We Are An Offering

Prayer is not a way of making use of God; prayer is a way of offering ourselves to God in order that He should be able to make use of us.
William Barclay

There has been a change where I work. When I came back to work, after my medical leave for my back surgery, I was well rested, yet I dreaded going back into that windowless, cluttered, crowded and understaffed clinic. I didn't want to be around the complaining, the backbiting, the gossipping, the favoritism, and the general dissatisfaction of the staff. I love my clients, but I was tired of having so many illegal alien clients who don't speak English.

I decided to try something new. My staff, which consists of myself, my RN, and my LPN began saying a group prayer together every morning. We started it initially as a way to ask for a new supervisor and for other certain staff members to find other employment. I supposed we thought that none of us was a part of what we thought needed to be changed.

But a funny thing has happened...our prayers have moved away from changing other people to changing ourselves. We consistently pray now for our attitudes, our behavior, our supervisor and other staff, our patients, our families and our personal issues. We are developing a bond based on the love of God and our collective belief that God listens and answers prayers.

The most interesting and fulfilling thing about it is, not only do we look forward to that morning prayer (our group has grown from 3 to 5 each morning), but that we can see a difference in ourselves that has started to affect the rest of the staff in a positive way. The staff seems happier, the supervisor is friendlier, and the patients feel more respected and cared about.

We started our morning prayer as a way to use God to get what we wanted and ended up finding that prayer really is an offering of ourselves to God to be used in whatever way God chooses to use us.

I can't believe we never thought about doing this before.