Gone Commercial

One week till Christmas! This morning, I woke up to realize that our local radio station, affectionately known as K-gerbil, had gone commercial in a constant sort of way. Perhaps the power outage last night did something or the manager needs some quick cash for presents, but their ads were playing in a continuous loop. I had to wonder if the ads were connected to billing software and if the advertisers were notified of the new policy. We may think that Christmas in the world has gone commercial, but after hearing the same ads a dozen times in a half hour I now have some idea of what the phrase means.

I have to wonder at times if I don't get stuck in a loop that way. Will it impress Jesus that I piously repeat the same phrases? The question about prayer I think is already answered in the scripture. I don't want to be one of those mindless prayer repeaters! Imagine how we might feel if every year someone sent the same gift to us. "No surprise this year, dear, Aunt Gert sent that thing with the candied fruit in it again."

Let us not get stuck in a loop in our worship and prayer. I think our Lord is endlessly inventive. We don't think about that much, but how many of us are exact copies of people from the 1st Century? Right, probably not one. Even identical twins aren't. How many of us said the same prayer to God last night as we did the night before? Hmm, maybe we changed a few words around or shifted a phrase, but we might want to give that some thought. Persistence in prayer requests shouldn't sound like a broken record or stuck ad loop. As for me, too many of my prayers sound like variations of: my will be done, Lord...my will be done, Lord...my will be done, Lord.

Have a fine and merry Christmas!
Bucky