With the recent disaster in Japan, I have been reminded of something that I often wonder about. Why is it that when there is a tragedy, be it a natural disaster, a horrible accident, or maybe the events that transpired on 9/11/2001, there is always an outpouring of prayers? People aren't afraid to speak openly about praying to God for the victims, the survivors, and anyone affected by these happenings. But talking about Christianity without a tragedy is for crazy religious whack jobs. No one wants to acknowledge the existence of God (at least publicly) unless there is a shield of some difficult to understand event.

Lets say, for instance, we are standing on a street corner and we look up just in time to see a man on a motorcycle get hit at a high rate of speed by a semi truck. I am sure I am not alone in thinking that the first words to leave my mouth would be "Oh My God!" Then, others who witnessed the scene, would gather and watch in disbelief. If someone in that group of onlookers suggested that we bow our heads and pray for the man on the motorcycle, I don' think that anyone would disagree with the idea.

Now, lets just suppose the same scenario takes place minus the motorcycle and minus the semi truck. Now it is just a group of people standing together. Someone suggests saying a prayer. I can imagine there would be looks of confusion. Why would we just pray for no reason? No one is sick or dying that we know of. Right?

I know it is totally unrealistic to think that people would just stop on the street and start praying for each other. But I think it is worth asking ourselves why we don't. I think so many of us have been trained by main stream media to think that the majority of people do not believe in God and to openly suggest that we do might offend someone. I think we should be proud enough of our faith in God to pray openly without a tragedy in our midst. Our prayers shouldn't be reserved for asking God for a huge, huge favor when we really need something. We should be thanking God every day for everything he has blessed us with.