Pre-game Prayer

Pre-game praying, did God or the God's hear us?

This weekend the No Preference Pirates took the field for our first slowpitch softball game of the year. The opening day is usually more exciting due to the fact that everyone starts out equal and tied in the standings. Any team has a chance at this point. It also comes with some pomp and circumstance, you know, music and all the teams gathering for introductions and team photos.

Our first game was against the Scientology Actors. Tom Cruise and John Travolta were no shows. Tom was busy with his wife's birth and Travolta, who knows, making a movie I heard.

It was after the game, which we won 14-7, that I began to ponder about the effects of prayer, specifically the pre-game prayer. Both teams had performed the pre-game prayer. I duly remember our stunning ritual, dancing and a stirring oration by Reverend Wally. I also had seen the Scientolgists observe a few moments of prayer as well.

We won the game, so did God listen to us more than the other team? Were we somehow more deserving of God's plan for an early season win than the Scientologists? Or maybe did God just ignore the whole game and we won because we were the better team that game? What if we hadn't prayed prior to the game, would the other team automatically have won due to our prayer negligence?

I've considered a pre-game prayer experiment this season. We should see if we win when we pray and lose if we don't. But that would be chancing some losses if that experiment were to have some merit, and I don't want to cost our team some losses.

And what if winning is caused not by our faith in God's, God, higher power, etc., but by our fanciful prayer display? Maybe our win this weekend was due to our praying getting noticed among the massive amounts of prayers going out at that moment throughout the world. Did our prayer get priority due to the dazzling show over some kid praying for their terminally sick parent?

This is all so confusing. We might not have had to pray so hard if we had been able to attract former major league catcher Darren Daulton to our church and team (Darren it's still not too late). He could have contributed to the prayer and maybe slammed a homerun to boot. Oh, well, we will just have to debate this pre-game prayer ritual as the season goes on. For now, we walked off the field with an outstanding 14-7 victory, thank God!