Tuesday, June 14, 2011

The Efficacy of Prayer (part 1)

barber-poleSome years ago I got up one morning intending to have my hair cut in preparation for a visit to London, and the first letter I opened made it opened  made it clear I need not go to London. So I decided to put the haircut off too. But then there began the most unaccountable little nagging in my mind, almost like a voice saying, “Get it cut all the same. Go and get it cut.” In the end I could stand it no longer. I went. Now my barber at that time was a fellow Christian and a man of many troubles whom my brother and I had sometimes been able to help. The moment I opened his shop door he said, “Oh, I was praying you might come today.” And in fact if I had come a day or so later I should have been of no use to him.
    It awed me; it awes me still. But of course one cannot rigorously prove a causal connection between the barber’s prayers and my visit. It might be telepathy. It might be accident… I think those who bet know God will best know whether He sent me to the barber’s shop because the barber prayed.

C.S. Lewis, “The Efficacy of Prayer,” originally from The World’s Last Night and Other Essays, here from The Essential C.S. Lewis (Touchstone, 1996) 378, 380.

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