Lessons On Prayer From A Gift Catalog: Part I

Over the past few years our charitable giving has not kept up with the amount of money we've set aside for that purpose. In short, inflows regularly exceed outflows. Time to take our charitable giving up a notch.

But where should the money go?

It struck me early on that I wanted our kids to be involved in answering that question. My hope ever was that their involvement would foster awareness of (a) how unbelievably wealthy we are by world standards, and (b) what life is like for the poorest of the poor. I hoped to see our children grow in their compassion and love for the poor and downtrodden of this world.

Making the task that much the easier, missions organizations send out "gift catalogs" around this time of year. You can buy a goat... a chicken... give a family a cow. You can buy clean water for a family. Meals for a hungry child. You can even buy a life-saving surgery. So many options!

How fun it would be, I thought, to give each kid a budget and then let them look through the catalog and spend it as they wished. A few weeks ago I finally pulled the trigger and did just that. We sat the whole family down, explained the plan, and set the gift catalog on the coffee table.

Then things began to fall apart.

For starters, reactions were muted. It didn't take too long for the kids to realize that this was not money they could keep for themselves. They could spend it on others — or on no one. But not on themselves. Once that became clear, any hope for a giddy response was gone. Human nature being what it is, I had largely prepared myself for this eventuality.

It was the child who didn't react at all who caught me by surprise.

Three kids did engage. Expressed interest in buying cows and chickens. ("How much does a cow cost?") Made purchasing decisions.

One child, however, never said a word. Never opened the gift catalog. Went back to reading a book as soon as I stopped speaking. Never looked back.

Enter the great sorrow. Days passed. A week. Two weeks. Nothing. My sorrow at the child's apathy increased and multiplied. I prayed about it. Thought about it. Strategized...

But the more I strategized, the more I realized my hands were tied with chains I could not loose. I wanted the child to participate out of joy and excitement. That moment passed at the time of the announcement, and I cannot revive it later by force or manipulation.

One day in the car I again brought my sorrow to the Lord. "God," I asked, "what have I done wrong here?" I then began to re-think (again) the situation over, trying to see the situation from the child's perspective.

"The child knows," I mused to myself, "that I'm going to give the money to a charity regardless. The child's inaction won't, in that sense, change anything. Perhaps that is why the child feels no sense of urgency or obligation."

Fair enough. But the fact is, I wanted my child to participate in the event. Direct my giving. I wanted my child to care along with me about the recipients of these gifts.

And that's when it hit me in a flash. A pain. A very sharp pain.

This is how God feels when I don't pray for others.

Ouch. Double Ouch. Triple Ouch. Am I aghast at my child's apathy? Guess what... I exhibit those same traits when faced the opportunity to pray. Not always, but all too often. All too often. The parallels between my gift catalog situation and my own personal prayer life tumbled into my mind, one by one.

• To my children's eyes, I have unlimited resources. So does God.

• I have made some of those resources available to my children for the benefit of others. When God invites me to pray for others, he is doing essentially the same thing.

• If my children don't take me up on the offer, I'm still going to put those resources to use for the benefit of others. Ditto that for God. My failure to pray is not going to prevent God from caring for this Earth, its inhabitants, and indeed the very person I am not praying for.

• Something has nevertheless been lost if my children have no interest in helping me give. Best I can tell, the same thing is lost when I choose not to share, through prayer, in God's providential work.

All these thoughts rolled through my head in a matter of seconds. It was profoundly humbling to realize how often I leave "God's gift catalog" untouched, preferring instead to spend my time and thoughts elsewhere.

And then the blessings began to flow. For out of this great sorrow God imparted to me a great blessing: a new understanding of how God feels about prayer.

In any given moment of any given day, there is a gift catalog on the coffee table of my mind. Depending upon where I am, alternatives will always be available. I can daydream in the car. I can surf the internet if I'm near a PC. I can go back to reading my book.

There is a time for daydreaming. Good books are a good thing. But if I am not drawn like a magnet to prayer, I am essentially doing to God what my child did to me: thumbing my nose at his gift catalog, leaving God do the picking, choosing, and blessing without my input. I actually make God sad when I do that.

The result? God grieves. And my soul is impoverished. Or should I say that God is grieved because my soul is impoverished?

But thanks to this experience I now have a renewed excitement and sense of urgency about prayer. It's not a chore. It's a gift catalog! I can spend wildly. On God's dime! With his blessing!

Will I open it?

Note: This reflection continues in Part II