Calling down the thunder

In my book, there’s not much worse than talking down to somebody while masquerading as helping them.

This is especially true if you’re praying.

I mean, how insincere must you be to–after passing a condemning voice of judgment–say, “I’ll be praying that God opens your eyes.”

You just simultaneously slung mud on someone’s face since their eyes are clearly “not open,” and made yourself look oh so holy because you’re praying for said person’s soul. Sick.

I remember once I was at a meeting preparing for a conference we were holding. We were having some issues over how we were going to actually lead the small group sessions, one person, we’ll call him ‘A,’ suggested we do mock groups. Two people, ‘B’ and ‘C,’ adamantly said we just pray about it and be done with it. They argued it’s about our heart, about leaving things in God’s hands. ‘A’ said yes, but we should also take steps of our own to prepare. I’d say they should’ve just started yelling at each other. That would have been better.

But no, they decided to be super implicit about it. That if ‘A’ really had faith he’d just let it go and pray. You could feel everyone else in the room rustling and unsure of whether or not to step in. Then ‘A,’ surprisingly, had the guts to defend himself. You would have thought they would have jumped up and just got into a brawl. That also would have been better. At least they would have admitted their issues.

But no, the group decided to pray and end the meeting. And of course, ‘B’ and ‘C’ raised their hands like the good poster children they just created for everyone to see.

And they prayed that God would show everyone what was really important, that we wouldn’t worry about the things ‘A’ worried about. Well, maybe they didn’t mention ‘A’ by name, but they might as well have.

I wanted to get up and leave. I think if I was in that situation today, I probably would.

It’s dishonest. And to do it in the name of prayer, I don’t even know what to call that.