There is a famous moment from Seinfeld in which Jerry is frustrated with a car rental representative. He made a reservation, but the car wasn’t there for him.
Jerry: I don't understand, I made a reservation, do you have my reservation?
Agent: Yes, we do, unfortunately we ran out of cars.
Jerry: But the reservation keeps the car here. That's why you have the
reservation.
Agent: I know why we have reservations.
Jerry: I don't think you do. If you did, I'd have a car. See, you know how to
take the reservation, you just don't know how to hold the reservation and
that's really the most important part of the reservation, the holding. Anybody
can just take them.
Recently when reading the psalms I was thinking about this episode (stranger things have happened). In Psalm 40:1, David says, “I waited patiently for the Lord; he inclined to me and heard my cry.”
David had to wait for the Lord. All of us go through times when we have to do the same.
So I was thinking, it’s often easy to shoot up a prayer to God. Sometimes these are broad prayers like "Lord, help me to love you more!" Sometimes they are more specific. But how often do we really hold on to that prayer in our heart, remaining in a prayerful frame of mind as we wait on him to answer?
Perhaps the most important part of prayer isn’t saying the prayer but holding on after we pray.
Just a thought.
The Perfect Companion
4 years ago
1 comment:
Good thought, Ken. I never thought of it that way. So often I just mumble these little prayers before bed or on my way somewhere. It's much harder for me to cultivate the idea of praying without ceasing, which I think maybe is one way the new testament describes this idea. It's definitely something I need to work on. I guess maybe that's the first prayer I should try to hold on to...
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