This blog will probably surprise pretty much everyone. I have, to my knowledge, never written anything of this sort before. Religion and I have had what can only be described as a stormy relationship; I have lost, regained, renounced, rediscovered, and questioned my faith numerous times. Events in my past have both shaken and reinforced it. By no means do I consider myself a good Christian; in fact, I’m probably only a few klicks north of the heathen hordes, but I try.
Driving through New Bern recently, thinking about the nature of the industry I work in and the cut-throat character of the competition therein, I wondered what sort of prayer one might say for success. It occurred to me that everyone prays for prosperity. We all want to be rewarded for our hard work, and we all have families to support. Our competitors are probably praying, too, and how could God decide who deserved success and who deserved failure?
Two prayers came to mind, and I instantly saw the difference between them. So many prayers are couched in greed, and so few in faith.
Here is the prayer of a greedy businessman.
“Lord, please look upon our good works with favor, for all we do is to glorify you. We beg of you to enrich us, to grant us success and prosperity in this, our livelihood. Please guide our customers to choose our business, and give us so many customers that our competition will merely wither away, that we may serve you by serving all of the customers in our area.”
Here, though, is the prayer of a faithful businessman.
“Father, we thank you for the successes you have brought to us, and we ask that you continue to watch over our lives and our livelihoods, for all we do is to glorify you. Please rest your blessings upon our entire industry, bringing us all prosperity. Lord, we ask that you send to each of our competitors at least twice as many customers as he can possibly handle, so that each of them will be overwhelmed with success. Father, we will happily and gratefully take care of the overflow.”
It’s just something to think about. I have no idea where that came from, and I realize that this sort of discourse is best left to trained professionals, but I needed to let that out.
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That’s very interesting.
Also interesting that you say “everyone prays for prosperity” … my experience is of always praying with gratitude for my current position; and guidance to become the very best person I can be – it hadn’t occurred to me to pray for prosperity; but then it is not my belief that God can guide potential clients in my direction… more that when clients come my way, I can hopefully be a good experience for them so they come back and/or refer me on.
I have a very ‘selfish’ view of God, in that I believe he can only change me, not the world.
I am, however, a complete novice at this sort of thing having been a card-carrying atheist from 0-32ish years old.
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Love it – I am not a God fearing person but that second prayer is so Karmic and Humorous.
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Like Stu, it has never occurred to me to pray for prosperity.
In fact, I don’t pray for anything very often.
There was a time, nearly thirty years ago, when I did pray.
My younger son was very ill and was expected to die.
I certainly prayed then. I’m nominally an Anglican and I prayed as hard as I could. A Catholic friend had a mass said. A methodist had prayers said in her church and my late husband contacted a faith healer who did whatever faith healers do.
When you’re that desperate, you’ll clutch at any straws.
Well, my son made it and is still with us. Whether it was solely down to the wonderful surgeon or whether any of the prayers helped, we’ll never know.
In a situation like that, one feels so helpless. Praying helped me and maybe it helped my son too. All I know is that in hours of desperation, we call on God whether we believe he’s there or not.