James 5:16 “Confess your faults one to another, and pray one for another that ye may be healed. The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much.”
The author of the “God Isn’t Fixing This” article in the New York Daily News (see the previous post) stated that offering prayer condolences to victims (e.g. ‘my thoughts and prayers are with you’) are “meaningless platitudes.” Yet again, this misguided author is partly right.
When we say we will pray about something or for someone, and then fail to do so, then we are indeed offering meaningless platitudes. When our prayers are dull, insipid, banal, trite, or stale, then our claims are meaningless platitudes. When we express concern about our country and then fail to pray daily and fervently about it, then we are being trapped by meaningless platitudes.
The Daily News article directs the reader to a subsequent editorial about gun violence subtitled “when will America wake up?” Indeed, when will Christian Americans wake up? When will we move beyond meaningless platitudes and employ the power of meaningful prayer? When will we get serious about our prayer obligations? When will we faithfully and fervently pray for the things for which we express concern? Until we do, we are rightfully called out as ineffectual.
PLEASE EMPLOY MEANINGFUL PRAYER INSTEAD OF MEANINGLESS PLATITUDES. Our nation needs us to do so.
