All of us pray. Jesus left very specific instructions on one prayer: “Our Father Who art in Heaven, hallowed by Thy Name. Thy Kingdom Come, Thy Will be done on earth as it is in Heaven. Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us. Lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil.”
People send billions of prayers to God every day. They arrive in Heaven like huge flocks of birds. Human activities on earth help give us a crude allegory of what happens when prayers requests for reach Heaven.
Tens of millions of orders come from the wires and clouds that connects earthly computers and servers to Amazon every day. Those requests are processed as fast as an eye can blink. Names, addresses, quantities, phone numbers, item numbers, credit card numbers, available inventories, shipping dates, inventory updates, and instructions to warehouses spring into being almost instantaneously.
Heaven’s Prayer Processing Department handles incoming requests of far vaguer natures even more quickly. Prayers arriving in Heaven are processed so speedily that, sometimes, God answers them before the person has enough sense to ask.
Catholic Prayers are often sent with an accompanying plea for expeditious processing to Heavenly Experts among the Saints and Angels. Such Saints and Angels have specialties. We may ask St. Francis to intercede for us regarding a beloved pet. If we need to find something, we may ask St. Anthony to use his closeness to God to help us find what we need.
Catholics may also ask their Guardian Angels to intercede. Holier Catholics ask their Guardian Angel to request more powerful intercession from their boss, and that request may be passed up to whichever powers above are necessary for intercession. Such requests are go up, and come down, The Chain of Command with the blinding speed of lightning bolts.
Many Protestant prayers do not recognize the brilliant organization in Heaven’s Prayer Processing Department. “I deal directly with God!” prideful Protestants pompously proclaim. “I’m Pastor Bob! I don’t need anyone interceding for me! God, I demand that You help me and do it right now!” Humble Saints and Angels roll their eyes at such insane ego-mania. Still, His patience is so profound that even those kind of demanding, peremptory Protestant Prayers, even those sent Heavenward with that queue-jumping presumption, may be answered; sometimes with enough delay designed to prompt at least a tiny bit of humility by adding, “Please”.
Answers to prayers come like sub-microscopic bullets and bulldozers from beyond. A job-seeker’s prayer may help a person who’s doing the hiring have his mind unknowingly led to conclude, “Out of all these applicants, Jones is the very best fit.”
Answering prayers involves moving tiny bits, like electrons, in the minds of those in a position to provide the needed relief. Minds are changed by The Mind-Changing Angels. The Mind-Changing Angels answer many prayers. Very tiny, they are God’s bullets and bulldozers traveling at, or beyond, the speed of light. God’s bullets and bulldozers erase corrupting viruses, rewire electron-sized errors and straighten out the nearly invisible neural pathways to help the properly prayerful.