Day 23 - 40 Days of Prayer - Sue Krummel

I am on my third time of having a toddler grandchild who knows enough sign language to get along in the world before being able to form the words through speech. My daughters have both insisted on “please” with their children and they learn “milk” pretty early as well. (If you don’t know that sign, you would still know it if you saw it since it looks like you are milking a cow.) “Please” is a circular motion on your chest with a flat palm. It almost looks like you are telling someone that something you just ate was particularly yummy. My youngest grandchild is now 15 months old and he is heavily into “please.” It does not even take much of a reminder to him that he is expected to use it when he is asking for something. If he is pointing or grunting toward something he clearly wants, but has not yet signed for “please”, one just needs to look at him in that kind of pointed way that teachers adopt (my daughters are both teachers as was my mother so I have learned by osmosis) and up comes his hand to rub his chest.

Here is the problem. He believes that using the sign for “please” is a kind of magic. That is, if he uses it, he expects to get whatever it is for which he is asking. It could be the biggest chocolate chip cookie you have ever seen, or a drink from a regular glass, or a particularly sticky-looking sucker. What he is just coming to realize is that sometimes, even when you follow all of the rules and ask just as nicely as you can, the answer is still “no.” (Especially if his mother is watching me!)

It has struck me as I have gone through this with my three grandchildren that their coming to understand the ins and outs of asking nicely is kind of like us learning the ins and outs of prayer. We can learn the very best methods of prayer, we can be fervent in our prayer life, we can be as persistent as the friend knocking at the door at midnight in the parable. Sometimes the answer still is not what we expect. Sometimes the answer is still “No.”

As we approach the General Assembly this year, people are praying fervently around all of the issues that will come before the commissioners. On some issues, the Assembly will find such wisdom and grace that all of those who thought they were opponents on one issue or another will come away believing that God has, indeed, answered their prayers as they hoped. But, there will surely be other issues on which no amount of wisdom or grace can satisfy all interested and praying parties. Some will come away from Minneapolis believing that they have been told “No.”

Perhaps, then, one of the best prayers we could pray is this one attributed to Reinhold Neibuhr; the beginning of it is probably familiar to you. The second part, was not nearly as familiar to me. I quote it here as I found it on a website. May it be our fervent prayer as we approach, perhaps with fear and trembling, another meeting of the General Assembly and the season that will follow.

God grant me the serenity
to accept the things I cannot change;
courage to change the things I can;
and wisdom to know the difference.
Living one day at a time;
Enjoying one moment at a time;
Accepting hardships as the pathway to peace;
Taking, as He did, this sinful world
as it is, not as I would have it;
Trusting that He will make all things right
if I surrender to His Will;
That I may be reasonably happy in this life
and supremely happy with Him
Forever in the next.

Amen.
--Reinhold Niebuhr

Sue Krummel
General Presbyter and Stated Clerk
Great Rivers Presbytery