Tiger Woods

Tiger Woods doesn't need people to point out to him that he has personal problems. Of course he does - he's a human being who battles many of the same temptations that you and I face.

Amidst the tabloid articles, blog posts and gossip, I wonder how many people have stopped to pray for him? Tiger Woods isn't in need of our opinions and our pity, but he is in need of our prayers.

When I hear about the things going on in Tiger Woods' life, it causes deep sorrow. I try to imagine the pain that he has brought to himself and his family, and I cringe at the greater pain that people are inflicting on him by their words.

Nobody knows how God is working in other peoples' lives. Do you think that people who have met you once or twice could even begin to understand the depth of your experience in this world? Do you think that they are in any position to judge your actions or relate to your joys, your sorrows, your passion and your pain? Of course not. But so often we forget to remove the plank from our own eye before we try to remove the splinter from our neighbor's.

Was your immediate reaction when you heard about Tiger Woods one of the following?

- "I always knew he was [insert what you knew]."
- "He had this coming."
- "What is the world coming to?"
- "What's wrong with him?"
- "I never liked him. Now I know why."
- "Aha! I told you so."

If any of these things or any other variation of these things came to mind - and before you vow to never cheer for Tiger Woods again - please take a moment to reflect on your own transgressions. Think about what Tiger Woods needs right now.

It's easy to pray for the people that we love. But it's the people who hurt us and the people who hurt themselves and others who are probably in even more need of our prayers and sacrifices.

Let's instead unite our hearts to the hearts of the people in our lives who are in pain. May we practice compassion and offer words of loving kindness and support.

Prayer for Beginners

ActivPrayer is committed to growing our prayer lives until we all can "pray without ceasing" (1 Thes 5:17), as Christians are commanded to do. Unless we spend our life in cloistered contemplation, we must learn to pray in other ways. St. Paul tells Christians "Therefore, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do everything for the glory of God" (1 Cor 10:31). In other words, we need to turn our lives into a living prayer. If we want to do this, we must learn to elevate our work, our play, our conversations, our eating, our drinking, our physical fitness -- and anything else that we do -- to something that glorifies God.

Buddhists meditate, Hindu vedas ring out in worship, and Muslim salah is one of the 5 pillars of Islam, the reason why devout Muslim's prostrate themselves and pray toward Mecca 5 times daily. Those who believe in God understand the importance of talking to God. ActivPrayer helps people talk to God and get to know God by developing the "active" component of prayer so that we can truly pray without ceasing.

Before we can learn how to sanctify our everyday activities and turn our trips to the gym into spiritual workouts, we have to have an understanding of what prayer is and why it's the most important part of our lives. Below is an excerpt from the opening paragraph of Peter Kreeft's book "Prayer for Beginners":

Why Praying is More Important than Eating

Eating keeps your body alive, and prayer keeps your soul alive. Praying is more important than eating because your soul is more important than your body. Your soul is more important than your body because your soul is you, your personality, your self. You will get a new body after death, in the resurrection at the end of the world. But you will not get a new soul; you will only purify and sanctify your old one, because you are your soul. The "you" that will get a new body is your soul.

Praying keeps your soul alive because prayer is real contact with God, and God is the life of the soul as the soul is the life of the body. If you do not pray, your soul will whither and die, just as, if you do not eat, your body will whither and die.

ActivPrayer emphasizes the connection between body and soul, but the above explanation should leave no doubt as to which is more important.