Friday, October 29, 2004
The Human Side of Prayer
The other day, we had a baby blessing at church. In it, the father blessed his new daughter that she would have her grandfather’s love for “good cheese.” I couldn’t help but smile as I sat with my arms folded and eyes closed. It’s not very often you hear a baby blessed with such a specific and somewhat non-eternal blessing as a love of good cheese.
It reminds me of a date I went on way back in my BYU days, when we were stopping at Burger King (no snide comments about taking a date to Burger King!) on our way to see “The Phantom Menace” a couple of days after its release. My date wanted to bless the food before we ate it, and she surprised me when she began her prayer with this very enthusiastic, heartfelt sentence: “Heavenly Father, thank you for Burger King!”
I believe that both these examples of odd prayers are totally appropriate. They should be more common. Heavenly Father does care about our lives and the day-to-day things we do. Sure, it’s good to bless your baby that she’ll get married in the temple, but it’s also a good thing to bless her with the happiness that comes from good cheese. We’re always thankful for “the food that has been prepared for us,” so when you’re eating at Burger King, why not give specific thanks for the preparer, even if it’s a giant corporation? Sometimes our prayers get perhaps a little too eternal, and we think that the eternal things are the only things God cares about. Don’t get me wrong—temple marriage is certainly far more important than cheese. But by including cheese and hamburgers and flowers and a comfy bed and pumpkin carving in our prayers, we remind ourselves that if God is mindful of the sparrow’s fall, he’s mindful of the little things that make us happy too.
It reminds me of a date I went on way back in my BYU days, when we were stopping at Burger King (no snide comments about taking a date to Burger King!) on our way to see “The Phantom Menace” a couple of days after its release. My date wanted to bless the food before we ate it, and she surprised me when she began her prayer with this very enthusiastic, heartfelt sentence: “Heavenly Father, thank you for Burger King!”
I believe that both these examples of odd prayers are totally appropriate. They should be more common. Heavenly Father does care about our lives and the day-to-day things we do. Sure, it’s good to bless your baby that she’ll get married in the temple, but it’s also a good thing to bless her with the happiness that comes from good cheese. We’re always thankful for “the food that has been prepared for us,” so when you’re eating at Burger King, why not give specific thanks for the preparer, even if it’s a giant corporation? Sometimes our prayers get perhaps a little too eternal, and we think that the eternal things are the only things God cares about. Don’t get me wrong—temple marriage is certainly far more important than cheese. But by including cheese and hamburgers and flowers and a comfy bed and pumpkin carving in our prayers, we remind ourselves that if God is mindful of the sparrow’s fall, he’s mindful of the little things that make us happy too.
Comments:
In my old branch in Kentucky we had a running joke. When someone said a prayer that was droll or uninspried we would joke he pulled out the "old number 12" prayer.
prayer is from the heart, and if your heart says cheese, then cheese it is.
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prayer is from the heart, and if your heart says cheese, then cheese it is.
