Communing With Deity

Prayer is a tragically underutilized tool for receiving the revelation and guidance that God is willing to grant us. Through prayer, we can ask God, an omniscient being, any questions we want and we'll usually get pretty good answers.

In Dungeons and Dragons, there's a spell called Commune which has similar effects, except that only Clerics can cast it, it's a 5th level spell (meaning that only Clerics of 9th level or higher can cast it), you can only ask yes or no questions, you may only ask one question per Cleric level over a period of time that can last no longer than 6 seconds per Cleric level (meaning that a 9th level Cleric can only ask and get answers to as many as 9 in a total of 54 seconds). In addition, because Commune counts against the number of spells a Cleric can cast in a day, a typical 9th Level Cleric could probably only cast Commune once or twice per day, unless they bought a bunch of magic scrolls (at over 1000gp each), and there's an additional cost: Experience.

In Dungeons and Dragons, characters go on adventures and fight monsters to gain treasure and XP. When characters collect enough XP, they can advance in levels and thus become stronger and more skilled. Alternatively, they can spend portions of their XP to make magical items or cast incredibly useful spells. Most players choose not to have their characters make magic items or cast such spells often because they'd rather use the XP to level up their characters instead. Casting a spell like Commune, which has an XP cost, can provide some incredibly useful information or other affects, but it's extremely costly.

For us, on the other hand, prayer is free. Anyone can do it - not just Clerics, and especially not just high-level Clerics. We can ask any questions we want - not just yes or no questions. Sure, we're not guaranteed to get the answers we're asking for, but neither are the Clerics who cast Commune (if I'm reading the spell description correctly). We can pray as long as we want and ask as many questions as we want, and God can give us answers that are as detailed as He wants them to be, not being restricted to just 'yes' or 'no.' And it's not going to cost us any XP for asking.

If communing with deity was as easy in Dungeons and Dragons as it is in real life, it would dramatically alter the game. Every character, not just the clerics, would try to be at least somewhat religious so they could plop down on their knees and get divine information any time they had a question. Is this ring magical? Are there any traps down this hallway? Will that dragon wake up and eat us if we try to sneak in and steal from its horde? If they could pray as easily as we can, they would be praying all the time. So, why don't we?

Do we think God won't answer us? Still, it couldn't hurt to ask. Are we concerned about the amount of time it takes to pray? With the hours of time we waste doing trivial things, that not a great excuse, especially since prayers can be short and we can pray while doing nearly anything else. Are we worried that we might not like the answer we get? This one, I can kind of understand, but still, even if the answer isn't what we want to hear, we should probably ask anyway. It's often better to know about something ahead of time so we can prepare for it than for it to become an unpleasant surprise.

Whether we want to ask questions about the future, eternal truths and doctrine, or our own current standing with God, we can ask those questions and any others we can think of through prayer. Prayer is an unlimited and invaluable resource, and one which we should tap into more frequently.