A Praying Dog

Because of my habit of looking for anything related to dogs, a friend of mine emailed me a funny video on the YouTube website entitled “Praying Dog.” Recording the scenes of dogs holding together their front paws, someone put it on the Internet with the title “praying dog.” Watching this funny video, I wondered just how many people among the faithful church goers really know Jesus and pray. In the church culture, a person who prays hard and well is regarded as a faithful believer. I don’t have any disagreements with this. The problem is, however, some believe that if they pray long and loudly enough then it will be a great prayer without really having to know Jesus. Or, in some cases, they try to solve a problem through prayer when it is not necessarily something one needs to pray for. Then, they complain to God for not answering their prayer without thinking that they put him in such a situation.

I know that those who pray hard may rebuke me for what I am trying to say here, but even then I will gladly take the role of devil’s advocate to explain my position. Since pastors put too much emphasis on prayer, people tend to think that they can be a good Christian just by praying whatever. So many Christians pray regardless of time and place. Also, when they are in an awkward situation they casually say “I’ll pray about it” in an obscure manner. In such a circumstance, they do not really mean that they are really going to pray, or it is not a temporary measure to avoid the situation, but they use the word ‘pray’ as a cheap excuse. There is another time a prayer is used. When people open or close a meeting or big assembly, it is often used to draw people’s attention easily without arguing.

Like this, we see that our prayer is often misused instead of establishing a relationship or conversation with our Creator. Those who have been to church for a long time, and are familiar with the Bible take a step forward and lead a nice public prayer balancing the object of prayer and the overall flow of it. Nevertheless, the content of prayer is still based on prosperity theology asking God continuously for something. One of the pastors, who has become popular nowadays, says that since it is a Christian’s privilege to ask God, we just need to keep asking unconditionally. What he says quoting some verses in the Bible is not necessarily wrong, but tastes bitter. Describing all of our relationship with the Creator as asking him what I want and giving thanks after taking what he gives us doesn’t do a good job of describing true Christianity.

These days my church is not on good terms with the contractor, due to the expansion and construction of our church building. Because of that, the work that should have been finished months ago is being delayed for a year with one thing leading to another. Though many people worked hard, it just got to the point where the relationship between people related to the work got broken, and the work itself became almost nothing since people were tired of waiting. Those who were devoted to the work took their hands off of it, and then there was no one who wanted to run with it. As a result, it became my turn though I do not really know anything about it nor did I have the time for it. I volunteered thinking that it should be done by anyone anyways, and the experts would keep helping me from behind. For the first few weeks, it was so complicated that I had a hard time figuring out the things that had been done so far. To make it worse, there was a situation of no way out because the broken relationships were all entangled. Realizing the situation, I came to regret why I volunteered for such a mess. Furthermore, people around me also were worrying in unison, “Why did you get involved in this?” I began a few days’ fasting prayer in boldness thinking, “Wouldn’t God help a problem of one building when it is a church matter anyways?” but the resolute fasting came to an end when I had a breakfast the following morning forgetting the initial fast.

I didn’t mean to solve the problem through fasting prayer, but just tried it myself since many pastors and experienced church members do it. However, during the process, I came to see the guidance of the Lord clearly. If I give the necessary financial support to the contractor, the work is automatically done. Like Korea, it is the same in America that the relationship between the contractor and the building owner is that of distrust from the get go. No matter how the contractor makes it cheap, the building owner still feels it’s a rip off, and no matter how fast he tries to finish, unexpected things often delay the completion and the result of the hard work is always full of complaints. When particular variables of church and entangled human relations are added to this situation, it becomes a time bomb. In order to resolve such a situation, pastors and people of good faith must move forward in prayer. But a believer-businessman like me pretends to pray like others but before praying looks around cynically to find out the circumstance and nature of the people including myself. The reason the contractor takes up the construction work of the church is above all money. If it is not enough, there’s no use of praying. Also, we should give plenty of time to him to finish the job since no matter how hard they try, it is still full of unexpected variables. Then, if the contractor doesn’t keep his word of meeting the deadline, it is one way to remember the teaching of the Bible about forgiving 490 times and a lesson in patience.

I’m not saying prayer is not necessary. But there are things one should solve with prayer, and others we shouldn’t try to resolve that have nothing to do with through prayer. Particularly, prayer is not just the folding of both hands but rather having a conversation with God and listening to his direction. I just want to say that if we ignore all these and try to pray for whatever, we are not different from the praying dogs on YouTube.