Why do you pray?
Is there any God or a superpower?
Where did we come from?
Where are we going?
Why is God not helping me?
Do these questions sound familiar? They sure do to me. You see, there was a time when I used to pray regularly, five times a day. I was dead scared to skip even one of them. I used to ask God for money, a better body, a car, mobile phone, and the best of all ‘Make me a Superman’. Oh yes, I did ask God to turn me in to Superman and as embarrassing it is to say it here, I was an introvert (alone), but that’s another story. I was the scared believer who was following what he had been told since his childhood — Bow down here, Go to a mosque, Read the Holy Book, Sex is forbidden, and so on.
I still believe in some of these things, but not because I want to. I have been living this life for a very long time now. This timeline is enough to shape your personality and character in a certain way and that is what happened.
I was so scared that I refused to go out on long trips so that I could stay home and pray on time. I used to be so cautious as to follow the accurate way of praying and religious rituals. It was the fear of hell and God’s wrath that made me do what I was doing. But, it was wrong. That is not worship. That is slavery.
I was scared and I still am, to move out of my current shell of beliefs because it is all I have had as far as I can remember. There is that ominous feeling, what if I remove these beliefs from my life? Where do I go? What should I follow? I mean, I have been in the habit of following something until now and all of a sudden if I remove the wagon-horse, I will be stagnated and stuck at the same point until another horse summons.
The Change
A time came and I started to question everything. Literally everything. I had been living in fear and dark for so long, it was fighting back now. It was asking me, ‘What are you afraid of?’ ‘Why are you afraid?’ ‘What is the point of being scared and living?’
I knew I was scared of God and hell and thus prayed. So, I started an investigation here too. Why am I a Muslim? Why do we pray? Where is God when I need him? Why doesn’t he help all of us or at least the poor and needy? If we all were born from something else, how was the Universe born?Is there even a God?
To make one point clear, God is just a name. What I believe is, there is a superpower, some force that is stronger than me, that is somewhere in the universe. We named it God. It could be named Salaki or Lyre or Myare or Verizon for that matter. It is just a name. Islam, Hinduism, Christianity, Sikhism, and Buddhism. These are all just names. An atheist is not an abusive word. It is the name of a class for people who don’t believe.
I have been asking questions since. One of my most important questions was answered yesterday by Amber Stewart. I stumbled upon her article yesterday and I felt a surge of joy inside me when I read the post. Here it is for you:
Isn’t it quite ironical? Quitting prayer made her a believer. Once you read the post, you will understand why.
I will give you a brief summary here because her article is the motivation for this article. So, the one important question is this:
Why do we pray?
Why do we pray?
Why do YOU pray?
In fact, before leaving for office today, I had a small talk with one acquaintance of mine. He was mocking me for not praying. I asked him the same question.
Why do you pray?
His answer was this: Like you are supposed to pray five times a day, we are supposed to go to temple.
I asked him again.
Why do you pray?
Same answer.
I sensed I am not getting a real answer here so I stopped.
Actually, the question is incomplete and senseless without one piece of information and that is:
What are we supposed to pray for?
Here is where Amber helped me. God bless her soul, she gave me an answer that not even knowledgeable people from my faith could think about. Her answer was simple:
In the Lord’s Prayer, we’re taught to include three things: praise, submission, and request. And it’s the last part that trips me up, because there are only three requests in the Lord’s Prayer: for bread, for forgiveness, and for guidance. That’s it.
God never promised us health or wealth. He never said anywhere that ask me for the Kryptonite and I shall provide you that, or in my case make me Superman. I used to ask for things like money and a car and a lean body. I asked for a million followers on Instagram.
The reason God never answers our prayers isn’t because he never listens. He does listen. Maybe we are asking for the wrong things.
But when “ask and you shall receive” ends up being your proof of faith, how are we meant to react when God says “no”?
What is our role?
If God only promised us bread, forgiveness, and guidance, then how can we solve other problems?
Who do we ask?
What do we ask?
Isn’t that the problem? We always look for others to blame. Instead of taking responsibility for our problems we prefer and take pride in expecting others to solve it. We don’t even try.
Let me give you a simple example.
When you throw garbage on the road, why don’t you ask God to give you some maturity?
Why don’t you pick up the waste from the road and put it in the dustbin? You must be so proud of yourself. So proud, you would ask God to clean it up for you.
My point behind bringing this maturity paradigm is this:
God never promised us a Lambo or a hot girlfriend. He gave us the means through which we could do that. Each one of us is as important as the other. We are all part of a spectrum, all of us have a unique need to fulfill in this world. I believe that. So,
Instead of asking, maybe I should have been listening. After all, if you believe that God gives us gifts and talents, then maybe it’s our job to do the fixing. With guidance, of course.
Take your gifts and talents and do something good with it. No matter the degree, your efforts should be towards a better motive.
To make someone smile.
To give someone your precious time.
To help with your money.
To create employment through a company.
To give shelter.
To save someone’s life.
What is trivial for you, is everything for them. Life is too short to live without a purpose. Life is too short to live with hatred.
If God is not helping the poor or the suffering, it is because he has entrusted us with that. If we can create Hydrogen Bombs, we can create peace too. No one is born poor or rich, we make them. We choose to. No matter how the humans started populating this planet, I am pretty sure there were no two lists for poor and rich. We all started the same. We gave power to those who didn’t deserve it. This trend is still going on today.
Do what you can. Whatever little you can.
Make the world a better place.
God or No God, be kind and help others. You don’t need to believe in God to do good things. Just do it for the sake of humanity.
And most important of all, stop blaming and start doing. Don’t ask for things he never promised for.
Thanks for reading. :)
