#49-To start praying when the preacher/minister starts walking toward your direction at the altar

You know the scenario....you're clapping to the worship music at altar call waiting for church to dismiss. You got your pray on and made everything right with the good Lord and you are ready to head out of the sanctuary.

But then you peak out of the corner of your eye that the preacher is praying for someone ten feet away and it appears he is heading your direction...

So you look around at those surrounding you, and once the coast is clear you very slyly close your eyes and half lift up your hands and begin whispering to Jesus....now the prayer we say at these times can vary greatly. Chances are they have nothing to do with the sermon, and are more than likely its a thank you to Jesus...Whatever your fallback prayer is (future post), it comes spewing out of your mouth quicker than you can quote Acts 2:38.

Now once those eyes are closed, this is where things get tricky....because chances are you (as I) do not pray so the preacher will actually lay hands on us, but rather we pray because we want the preacher to think we have been praying...and this is where the conundrum comes into play..

We don't want to play longer than necessary but we also don't want to get caught fake praying...

So, Just how long do you have to pray?

The answer lays in the half opened eye-lid (similar to the half-opened eye-lid of the worship leader between songs-----> see below)

There is a science to this eye-lid opening....

If you are like me, you are very impatient and you go to open your eyes at precisely the wrong time to see if the coast is clear...and as you open it, there the preacher is right in front of you and you make eye contact, and that's when you know your gig is up, so in order to escape the awkwardness of the eye contact, you go right back to your fall back prayer (this time your eyes may be open though to make it appear that you intended to open your eyes all along)

But if you are good at the eye-lid opening science, you have not prayed sincere enough to make it appear you are really feeling God (because this would invite the preacher to pray for you), but pray just long enough that he has walked right past you to pray with the more sincere prayer-er a few feet past you.

Sidenote: I just realized that I had been incorrectly spelling "altar" wrong the entire blog (i was spelling it "alter"). My apologies to the spelling perfectionists out there.