Found A Friend Series

Well… Growing up… in my family…

prayer was only something we did…

before we ate and before we slept.

Like even though my mom has always been a crazy driver…

we never prayed before driving anywhere.

And even though bullies were a legit concern for me at recess,

we never prayed before going to school.

We never randomly prayed…. throughout the day.

Again… we only prayed… before eating and sleeping.

It’s like… is there something that I should know… about the food I’m eating?

Why are we praying?

Like what is wrong with this meatloaf?

And this is meatloaf, right?

And when we’re sleeping…

is someone trying to kill our family at night…

Or maybe monsters are real…

I mean like… is there a reason…. that we only pray…

before we eat and sleep?

And when we prayed… we prayed the same exact words each and every time.

Come Lord Jesus be our guest…

and now I lay me… down to sleep.

Anyone know these prayers?

I recited the words…

having no idea of what was being said…

It’s just what… we did.

And today… I’m gonna share a bit of my story…

more than normal…

But as a kid… before bed each night…

my mom would come into our room to pray with us.

And my two brothers and I… we shared a bedroom…

on the second floor of our old house.

And the three of us were crazy!

Beating on… and trying to kill each other…

typical boys right?

That was until we prayed…

I mean… when we prayed… we knew had to be serious…

And we knew we shouldn’t talk… or even breathe.

Eyes closed… hands folded… and don’t move… anything.

Well... thankfully, our prayers at home… were always short and sweet.

However in church…. though, it was a completely different story…

And my family, the Webers… we never missed church. Ever.

And so we’d come into church… dressed in our Sunday finest.

Shirts tucked in. Hair combed.

My parents knew everyone in our church.

And there was the green hymnals and the red carpet.

And my family always… sat on the right side of the room.

In the same pew every week.

And at our church… we prayed the same exact set of words… each Sunday.

Unfortunately, there were a lot more words… than the prayers…

that we said at home.

And while praying… we were supposed to keep our eyes closed…

but I was a rebel and I kept one eye open… scanning the room.

People were yawning. People were mumbling.

It just seemed like everyone couldn’t wait for the hour to pass.

And I know for myself…

I couldn’t wait to talk again.

I couldn’t wait to run freely again.

Even at five, I knew that life is so short… it’s so precious…

and I couldn’t wait to live again.

But sitting there in church though… I used to just think….

That if there is a God, we have to be boring him out of his mind.

And I wondered if he actually listened to our prayers…

because when we spoke to him, it wasn’t like we expected a response.

We didn’t expect anything to happen.

When we prayed, it just seemed to be more about a box we checked.

A hoop we jumped through to make some far-off being happy with us.

Who or what were we praying to…

Ourselves? The thin air? I didn’t know.

And I don’t know… if any of this connects with you or not…

But from an early age, I just thought that all of it… was so strange.

Praying. Church. God. Baby Jesus. All of it… was so weird!

And as I got older… my questions and my doubts only continued to grow…

I mean… If God was truly amazing…

if he was really awesome

why were we so miserable every time we talked about him?

And why didn’t this supposed… all-powerful God ever seem to do anything?

And other than the one hour on Sunday mornings…

and a few quick prayers before eating and sleeping…

why was he absent from our lives?

Like away from Sundays,

it felt like we were almost embarrassed to even mention God.

Which didn’t make sense to me…

Because I mean… when something was awesome in my life…

an old car… or next week’s football game.

It impacted me… and I couldn’t stop talking about it.

And so by my freshmen year of high school…

I started to become more vocal about my questions.

And I also started what every Lutheran kid does—confirmation.

And I know it’s possible for confirmation to be great and beneficial…

But for me it was 2 years of pure agony…

My clearest memory from confirmation is of having to pick a memory verse.

I picked John 11:35… which is the shortest verse in the Bible—“Jesus wept”—