyhow, as I flipped channels, I saw that Bruce Almighty was on. I don’t know that I had ever seen the whole thing before. I have seen the other one with Steve Carrell--Evan Almighty, but never the original. I digress. I happened to catch the end of the movie when Bruce (played by Jim Carrey) discovers that his ex-girlfriend, Grace, prays for him daily. Being “God,” Bruce logs on to see what Grace prays for--and she prays for him every day. But that night, she was praying to get over Bruce. He is torn apart with a broken heart. As if that wasn’t enough, Bruce runs into the rain, and prays to God, saying:

Bruce: “You win! I’m done. Please--I don’t want to do this any more. I don’t want to be God. I want you to decide what’s right for me. I surrender to your will!”

And at about that point, Bruce gets hit by a truck, and miraculously gets to heaven. The dialog between God (played by Morgan Freeman) and Bruce is amazing--especially as it came out of Hollywood. It goes like this:

Bruce: (after being handed prayer beads) “What do you want me to do?!”

God: “I want you to pray, son. Go ahead--use them.”

Bruce: “Uhm… Lord. Feed the hungry. And bring peace to all of mankind. How’s that?”

God: “Great, if you want to be Miss America. Now come on--what do you REALLY care about?”

Bruce: “Grace.”

God: “Grace. You want her back?”

Bruce: “No--I want her to be happy. No matter what that means. I want her to find someone that will treat her with all the love she deserved from me. I want her to meet someone who will see her always as I do now. Through your eyes.”

God: “Now THAT’S a prayer…”

OK, so I am so guilty of praying the “Miss America” prayer--a blanket prayer that really is about as deep and sincere as the speech given by many of the Miss America contestants. They type prayer that won’t offend anyone and make you look like the good guy. (Although I DO love that scene in Miss Congeniality when Sandra Bullock’s character says she wishes for “harsher punishment for parole violators… and world peace!”) As I watched Bruce surrender everything to God’s will in the movie I thought, “Wow--Hollywood is putting THIS out?!” Then, it got even better. The dialog between Bruce and God really put things into perspective.

I am so often guilty of not getting to the heart of what I really want, or what I really want being selfish. When Bruce genuinely prays for Grace, he means a person. One of the things I should be praying for GRACE. I should be praising God for the Grace that He so lavishly heaps upon me. And asking for the grace of his forgiveness for my actions--even though I don’t deserve it.

I also should be praying so desperately for those around me. Bruce didn’t want anything for himself. He wanted God to bless those he loves. Wow… How hard is that?! To want the best for others--no matter what it means for yourself? To me, that is the ultimate act of selfless prayer. When I pray, I so often have an ulterior motive or am not thinking about what I think is best for me being what is best for others--even when I think the my prayers are so selfless and genuine…

So… what is the solution to this? I mean, the obvious choice would be, “Having a heart like God’s…” Easier said than done… So tonight my prayer is to have a heart transformation. One step at a time…

Pray. Pray daily. Pray honestly.

OK, so today is REALLY the first day in my year of praying powerfully. January first, it hit me that I am called to pray. Why I am so shocked by that, I am not sure. :) I have found myself called to many things in life, but for some reason, I never say prayer as a part of it. Again, I ask myself, why not?!

So the only rule I thought I needed was simple. I thought, "All I really need to do is pray." So I started thinking about that. How simple that thought seemed. All you have to do is PRAY. OK. I do that. I do it fairly often. But I need more. 1st Thessalonians 5:17 says, "Pray without ceasing." That verse has always stuck in my head. You see, when I was 16, I went to a summer camp called Centrifuge. I loved Centrifuge--it was one of the coolest summer memories for me. We always had to play relays, and one of them (infallibly) was a scripture relay. I always picked that verse because it was short... and some one always chose John 11:35, "Jesus wept." Oh, the workings of a 16 year old brain... :)

I want to change that. I want that verse, "Pray without ceasing," to remind me not of summer camp from childhood days, but rather the year that changed my life. I need to be more consistent. I need to pray daily.

Then... I thought some more. And thought, I need to pray honestly. The other night in the car, we heard the song, "Jesus Bring the Rain." The lyrics say:

Bring me joy, bring me peace
Bring the chance to be free
Bring me anything that brings
You glory And I know there'll
be days When this life brings me pain
But if that's what it takes to
praise You Jesus, bring the rain

My Dad, Virgil, said that this is a hard song to sing and mean it. And I immediately looked up the lyrics up on my iPhone. Even though I know the lyrcis, there is something so powerful to me in seeing them in black and white. I couldn't even finish reading the lyrics because if I sing that prayer through song, then it must mean it. And prayer must be honest, above all else. When I pray, I must mean every word I say--and can I really ask God to 'bring the rain?' I want to be able to ask that, but for right now I cannot bring myself to do it... Like Abram, I need God to move me to that place by commanding me to take one step at a time.

Wow. That's a lot.

In my life, depending on the task set in front of me, I have done one of two things--I have worked so hard that failure was an impossibility (in my mind) or slacked off so that failure found me inevitably. There really isn't any in between. Except, it seems, my prayer life. I don't want that. I want to pray passionately and this is the year of passionate prayer.

So, please join me on this journey--this journey that will lead to places unknown to me, but guided by God's hand. Please, share thoughts, notes, and prayer needs... and pray without ceasing!

Jenny

Purpose

OK, so this year is my year of prayer. I have really been wondering which direction I need to go with my life this year, and every time I pray about it, I keep hearing a still, small voice saying, "Revolutionize your life--pray." So, January first I decided to pray. And as I thought about it, this idea of an interactive prayer blog came into a nebulous being. My creative side said, "Oh.... The Christian version of Bridget Jones..." and God said, "NOPE!" So I mulled it over even more and thought, "Oh--chronicling my life over the year so people can see how God is moving in my life..." and again, God said, "I think you have the wrong idea... Try again..." So tonight, on my way home it hit me--an interactive prayer blog. And God said, "Move forward..." So here I am--moving forward. Why just publish my life through prayer, when we can all join in together and express how mightily God is working in all our lives? SO--join me! Share your stories, your prayer needs and your "Wow, God!" moments...