Prayer is working with God.

Putting your Shoulders to the Task,

or

Why Pray?

Imagine a farm yard around the end of the eighteen hundreds, with a stone built firm set farm house, flagged yard, and stone outbuildings. It is autumn so the trees beyond the yard are losing their browning leaves.

The farmer asks his young son, who is busy watching a beetle, to help him load up the cart with baskets of apples. It takes a couple of asks before the boy replies that he is busy watching a beetle. The father gives a third request, only this time sterner, and asking for an explanation of why watching a beetle is more important than helping around the farm?

The young lad knows he is pushing his luck, but doesn’t see why he should help, his father can easily load up the cart, he is built like a bull and has experienced hands; there is nothing the small frame of the boy can add, either in leverage or technique, and he knows it and says so.

The father is disappointed, he doesn’t want help so much as company, he could compel the boy to help, but that wouldn’t be the same. After some careful consideration, the farmer reminds his son of some of the things he has to be grateful for, of the clothes he is wearing, the bread he ate for breakfast, the safe dry place he has to sleep, the freedom of the farm; would not putting his shoulders into loading the cart be a way of saying thanks?

Leaning down and taking hold one of the baskets the farmer smiles as his son appears opposite him ready to lift the other handle.

“Heave, lad”, he says, and they lift the basket onto the back of the cart, then the next, and the next till the job is done.

As his father straps the cart to the horse, tightening the girths and tugs, the son watches, and assists when asked.

“One day I want you to be a man not a boy”, says the farmer, “I want you to grow strong and clever, I want you to become like me, to help me about the place, it wouldn’t be the same without you. At the end of the working day I want you to feel the roughness of your hands, see the dirt engrained there, and for you to know you’ve made a difference, that you’ve done a good job, and that I’m your mate not just your father. Do you understand?”

Prayer is working with God.

Prayer changes things, but most of all it changes us.