Intersections: Where Faith Meets Life – by Bob Weathers

Talk about missing the point. A new Web site, www.informationageprayer.com, provides subscribers the opportunity to have digitized prayers offered on their behalf.

Bob Weathers

Arrive at the site and select from a menu of religions. Pick “Jewish,” and you are offered a chance to have the shema quoted for you twice daily (because that is the obligation) for a mere $19.95 per month. Or, click on “Muslim” and you can have the salat voiced for you five times a day for just $3.95 a month. Or just click “Protestant” and subscribe to have the Lord’s Prayer recited for you daily for $3.95 per month. (Why do the Jews pay more than Muslims and Protestants?) But for any faith, once your subscription is paid, a computer-generated voice will offer your prayer at programmed intervals, “with the name of the subscriber displayed on the screen.”

Why do this? The point of your subscription, the Web site helpfully clarifies, is convenience. “It gives you the satisfaction of knowing that your prayers will always be said even if you wake up late, or forget.”

Imagine. Dashing off to work, coffee in hand, and half way there you realize, “I forgot to pray!” But wait! No problem. You paid for a computer to rattle off your petition. And your name is displayed brightly on the screen so God won’t confuse you with Uncle Steve, who also subscribed. Now, you can go on about your day with the warm knowledge that your religious obligation has been fulfilled!

Feel satisfied? Hardly. Would you do that to your spouse? “Honey, if I forget to talk to you, just log onto www.informationagelove.com and you can hear me say I love you! Well, not really me – a digitized voice, but it shows my picture!”

Nope. The point of love is the relationship, not your convenience. And the point of prayer is conversation with the One who loves you more than you can even express. Anything less than direct communication is an insult to Him and far less than satisfying for you.

David exulted in the relationship. “In the morning, O Lord, you hear my voice – when I awake, I will be satisfied with seeing your likeness” (Psalm 5:3, 17:15).

No substitutes. No alternatives. Because nothing else satisfies like the real thing.