“God answers prayers in the morning. God answers prayers at noon. God answers prayers in the evening. So keep your heart in tune.” (Traditional Children’s Christian Song, Whisper A Prayer)
Most of you, when you were children, sang the song above in Sunday School or as a member of your church’s Cherub Choir. You know the words. The lyrics above were sang regularly, quite often, in days past, before the baby choirs wanted to sing the same type of songs as the big choirs. These lyrics in the song were sung before cellphones, laptops, and tablets were invented. TV programming was filled with news in the morning and soap operas in the noon day. TV actually went off around 11:00 a.m. Yes, there were less interruptions to keep one from praying at any part of a day, a few decades ago. Well, times have changed. Let me tell you what I observed while sitting on the fourth floor of a hospital for a couple of hours waiting for my wife to be seen.
There had to be at least twenty people, all adults, sitting in this long waiting area, hoping their name would be called to come into the exam room. Let me add a little humor before proceeding to tell you about the fourth floor. For some patients waiting, it was a longer wait than when you have been patiently waiting on the Lord! Now, I’m pretty sure I heard some people, say, “Oh, Jesus!” I’m not sure they were praying, most likely just saying acceptable words of learned expressions to utter when frustrated. But who am I to judge?
Yet, with certainty, I can tell you that the majority of the people waiting, they were on their cellphones. I don’t think they were talking to God. Now, to be fair, while I was not looking at my cellphone, I was focused on observing human behavior, being a social scientist major. I was not talking to God much of that time either on the fourth floor.
I wonder what would have changed in individuals, changed in the community, or changed in the world if all of us on the fourth floor were using part of our waiting time to whisper a prayer to the gracious throne of God. The fourth floor could have made a difference because God answers prayers. However, let’s not just critique the fourth floor. Let’s critique all of our days, including yours and mine. And after doing so, will we find that we spent more time on our electronic gadgets, filled with the noise of the world, instead of spending some beneficial, productive time praying to the Creator of the world?
Think about this fourth floor meditation and how it specifically spoke to you this morning. Be blessed!
“Pray at all times,” (I Thessalonians 5:17 Good News Translation)
Committed to the climb,
Mark L. King