Amen!

Today, we come to the last chapter of Lamott’s Help Thanks Wow, and that is the prayer of, “Amen.”

Amen is what we are taught as a child to say at the end of our prayer, to mark that the prayer is over, and that it is time to move on to the next thing. We say “Amen,” and we can now eat, or leave, or play ball. The word “amen” means “and so it is,” or “truly.” We are kind of marking our prayer with a, “so be it—let it be done- huzzah!” However, when we are the ones doing the submitting, or the thanking, or the asking (as we so often are in prayer), it seems a little harsh to end this way.

Not only that, but 1 Thessalonians 5:17 reminds us to “Pray without ceasing.” Why do we want to mark the end of a prayer that we never really want to stop? As Lamott says, “If you are trying to finish up quickly so you can check your cell phone messages, you are missing the chance to spend quiet moments with the giver of life and the eternal, which means you may reap continued feelings of life racing along without you.” We are so busy, and our lives are so packed with lists and people and distractions, that we often don’t get the time with God that we want. However, if we can stay in a mindset of prayer throughout the day, we can hopefully steal away some moments of connection, that are just for us and Him—where He can love us, and sustain us, and get us through until the next moment of time with Him.

There is a type of Amen that I think can be helpful, however. The Amen where we say we are leaving this problem, this request, this thing that is bigger than we can understand—if we get to the point where we can leave a burden with God, and say amen, and then truly walk away from it, then I think we are accomplishing something big that He wants from us. “When we do the best we can, and we leave the results in God’s good hands. Amen.” This amen, where we know we can’t do it on our own, so we leave our burdens on Him, because He is big, and good, and loves us and can handle them. “Quiet, deep breath after any prayer is another form of Amen.”  This is almost a contentment, a sigh of relief that we are not the ones carrying this alone anymore, that we have invited God in to the problem, to carry it for us.

My challenge for us today is to become more aware of our “amens.” To not use them as a sign of closing communication with God, but instead as a sign of submitting- to leaving the things that we need to leave with Him, and walking away from those burdens. May we continue our communication, and run toward those moments with God that mean we never really stop the conversation.

I hope that you have enjoyed our look at Anne Lamott’s, Help Thanks Wow: The Three Essential Prayers. We will be taking next week off (I’m heading on family vacation), and then we will resume the following week, as we begin looking at John Wesley’s Three Simple Rules during the month of May!

As always, remember to contact me with prayer requests, resources requests, or Pastoral Care visits for you or anyone in our continuum care!