On Monday night I usually meet with a bunch of guys at the men’s conference room at JBC where there is a very big TV on the wall, and we watch Monday Night Football. Tonight in the first quarter a player collapsed to the ground. They did CPR on him and took him away in an ambulance. Almost all of the players from both teams knelt down together and prayed for him. I don’t think I have ever heard so many comments about prayer in such a short amount of time from the commentators and others who were interviewed; something about prayer was the common theme. It was quite amazing in light of how godless we have become as a nation.

About 40 years ago a friend invited myself and four other friends to lunch. He was studying to get a Doctor of Divinity degree, and was getting ready to write his Thesis which is like writing a book on a particular subject. The title of his Thesis was, “What America Believes and Does it Make any Difference.” He invited us to lunch because he needed our help in taking a survey for his Thesis. He wanted us to take 100 survey papers and fill them out after surveying 100 people. He said he would buy us a nice dinner and we could talk about our survey results and experiences that we had in the day talking to people. We all agreed and spent our day in a large mall walking around asking people if they wouldn’t mind taking a short survey. There were twelve short questions that required only a “yes” or “no” answer. Some of the questions were, “Do you believe in God?” “Do you believe in heaven?” “Do you believe in hell?” “Do you believe in prayer?” As best as I can remember I had to ask about 300 people to get my 100 surveys filled out. That evening we ate a very nice dinner and talked about some of the strange conversations we had as well as some of the very nice ones. One of the most interesting observations from the survey was that of the 600 total surveys there were only two people who gave a “no” answer to the question, “Do you believe in Prayer?” But there were slightly over 20 who gave a “no” answer to “Do you believe in God?”

I wonder how many of the people who were talking about prayer tonight really pray, or personally know the God they assume that they are praying to. Most people ignore God, deny God, and rebel against God until there is a crisis in their life that they have no answer for and no control over.