Bye Bye

Be joyful always;  pray  continually; give thanks in all circumstances; 

for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus.                                                                                                                  

1 Thessalonians 5:16

Prayer is a very private thing. Everyone has different ideas about how to pray. Some pray very formally with “Thee”s and “Thou”s and “Hast”s and “Hast not”s. I sometimes pray when I wake up in the morning before I get out of bed – with a full bladder and bad breath. The thing is, God doesn’t really care how we pray or what time of day it is. He is always glad to hear from us.

We have a prayer group each week at our church. After we pray together, some of us go out to eat and share a meal and some good times. One particular night, I volunteered to bless the meal. I prayed for the wonderful food, for the people around the table sharing the meal, for the community of faith that had brought us together. Then, as we sat around the table holding hands and bowing our heads in the middle of Ruby Tuesdays, I ended my prayer. I said, “Bye Bye”.

No one moved. We just sat there holding hands. I looked up and saw my friends looking at each other with a “What do we do now?” look on their faces. Then it dawned on me… “Bye Bye” was not the appropriate ending for the prayer that we shared.

“That’s not right”, I said. I bowed my head again and said very seriously, “I mean, Amen”. Whew. That prayer had finally ended. We let go of each other’s hands, lifted our bowed heads and looked at each other. Then, we all burst into laughter.

I’m sure that the rest of the diners in Ruby Tuesdays that night thought that we Lutherans had indeed flipped out.  Oh, but what a memorable prayer that was.

Here's the thing. God heard our prayer. He blessed us and our meal and heard our thanks to Him for all that He does for us. The words don’t have to be perfect. They just have to be from our hearts.

I sure hope that God was as pleased as we were by that prayer’s ending. I sure hope that it pleased Him that we remembered to bless our food and our friendship. And I sure hope that He enjoyed our laughter. I’m sure He did. That’s the kind of Father He is.

I haven’t been asked to say the blessing too often in that group, but whenever I do, I remember to say “Amen”. And the group of friends that are there with me respond with “Bye Bye”. And then we laugh… and celebrate our love of God and our love for each other and enjoy our meal.   With that, I will say "Bye Bye" for now!

Lord, you give us so many gifts in live. Thank you for friends and for good food and for loving us when we aren’t perfect. And thank you Lord for laughter. Amen.