At the library a couple of weeks ago, where I often go to study, I saw a car with a bumper sticker. This car was parked in the first space, so it was unmistakable – you saw it the moment you pulled into the parking lot, and it confronted you as you walked to the parking lot from the library. It read, in large, loud letters, “Nothing fails like prayer.” Nothing fails like prayer. Now, it is one thing not to believe in prayer, or to think those of us who do pray are misguided or even foolish. But to go to such lengths to ridicule and discourage prayer is something else altogether. And I wondered, what happened to this person? What prayer didn’t get answered the way they wanted it to and caused this crisis of faith? What had happened to cause their faith to fail? Perhaps it wasn’t their faith that failed initially, perhaps it was someone else’s…
