I came across this story about a prayer ministry in the US having some prominent Christian leaders gather around gas pumps and praying for lower gas prices. I’m not making this up!!!! And the saddest part for me is that I wasn’t surprised. I am not going to say anything about whether we should or shouldn’t pray for things like lower gas prices; that would take too long to explore. Instead, I want to talk about what it says about the nature and even health of the church in North America. What I find so troubling about this story, is that is a great example of the often sheer self-centeredness of our prayers. Why, with so much turmoil in the world (War on Terror, genocide in Darfur, the mistreatment of women around our globe, domestic and international poverty, etc), would we spend so much time praying for twenty cents off a litre of gas rather than pray for domestic and international peace and justice. Maybe it tells us something about our human nature, or at least about our North American Christian priorities? Maybe it’s even a symptom of a greater disease?