Have you ever tried to feed a baby something they did not want to eat? It’s a frustrating exercise. Frustrating for you and the baby.

Here’s a whole world of food. There are fruits, vegetables, and meat for those who partake. So many combinations and wonderful pairings. Peanut butter and jelly. Peas and carrots. Meat and potatoes.

And here’s this baby wondering why you’re trying to feed them this pureed awfulness you yourself don’t want to eat. It’s a baffling task. Trying to lay the foundations of diet and exercise to a six-month-old.

When Eve and Sam refuse food… both as babies and now… Kate and I sometimes have a minor freak out. Will they eat right? Can they survive on a limited diet? Are we any good at this parenting thing? We’re trying to instill the value of something to someone who doesn’t seem to care. It’s so vital a practice, this eating right… or eating at all! It’s something you have to do. My diet hasn’t been the best historically. I ate mainly hotdogs and ice cream growing up. The reason I am so tall has little to do with a good diet. Maybe it’s a combination of recessive genes and growth hormones in 1980s meat. Diet wasn’t my strong point but I have been improving here.

We can see Lent looming on the horizon. In 10 days it will be upon us. I used to hate Lent when I was growing up Catholic. The fish on Friday and the mandatory “give something up” practice that functions like a New Years Resolution. Everyone has one, but I guess Lent is better because you only have to feel guilty for 40 days for not doing something versus a whole year. Once, as a young and wise-cracking teenager, I gave up Lent for Lent. I was so clever. I followed that well until my mid-20s.

I was an outside salesman at that time. Always rushing about. I had a schedule to keep. Deliveries to make. Sales calls to show up for. Training. I had time for fast food and energy drinks in this fast-paced life. My company gave out free soda and popcorn. Somedays, that was all I would eat as I bounced from our various store locations. Popcorn and soda and fast food do not make for a healthy diet. I gained a lot of weight at that time. My head grew so big that it ate my hair. I think that’s how that works.

We were back going to church at that time, and Kate decided that we should give up soda for Lent. So that’s what we did. It was a hard practice at first. Kate must have sensed this. Being the good journalist that she is, she did her research and presented the case.

Soda dehydrates you, it’s empty calories and affects your weight, it can degrease car parts, it can dissolve teeth. Mainly it was the insane amount of sugar. Since then, I’ve stopped drinking soda. I have an occasional soda maybe once a month or less, but I don’t love it as much as I used to.

The same with fast food. Now I feel sick if I have too much of it. My high school and elementary self wouldn’t know what to think of me today. Now I’ve practiced so much, it’s just who I am.

Diets are like that. You get used to eating something that you pay no mind to when you eat it. It’s just what you do. Many talk about diet in a temporary sense. “I’m on a diet.” They’d say. But a diet isn’t what you’re on, it’s what’s in you. It’s who you are.

Simon’s mother in-law served a lot of food in her day. It’s just who she was. When you came over, she’d always make sure you were fed and watered. She loved being a hostess. Yet she fell ill. She came down with a fever and it was pretty serious. She, like so many moms, didn’t get sick days. She took care of her family, made sure they were fed even when she had the flu. It’s just the way she was. She worked and found her worth in her care and nurture of others. No one told her she had to do this, she just did it. She couldn’t afford to take a day off, her family needed her. Yet this fever was one that she couldn’t work through. It laid her out.

Then Jesus comes and takes her by the hand and lifted her up. And the fever left her. And she began to serve them. Not because they asked. In fact, Simon told her to rest and that he’d serve everyone. But she knew Simon. That guy was a man of extremes. It was either too little or too much. She told Simon to sit down and let her do what makes her happy. “I just want to feel like myself again,” she said.

Jesus must have known that feeling. He was really busy. He was baptized, then he was in the wilderness for forty days, then he called his first disciples, then he cast out an unclean spirit and healed this woman who then fed him and his new friends. People were searching him out, crowds were gathering, life was going so fast.

In the morning, while it was still dark, he got up to pray. Maybe he just wanted to feel like himself again. Maybe he needed the time to re-center. But I think that’s just who he was.

Christ understood that prayer isn’t treating God like your cosmic bellhop. We often treat prayer like this. A long list of requests. Prayer is many things, and asking God for something is one of them, but it’s not the main thing. Just as there are so many types of food, there areso many types of prayer. Harry Emerson Fosdick gives us a few ways to pray.

Prayers of interior relaxation and serenity: a time to rest and find refuge in God. Like the Psalmist wrote, “Be still and know that I am God.”

Prayers of affirmation: This prayer affirms the great convictions that blow trumpets in the soul, declaring who God is to us. Like Psalm 23, “The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.” Or “Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed by thy name.”

Prayers of spiritual companionship: Like what we have in Isaiah. God is with us. The Creator of all there is, the unequaled, the infinite, knows each thing by name and is with us.

Prayers of Discernment: Asking God’s help in figuring out what to do. Like Christ in the garden, “Let this cup pass from me, but if it is your will.” Sometimes doing what’s right isn’t doing what’s right for ourselves.

Prayers of thanksgiving: As Christian mystic Meister Eckhart once stated, “If all you ever pray is ‘Thank you’ it would be enough.”

There are all sorts of ways to pray. It is important to get into the habit of prayer. It’s just talking to God. It’s not a monologue, it also involves listening. As Mother Teresa was once asked, “What do you say to God when you pray?”

“Nothing, I just listen.”

“And what does God say to you?”

“Nothing. God listens.”

That sounds crazy. With all there is to do, just sit in silence?

When I was in seminary, we had a class which made us take up different prayer practices. We tried all sorts from different Christian traditions. Then we had to write a reflection on it. The seminarians, myself included, roundly rejected and complained about each and every practice. These would-be pastors and chaplains who would have to pray on a regular basis, like a large part of the job would be praying. Yet we were like kids refusing to eat.

Prayer time was so hard to find. We had books to read. Papers to write. Assignments were due. Tests to study for. Greek to translate. Some of us had internships or hospital chaplaincies. Pray?! We didn’t have time for that! What good would it do anyway?

Yet slowly, ever so slowly, our teacher slowly worked on us. He kept offering the food. And slowly our diet began to change. I started to see how with prayer, I was more centered. I wrote better papers. My tests began to improve. I was a tad more patient. The Fruits of the Spirit started to grow. Slowly change took hold. Now I can’t start my day without prayer. Daily devotionals are so important, time with God is so important. Now it’s part of who I am and I feel off balance if I start to get out of practice, and I’m by no means perfect.

Prayer deepens our shallow and harried lives. Prayer isn’t just another task to do, it’s who we are. If we are to follow Christ, if we are to put on the mind of Christ and be transformed, then let us imitate him. All through Mark’s gospel, Jesus is finding time to pray. It’s a constant theme. He’s surrounded by the crowds. People need healed, disciples need taught, critics need answered, the world needs saving. What does Jesus do? He finds a place to pray.

“Everyone is searching for you! You have so much to get done!”

Jesus is so cool about it. After finishing his prayer, it’s as if he answers, “Yeah, now I’m ready to do it.”

Preachers love to remind you to say your prayers. It’s a topic we beat to death. It’s because we’ve found so much life in the practice. We actually believe in prayer. Yet sometimes it feels like trying to feed someone who doesn’t want to eat.

This week, can you try it? Just pray? I’ll be there with you. This week, every day at 10 a.m. I’ll be on Facebook live video at facebook.com/uccmedina—you don’t even need an account to watch!–and we’ll do a different prayer practice a day. Just little things we can do together to get you started on this vital practice. I’d love to hear how the practice affects you. I hope to see you online this week! If you can’t join in right at 10, you can still go online and look for the archived video after the fact. Or try it on your own and let me know how it goes.

Works Cited

Fosdick, Harry Emerson. Successful Christian Living: Sermons on Christianity today. Harper and Brothers, New York. 1937.