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“The trouble with our praying is, we just do it as a means of last resort.”
— Will Rogers (1879 1935) American vaudeville performer, actor, and humorous social commentator.
“More old coffee drinkers solving the world’s problems, and more prayer. That’s what this country needs.” Record that as the official declaration of one seasoned group of aging caffeine consumers. The one in which I hold charter member status.
That need intensified last weekend for a country already severely in need of more time on its knees. Moving one step deeper into the abyss of discord, miscommunication, and intolerance for differing opinions. And coming at a time when we thought things could not get any worse, before another misguided soul stepped into the limelight and proved us wrong.
“We need to get this once strong nation back into pews. Where preachers remind us that prayer is needed,” touted one of the coffee faithful. “Before it’s truly a last resort.”
“Some of that “ol’ time religion,” another concluded. “Preachers that preach the Bible.”
“Anyone besides me ever tried that,” I jumped into the fray. “Preaching a sermon?”
Everything got quiet. All eyes turned in my direction. It occurred to me that maybe I should have just taken another sip of hot coffee and added another “amen.” “Well,” I quickly tried to recover. “It just so happened that the preacher at the small country church where I was a member needed to be gone one Sunday. He asked if one warm body wanted to step forward and fill the pulpit in his absence, and everyone else stepped backward. That’s how it happened that I was ‘called.’ Not by the spirit, but by default.”
With the best message I could cobble together, I stepped to the pulpit the following Sunday morning, and placed one hand on each side of the podium. Not to look authoritative or anything like that, you understand. It was to keep my hands from shaking and my knees from folding.
Recalling an associate preacher at a large church in Abilene many years ago, I began by borrowing one of his lines. “I am not the regular minister. The regular minister is out of town this morning, which makes me the irregular minister.”
I chuckled, remembering how his comment made people laugh—unlike the rows of blank stares I received when I tried it. So, still hanging on for dear life, I jumped off into my notes. Which were more personal stories than book, chapter and verse.
I’ve always admired preachers who can blend personal experience with scripture to deliver a message with personalization and meaning. Often, small-town country preachers, adept at imparting earthly wisdom backed by the word.
Like the elderly East Texas preacher I knew who suggested that it was good for the soul to spend 30 minutes exercising, “taking care of our earthly bodies.” He followed his own teaching, too. Exercised himself, he did. By walking several miles a day. Usually with a cane pole over his shoulder. While the minister swore his walks were “for his health,” we noticed that he generally walked in the direction of a fishing hole.
Perhaps the old preacher’s best suggestion, however, was to “make two or three good friends among the old folks while you’re still young.” I always wondered, though, why most of the advice for young men comes along after we’ve passed that point in life when our obituary will no longer contain the word “untimely.”
Last week’s coffee shop conversation about prayers and preachers also reminded me of my daughter, Robin. Some years ago, she called me with a sampling of “down to earth” views on churchgoing gathered from bulletins and signs.
“One preacher up in Tennessee,” she chuckled, “said if a church wants a better preacher, it can get one by praying for the one it has. Another,” she added, “said some church members who are singing ‘Standing On the Promises’ are merely sitting on the premises.” Another was advice sorely needed today. “We were called to be witnesses, not lawyers and judges.”
But the best might have been an Ohio minister who shared how “I turn my troubles over to God every evening. He’s going to be up all night anyway.”
When all the coffee was gone and all the issues sufficiently solved for one day, our coffee drinkers club adjourned for the day. Resoled in agreement as how one thing might, in fact, be the best sign of the need for more prayer. Before it really becomes our last resort.
That is thinking that things just can’t get any worse before sitting down to watch the nightly news.
