Why We Should Pray Often

When I go for my evening exercises to my hometown of Kiserian, I usually make an effort of walking uprightly and of thinking positively. I also try to observe as much as I can along the way. Last Thursday but one, I passed by the lifeless body of a kitten. It had obviously been ran over by a moving car or motorbike as it strolled on the road.

On my way back home that same Thursday evening, I saw another kitten - this time a living one - on the road leading to our home. The kitten looked desperate for company given the way it was meowing audibly. When I got near it, I hunkered down and stroked it affectionately, something that made it warm to me and start following me after I stood up to walk.

Afraid that the kitten might follow me all the way home, I did what I maintain was the right thing to do: I kicked it with one of my feet. That made it stop loping behind me. It stood still and began meowing again. As I walked away from it, I sympathized with its loneliness and wished it well.

Later on in the evening of that day when I remembered the kitten I had seen lying dead on the road, I prayed for the kitten I had kicked with my foot. I asked God to protect it from the danger of being hit by a moving vehicle as it desperately sought company of passersby.

My prayer set in motion a series of thoughts in my mind about the danger we humans also encounter as we go about our daily life. I remembered the stories I have read about the calamities that have befallen on people who were lucky, healthy and blessed. Two accidents in particular stood out in my memory.

One was a plane crash which happened in 1996 and which killed Ron Brown, the then United States Secretary of Commerce. I read about that plane crash in the endearing memoir of Bill Clinton under whose administration Ron Brown was serving. Clinton reported in his memoir that less than two weeks before the plane crashed, his wife and daughter had flown in it with some of the same cabin crew members who perished in its crash.

I shudder to think how Bill Clinton would have felt and reacted if the plane had crashed while carrying his immediate family. He just has to thank his lucky stars that his wife and daughter weren't in the plane during that ill-fated flight when it crashed in Europe, killing everyone onboard, including Ron Brown who was eulogized as the best Secretary of Commerce that America ever had.

The other accident that I remembered reading about was another plane crash that happened in the Andes Mountains of South America. I had read about that plane crash in an old Reader's Digest magazine. According to the narrator of the story in the magazine, those who survived the crash had to eat the flesh of their dead colleagues as they got stranded high up in the Andes Mountains for about two weeks before they were found and rescued.

As I read the story, which was told with speed and punch, I could hardly believe that right-thinking human beings could feast on dead human bodies. I wondered whether such human flesh could be delicious when eaten cold. But come to think of it, I now find it plausible that people can actually eat corpses when faced with the threat of dying through starvation.

It is such accidents which have befallen on lucky, healthy and blessed individuals that make me pray often for my family, for my closest relatives and for my true friends. Every day, I ask God to preserve them in danger and to prosper them in all things good. Oh boy, haven't I come to enjoy praying!

I have discovered that praying is like reading and exercising; it's not something you wake up one morning and decide to do daily. Rather, it's something you grow into. You at first try praying once in a while with a lot of effort and discipline, and gradually more often and with ease until it becomes a deeply ingrained habit.

My beloved reader, I beseech you to also get into the habit of praying regularly. Pray for yourself and for your loved ones because there is so much that can go wrong in this fallen world that is full of pain, suffering and disappointments. Pray, pray and pray until praying becomes your lifestyle. That's all I am saying.

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RECOMMENDATION: If you've enjoyed this story on why we should pray often, you might also enjoy another one on "How God Answered My Prayer" that I wrote four years ago. Just click on that link in blue to dive straight into the story.