Don’t Worry, Be Prayerful

The Three Essential Prayers: Help. Thanks. Wow.

Photo by Chris Liverani @ Unsplash

Every thought we have, whether conscious or unconscious, shapes our life and by extension the world around us. Repetitive, fear-based thoughts about something add our fearful energy to a situation, making the thing we don’t want more likely to happen. When someone comes to me for spiritual counsel with the habit of excessive worry, I tell them, worrying is praying for what you don’t want. Wait. What? I’m praying for what I don’t want when I worry? Yes. Worry is creative. What you think about comes about, so conjuring worst-case scenarios in your mind makes them more likely to occur. 

Happiness is something that you are and it comes from the way you think. ~ Wayne Dyer 

Telling yourself not to worry rarely stops it. Instead, pivot to prayer. Positive affirmations are mini-prayers that can be used to direct your thinking away from distressing thoughts and towards making more helpful and supportive thoughts your new habit. When praying for family or friends, instead of focusing on worrisome aspects of their situation, envision them happy, free from fear, and living their best life. Prayer pulls on the plasma of an interactive universe, enabling us to co-create with the divine. It connects us to the transforming Source of Life that is within us and also beyond anything we can imagine. 

Prayer is about getting outside of your own self and hooking into something greater than that very, very limited part of our experience here — the ticker tape of thoughts and solutions, and trying to figure out who to blame. ~ Anne Lamott

Pivoting away from worry takes conscious awareness and practice, but it need not be complicated. Best selling author of Help Thanks Wow, The Three Essential Prayers, Anne Lamott, writes that it is these three essential prayers – asking for assistance from a higher power, appreciating what we have that is good, and feeling awe at the world around us – that can get us through the day and can show us the way forward.

Help. Thanks. Wow.

Anne on the first prayer, Help: “Well, I've heard people say that God is the gift of desperation, and there's a lot to be said for having really reached a bottom where you've run out of anymore good ideas, or plans for everybody else's behavior; or how to save and fix and rescue; or just get out of a huge mess, possibly of your own creation. When you're done, you may take a long, quavering breath and say, 'Help.' People say 'help' without actually believing anything hears that. But it is the great prayer, and it is the hardest prayer, because you have to admit defeat — you have to surrender, which is the hardest thing any of us do, ever."

If one person is praying for you, buckle up. Things can happen.  ~ Anne Lamott

Anne on the second prayer, Thanks: "Thanks is the prayer of relief that help was on the way. It can be the pettiest, dumbest thing, but it could also be that you get the phone call that the diagnosis was much, much, much better than you had been fearing. The full prayer, in its entirety, is: Thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you. But for reasons of brevity, I just refer to it as Thanks. It's amazement and relief that you caught a break; that your family caught a break; that you didn't have any reason to believe that things were really going to be OK, and then they were and you just can't help but say thank you."

The three things I cannot change are the past, the truth, and you. ~ Anne Lamott

Anne on the third prayer, Wow: "Wow is the praise prayer. The prayer where we're finally speechless — which in my case is saying something. When I don't know what else to do I go outside, and I see the sky and the trees and a bird flies by, and my mouth drops open again with wonder at just the sheer beauty of creation. And I say, 'Wow.' ... You say it when you see the fjords for the first time at dawn, or you say it when you first see the new baby, and you say, 'Wow. This is great.' Wow is the prayer of wonder."

Why must people kneel down to pray? If I really wanted to pray I’ll tell you what I'd do. I'd go out into a great big field all alone or in the deep, deep woods and I'd look up into the sky—up—up—up—into that lovely blue sky that looks as if there was no end to its blueness. And then I'd just feel a prayer. ~ Anne of Green Gables

The Quiet, Heavy Presence of God

Recently, a weeks-long spiritual revival by a group of young people in Kentucky made headlines. It serves as a reminder of the transformative power of prayer whenever two or more gather with a shared purpose. After a regularly scheduled chapel service at Asbury University’s campus in Wilmore, Kentucky this past February, a dozen or so students lingered, praying for one another. The chapel speaker that day, Zak Meerkreebs had urged them to become the love of God by experiencing the love of God. As the students stayed and prayed, and as the minutes turned to hours, a surreal peace descended upon the room. United by their shared intention to experience the love of God, the students amplified and embodied the speaker’s message.  

Like a tuning fork that causes other tuning forks to resonate at the same frequency, the students’ energy coalesced to form a prayerful energy that attracted other students and community members like a magnet. Continuously over two weeks, worshippers flocked to the chapel to experience “a peacefulness so palpable that a mere ten minutes had made an impression that will last the remainder of my lifetime,” said Jason Vickers, a professor at Asbury Theological Seminary, on Facebook. People who entered the chapel described feeling awed as they encountered a “sweet presence,” “deep peace,” or “the quiet, heavy presence of God.”

Prayer isn’t just for the religious. I don’t consider myself to be religious. Anyone can reach out to God at any time. That’s the beauty and wonder of it. Who one among us, when faced with a terrible tragedy, hasn't cried out to God in despair? Even the most hardened atheists surprise themselves by doing it. It is a natural desire that we have in common. ~ Karen Hunt

Whether you gather with others to pray or reach out to your higher power in your own unique way, you can leverage the power of prayer to create a more peaceful world. Don't worry. Be prayerful.