God is on my fishing team

I fished in a tournament this weekend and I asked the crew of my fishing team if they would mind if I said a prayer prior to fishing. No one objected and I did so. I asked God to protect us and to bless us and to be with us. I asked Him that if it was within His will to bring us in contact with a big Dolphin to please do so. As a matter of fact He did bring us in contact with some big Dolphins as we caught several big ones; the problem was that none were quite big enough to win the tournament and we missed being in the money by half of a pound. (Perhaps I should have asked specifically for a Dolphin big enough to win the tournament.) We all thoroughly had a good time anyway and it was a good trip all of the way around and when I got home I privately thanked God for the great time with my friends and for keeping us safe.

Recently I went into a very important meeting with about fifteen or more participants and a gentleman in attendance whom I have not known that long, but now call my good friend, asked if anyone would mind if he said a prayer as we closed our meeting. We of course agreed and he said a very eloquent prayer; he thanked God for bringing us together and asked Him to bless our project. Later when we went to eat at the local restaurant the scene repeated itself as he asked God to bless our meal.

I felt very comfortable with all of these prayers but got the feeling that some that were present were a little uncomfortable with it. Prayer to a Christian is a comfortable and natural thing. The Bible instructs us to pray ‘constantly’ and to bring everything to God in prayer. Ours is a mighty God and He is quite capable of dealing even with matters we might consider mundane. Saying prayers out loud should not really be that different than quietly whispering them to oneself throughout the day. The Bible does warn us against saying prayers for public consumption and display, whereby we are trying to impress everyone with how religious and pious we are. There are plenty of critics that point to the verses in the Bible warning us against being Pharisee-like and having the long public displays of prayer intended to make those seeing them think of us as some holy and good person. Critics of any form of public prayer point to the verses in the Bible that instruct us to pray in a closet where God will hear us but others cannot.

I believe they might be taking the Bible a little out of context. Jesus intensely disliked the actions of the Pharisees and warned us against behaving like them and perhaps He was referring to this conduct in that context in those verses. No one was trying to be seen as being pious in the scenarios above. We just sincerely wanted to include God in all that we do and ask for His blessings and thank Him for everything. Jesus Christ prayed in public and asked a blessing out loud prior to eating and other times and He prayed in public often. He is the One we should emulate. We should carefully guard against our prayers being intended for anyone other than God as the Bible instructs, but say them whenever and wherever it makes sense and we feel led to do so…Personally I think God enjoyed being asked to go fishing with us and I am sure he had as good of a time as we did.! It may seem foolish to some, but not to God.

1 Cor 1:18
For the message of the cross is
foolishness to those who are
perishing, but to us who are being
saved it is the power of God.