Posted on: Saturday, January 1, 2005
Turn on spiritual radar now
By H.M. Wyeth
It felt as if someone had switched off the lights. All at once the boat on which I was a passenger was gripped in a giant fist of fog. We could see no more than a few meters. With dozens of other vessels randomly passing through the area, it seemed like a prescription for trouble.
Yet help was there. Our skipper simply switched on the radar and steered us safely out into daylight.
Prayer, a kind of spiritual radar, works much the same way. Unlike physical senses, which passively record only information received through perturbations in the physical continuum, prayer pierces the fog of pain, fear, grief, or ingratitude that can seem to engulf the heart.
Radar will not do much good unless you switch it on and then watch the screen. Neither will prayer. As the Bible puts it in Hebrews 11:6, "he that cometh to God must believe that he is ... a rewarder of them that diligently seek him."
If the radar signal is weak or the screen cloudy, the mechanism cannot do its job. Likewise, fear or ingratitude can sap the beam or becloud the screen of prayer.
The world's religions contain many examples of people who have cleaned their screens simply by expressing gratitude. Being most familiar with the Judeo-Christian tradition, I can cite two Bible stories to illustrate this point.
II Chronicles 20 tells how King Jehoshaphat of Judah, beset by a hostile army much larger than his own, turned to God for help. Buoyed by a message of encouragement, he ordered musicians to march ahead of his army and sing hymns of gratitude. Militarily, this would seem nonsensical; a small force setting out to fight a larger one might consider it prudent to surprise the enemy, after all.
Yet, as verse 22 says, when the singers began their psalms, the whole hostile army fell into confusion and destroyed itself. Jehosha-
phat's spiritual radar had been strong enough not only to lead his people to safety, but also to dissolve the seemingly inescapable force surrounding them.
One of the greatest spiritual radar operators of all time was Jesus. Here is one example: John 6:5-13 tells how Jesus fed a multitude with five small loaves of bread and a couple of fish. Variations of this story appear in all four Gospels, but John's account of Jesus' method is especially interesting.
Apparently wishing to test his students' radar-handling skills, he asks them how to supply this huge crowd. Fear and ingratitude characterize their responses. "There is a lad here which hath five barley loaves, and two small fishes," grouses Andrew, "but what are they among so many?" (verse 9).
Jesus, however, gratefully accepts the boy's offer of help, and orders the disciples to distribute his bread and fish. What a surprise! Not only does everyone eat his fill, but there are leftovers.
In our time, the world seems gripped in a fist of fear, hatred, poverty and danger. It needs spiritual radar operators to activate their signals and watch their screens.
So switch on the gratitude signal and see what shows up on screen.
H.M. Wyeth is a member of the Christian Science Society, Kaua'i.
