Sunday, January 7, 2018

PRAYER POWER

PRAYER POWER! Prayer works! Prayer works! Every time that I have asked the Lord in prayer to deliver me from some affliction, evil, problem, that has been bothering me, worrying me, the use of prayer as a part of my arsenal of self-extrication has worked marvelously, splendidly! Prayer is not magical. It is practical. It works! Mama and Daddy prayed . Grandma and grandpa's prayed. It works! They celebrated its power in worship, song, praise, living habits. Prayer worked for African American slaves who had survived the most brutal oppression in world history; who overcame slavery, Jim Crow, racism , lynching, lying, cheating, police and judicial brutality to give birth to us, to love, provide for us! Try prayer yourself. It truly works! These thoughts on "prayer" came back to mind, as I read Mark Twain's observations among the Hawaiians in his book ROUGHING IT (1955) about prayer : "The christianizing of the natives has hardly even weakened some of their barbaric superstitions, much less destroyed them... It is still a popular belief that if your enemy can get hold of any article belonging to you he can get down on his knees over it and 'pray you to death'. Therefore many a native gives up and dies merely because he 'imagines' that some enemy is putting him through a course of damaging prayer. This praying an individual to death seems absurd enough at first glance, but then when we call to mind some of the pulpit efforts of certain of our own ministers the thing looks plausible." P.891