Pray, then Wait

Faith, in my experience, can be chalked up to a little game I like to call Pray, then Wait.

It’s the waiting part that gets us all, especially in the beginning. Humanity, as an expression of life, does not like to dilly dally. We are not BLEEPING around. We have BLEEP to do. We have deadlines. This is urgent. God (or Good) needs to STEP. IT. UP.

L… O… L

It’s strange. Now that I have faith, I feel like a bit like I’ve taken a sedative. I do not really remember what all the rushing around and misery was even about. I was making myself miserable for YEARS. YEARS! Decades, actually, and now it all seems like some sort of bad dream. I feel a little bit sorry for that younger person who was trying so hard and living so urgently, but mostly I just feel grateful that it’s over. 

I think part of the reason so many of us struggle with the waiting is that we lack purpose, and I think it’s easy to lack purpose when you lack faith. Which comes first, purpose or faith, faith or purpose?

The annoying answer is that I think they go hand-in-hand. Dabble with prayer and we’re bound to start believing we deserve to be happy, too. Pursue our purpose and we are bound to run straight into faith-building moments of serendipity and alignment. 

Almost three years ago, I read a book by Gabby Bernstein that changed my life (it’s called The Universe Has Your Back and I highly recommend, obvi). Her book framed God (or Good) or the Universe or Whatever You Need to Call It in terms that I could understand. It gave me permission to just try and believe in Good (or God), and that was enough. 

I did what excitable (trying to avoid the word crazy here) people do when they are desperate for change, and I quit my really stable, good paying job with growth potential and a 401K and I went back to school full-time to do what I knew I was always meant to do.

It was like that book was my ticket to believe something, anything would be working in my favor, when I had spent a lifetime totally believing nothing would ever work out and I was destined to be miserable (thanks, family trauma history). It was my ticket out of hell, and I will be eternally grateful to Bernstein for writing it.

I don’t actually recommend taking the kind of risk I did to prove my faith and Bernstein doesn’t recommend it either. It’s not necessary. As much as our man-made religions would have us believe, this force for Good that we call God doesn’t really demand penance or sacrifice or self-flagellation in order to reap the benefits of belief. We don’t have to grovel for Good (or God) to turn up in our lives, we just have to ask for help, believe we’ll receive it, and start looking around for the answer. 

 I think the reason religions expect - and often demand - that people get on their knees when dealing with God (or Good) is that it is the ultimate gesture in humility for many humans full of too much chutzpah. I think probably some of us do actually need to get off our high horses in order to have faith. I was one of them for sure. I thought I had all the answers, if only other people would just DO WHAT I WANT or LISTEN TO ME.

But begging? Begging is unnecessary. Begging is an act of trying to force the outcome. In my experience with the broadest interpretation of faith or dealing with the Universe/Good/God, we just need to be prepared to stay out of the way. We need to busy ourselves with living, with doing well, with being kind to ourselves and to one another, with our purpose, and have faith that God (or Good) will come up with an answer to any number of problems in due time. 

Purpose becomes the answer to how to occupy our time while we are waiting for an answer. Purpose provides so much meaning, the ups and downs feel either smaller or more worth it, because we are aimed at a loftier goal than shopping, sexing, or binge watching television until the end of our time here on Planet Earth. If we are working on something important, waiting for an answer to a prayer feels more like a mole hill than a mountain.

My guess is that most of us already know what we are meant to do with our lives, deep down, and most of us are afraid to do it. I’m not saying we all need to quit our stable jobs and commit to our dreams of becoming a rock star, but I am saying that there are far too many of us who live without purpose, and just as many who aren’t even sure what the word purpose means. 

It’s an abstract term, but it also kind of means everything. Why are we on this planet? What good are we going to do with our lives? Who do we want to help? Do we respect ourselves? How are we contributing and to whom?

These are big questions, and most of us feel like we are either not allowed to ask them or we don’t have time for them. Sometimes, providing for our families has to be enough, but even then, that can and probably should be done with purpose.

And if we are totally disconnected from our sense of purpose, might I recommend… you guessed it:

Pray, then wait. 

Pray, then wait. 

Pray, then wait. 

The waiting is the hardest part, but we learn a lot about ourselves in the process. There are three important parts - taking deep breaths to stay calm, refusing to involve ourselves, and paying attention.

If we can stay out of our own way (and God/Good’s, btw), we run across guidance, intuition, and details about others. This is all grist for the mill and useful information on our path to finding faith, and it is the same path where we are destined to find and finally commit to our purpose. 

Pray, then wait. Pray, then wait. Pray, then wait. I assure you, the wait will be worth it.