Praying at the Pump, Why Not? July 29, 2008

A religious organization in St. Louis, Missouri, “Pray at the Pump”, has undertaken a unique effort to relieve the crunch of rising gas prices.

They are asking for Divine intervention.

“Pray at the Pump” has begun a campaign of prayer at a St. Louis-area Mobil station to thank G-d for lower fuel prices, and to ask G-d for lower gas prices “since politicians couldn’t get lower gas prices”:

A St. Louis faith-based group has scheduled two prayer services at an area Mobil station to thank God for lower fuel prices and to ask that they continue to drop.

Darrell Alexander, Midwest co-chairman of Pray at the Pump, says the gatherings will be held to ask God to intervene since politicians couldn’t get lower gas prices.

Participants say they plan to buy gas, pray and sing “We Shall Overcome” with a new verse, “We’ll have lower gas prices.”

I think these are wonderful actions. This was understandably placed in the “weird, offbeat” news section, and of course, upon the story’s publication, jokes began to abound.

But while this may be an unusual venue in which to pray, I don’t find these actions weird at all, and in fact, it would be logical for all religious people to do similar things.

The simple act of prayer assumes that prayer has an effect on one’s environment and/or soul: one would not waste his time doing a patently ineffective action in the hopes of receiving some sort of result if he knows he’s acting in vain. Virtually all religious people who believe in interaction with a Higher Power see that Higher Power as a source of help, of refuge, of salvation against all odds. Most religious people would agree with the statement: “when no one else was there for me, G-d was.”

For those of us who believe in an all-powerful, infinite G-d with omnipresent, permanent and total jurisdiction over the universe, prayer also means interacting with that One Entity who can do anything. It would follow logically that if one believes G-d can create life, planets, and time — G-d can also change gas prices. Is it any more logical to pray at a hospital than at a gas station? G-d can kill a micro-organism or heal a broken bone “as quickly as” He could do any number of market-impacting actions to lower gas prices.

I have stood on bus stops and prayed for buses to run on time, I have prayed for phones to ring, I have prayed for subways to run on schedule. If someone desires to fulfill the ideal of “in all your ways, know Him”, then it would follow logically that, since there is nothing in the Universe “out of G-d’s control”, then one would ask Him to “control” all sorts of things.

It is precisely when we start thinking that humans have control that G-d doesn’t have (ch”v) that we run into problems. Is there something that OPEC can do that G-d can’t undo? Is there anything that Americans could vote for that G-d couldn’t veto? I’ll take Mr. Alexander’s contention, even, a step further — it is not that “politicians couldn’t get lower gas prices”, so therefore, “as plan B”, one should turn to G-d, on the contrary, G-d should always be “plan A”, and the politicians only focused upon to gauge what effects the prayers had. Turning to a human is only the effort we put in to manifest a Divine decree, the reality, of course, being that all the “work”, all the “doing”, all the manipulation of circumstance and Creation is being done exclusively by the Creator.

And while very few humans who have ever existed can be said to have lived at this level of faith their entire lives, when people do make shows of faith, they shouldn’t be made fun of or belittled, rather, it should make us examine our own levels of faith and trust in G-d, to see if we also would ask the Creator for $.25 off.