“Pray big, worry small.”

There’s a wonderful saying that I think can help guide us through the challenges of 2023:

I recommend you keep those four words in your pocket today and always because they can calm your fears and enliven your faith.

Prayer is a central feature of most religious traditions.  There are people, however, who keep their prayers small because they don’t feel it is “okay” to pray for big things.  They feel that it would be presumptuous to ask God to rectify big problems because they feel unworthy to do so.

Another reason people keep their prayers small is because they don’t want to be disappointed.  If you pray for an end to the climate crisis and the climate crisis persists, what happened?  Did my prayer go unheard?  Was the answer “no”?  What gives?  It’s better to be realistic and pray for more manageable things.

Pray big, worry small.

Those words say don’t hold back.  Shoot the works!  Name the biggest, huge-ist thing that is hounding your soul and this world, and pray about it!  Because when you do, something more important than solving the difficulty happens: You realize that you are praying to someone who is bigger than even the biggest problem you can name.

And you belong to that someone.

Prayer isn’t a magic wand for resolving big things or little things.  Prayer should start always with gratitude; thanksgiving for the gift of life and for being a product of the divine.  

And when it comes to solving the major problems of life and of the world, it is enough to turn things over to God.  Doing so will keep your worries small because you will realize that there is a bigger picture in play than you are aware of and you can trust that picture; that source and originator of all that is.

Prayer isn’t so much about solving problems as it is bolstering your relationship with the one who holds you no matter what happens.

Pray big, worry small.  Give it a try.

See you in church,

–Rev. Dominic