Never too late to pray
Photo illustrated by Brian Turner
A guest post written by Stewart Moses
Can there ever be a time when it is too late to pray to God for help? We may be tempted to answer “yes”, but I had an experience in college that challenges that notion.
This occurred after a midterm exam in one of the more difficult courses that I took at school. I always did a lot of praying before exams to help me study effectively and to get rid of the common fears and anxieties that come with tests. I usually prayed to know that I reflected the one perfect, Divine Mind, namely God, and that this same Mind had created the exam (through the teacher) and was going to take the exam (through me).
This time the exam I took consisted of three physics problems. Shortly after the exam was over, while walking back, I began to think about the answers I had written down. After a few moments I realized that I probably hadn’t done the first problem correctly. Then I started to think about the second problem and concluded that I probably hadn’t done that problem correctly either. Sure enough, I came to realize that also I probably hadn’t done the third problem correctly.
This seemed completely unfair. I had studied for the exam and prayed about taking it; so why had I figured out the answers only after taking the exam and not during it, when the answers would have done me some good? But it came to me that it was not too late to support my effort with prayer.
While I had earlier prayed to know that there was only one Mind creating and taking the exam, it was still true that there was only one Mind grading the exam – that Mind was still God’s. I also prayed to know that God is always in control, even if it is hard for me to realize this. The Bible states, “Trust in the Lord with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding.” I wasn’t praying to have the professor give me a higher grade than I deserved but to be able to see God’s control over everything I was doing.
During the next class, the professor discussed the scores on the exam. It turned out that I had received sufficient partial credit for what I wrote to get one of the higher scores in the class. While I was certainly pleased—and relieved—with the score that I got at the time, the more valuable lesson was a deeper understanding of God’s care for me. This experience was one of many small lessons that I learned while relying on God. When things don’t appear to work out, even after much prayer, we may be deceived to think that God isn’t there for us all the time. But God is always there – helping and hearing, and it is never too late to pray.
Thanks Stewart! I too found it is never too late to pray. I goofed off in a speech class in college and when the final came I realized unless I got an A on the final I would flunk the class. Then I prayed and asked God to show me what to do to be His best witness. The answer came to memorize the table of contents of the textbook for the class. There was only one question on the final: write down what you learned in this class. I wrote down the table of contents and elaborated on each point and received and A on the test. It is never too late to pray!
I had a similar experience. Having long attended Christian Science Sunday School, it was normal for me to pray about, even during, school exams. In college, I once took a calculus exam. According to my normal practice, I devoted my full attention to each question and didn’t linger on questions that I couldn’t grasp at the moment. I got to the end of that text and could not answer about half the exam, a sure F. I looked it over again quickly and could make nothing of the questions that eluded me, so I just closed the exam and prayed. I don’t recall my exact prayers — that was long ago — but I would have prayed to establish in my thought such an understanding of God’s presence and governance that feelings of inadequacy and forgetfulness would be replaced by the demonstration of Mind’s complete and immediate control and free expression, not only in me, but in my fellow students. After I prayed, I reopened the exam. This time, the answers to each of the questions that before confused me were completely clear, almost as if the questions themselves had changed from hard questions to easy questions. I breezed to the end of a test that a short time previously had looked like so much jibberish to me. The time I spent in prayer — five to ten minutes during an hour-long exam — was more than made up by the ease with which I answered the remaining questions.
Yes, it’s never too late to pray, but it’s also never too early to pray, but that’s another healing…
Thanks Stewart – I know several people who will love this – It can be applied in many ways, like saying something that you didn’t really mean – prayer will tell us how to correct it.
Louise/Tor.