In this live chaplain‑led service recorded at Springfield Regional Medical Center for the National Day of Prayer 2025, Chaplain Rick Lee James opens with music and the Lord’s Prayer, then reflects on the paradox of a nation that publicly invokes God while often acting contrary to biblical values. He warns against performative, hypocritical prayer, citing Jesus’ teaching that prayer should not be a public show. Using a simple cartoon of Frog and Toad sitting together, he illustrates prayer as quiet, shared presence rather than spectacle. He expands the metaphor to describe prayer as sitting with God’s mercy, being present to oneself and others, and welcoming all peoples regardless of race, nationality, or belief. He recounts the Elijah story on Mount Horeb, emphasizing that God is encountered in the “still small voice” after the wind, earthquake, and fire, urging listeners to seek that quiet intimacy instead of noisy displays. The episode concludes with a song about Elijah, a final invitation for silent prayer, and a pastoral reminder that hospital chaplains are available for personal visits. Throughout, the tone is conversational, reflective, and compassionate, with a critical yet hopeful stance toward public prayer practices.
Chapters
Welcome back to Voices in My Head, the official podcast of Rick Lee James. This one is coming to you live from Springfield Regional Medical Center where I serve as a chaplain. We're just about to get started with our service today, which we broadcast to all of our patients' rooms. So if you are watching live right now on camera, we're glad to have you with us. Our service is going to start in just a moment. We're going to have some music, and today is the National Day of Prayer, so we're going to be having a special emphasis on prayer today. So let's begin with some music, and we'll start singing in a few moments here and welcome all— everyone who's coming today. 3, 4.
Father, let your kingdom come. Father, let your will be done. On earth as in heaven. Right here in my heart. Father, let your kingdom come. Father, let your will be done. On earth as in heaven. Right here in my heart. Give us this day our daily bread. Give us, give us As we forgive the ones who sin against us, forgive them. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. One, let your kingdom come. Father, let your kingdom come. Father, let your will be done on earth as it is in heaven, right here and now. Father, let your me. Father, let your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Right here in my heart. Give us this day our daily bread. Give us, give us as we forgive the ones who sin against us. Forgive them. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. All yours! All yours! The kingdom, the power, the glory are yours! It's yours! It's yours! All yours! All yours forever and ever! The kingdom is yours! And it's yours! It's yours! All yours! All yours! The kingdom, the power, the gl— All glory is yours. It's yours. It's yours. All yours. All yours. Forever and ever, the kingdom is yours. Father, let your kingdom come. Father, let your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Right here in my heart. Father, let your kingdom come. Father, let your will be done. Under there's a miracle right here in my heart. Under there's a miracle right here in my heart.
Well, we welcome you all who are in the chapel today, all both of us and all of us on the camera today. We are glad that you're here with us for this special emphasis on the National Day of Prayer today. I am Chaplain Rick. That was Jill on the piano, and we're grateful that she's here today and She was telling me before service she needed that song today. And I think we need that prayer as we go into our emphasis on the National Day of Prayer today. So let's just begin our time together by saying the Lord's Prayer, the one that Jesus taught us to pray. Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be 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. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever. Amen. Well, today is the National Day of Prayer. And we had a beautiful service earlier this morning that Chaplain Diane helped us to do, and it was wonderful. We had several people praying, reading scripture in different languages from different nations, even different religions, and it was a beautiful time of fellowship that we had together today. Well, in theory, it's a beautiful idea, isn't it? The National Day of Prayer. It's a time for the whole country to pause and to pray. But if we're completely honest, if we're really honest, there might be something a little bit weird about it too. We live in a country where many of our leaders speak God's name loudly, but they dishonor God's heart through cruelty and selfishness and injustice. Where certain political movements wave a Bible around like a badge but often seem to forget love. And humility, and the sacrifice Jesus actually lived and taught. So when a nation like ours often ignores God's ways, for them to invite us to a National Day of Prayer, it can feel a little confusing sometimes, even hypocritical in some ways. Jesus once said something that feels instructive to us on days like today, though.
Though.
It's a warning of sorts. He said, when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites. They love to stand and pray in the synagogues and on the street corners so that everyone will see them. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward in full. In other words, prayer is not a public show. It's not a patriotic performance. It's not a tool a tool to prop up power? When Jesus walked into the temple, the holiest place in Israel, and saw it filled with money changers and corruption, he flipped the tables. And he cried out, "My house shall be called a house of prayer for all nations, but you have made it a den of robbers." Even in his day, religious spaces were sometimes twisted. By greed and self-interest. Even then, people used the language of prayer while exploiting the vulnerable. And Jesus's anger wasn't because people were praying badly. They probably prayed quite well. But it was because they had forgotten that prayer is about doing justice, loving mercy, and walking humbly with the Lord. Yahweh their God.' It's no wonder that Jesus taught prayer not as a performance but as a quiet hidden act— a soul sitting with its Maker. Which brings me to this picture, and I actually brought some with me so you're gonna have to bear with me those of you who are on camera today or those of you who were just listening through the recording right now, but I want to hand this out. To those of you in this room. Here you go. Here you go. So what I just handed out here in the chapel, I know you probably can't see it on the camera very well, and if you're listening, I know you can't see it at all, but I want to describe it to you. There's a simple cartoon, and it has captured my imagination in recent years. It says, it's a picture of Toad and Frog sitting together from the Frog and Toad books, and it says, "Toad sat and did nothing, and Frog sat with him." And they're sitting on a grassy hill, and the sun is either setting or lowering in the background. I'm not sure which. You can use it to your imagination. But that's all that the caption says. "Toad sat and did nothing, and Frog sat with him." There's no slogans, no arguments, no No platforms. Just frog and toad sitting together. Just being together. Maybe prayer is more like that than we realize. Prayer, I think Jesus was teaching us, was really not about impressing God or impressing each other. Prayer is about being present. To the presence, to God's holy presence. Being present to each other, being present to ourselves. And in prayer, we don't come with big speeches. We come with open hearts. We don't come to show our righteousness. We come to sit in God's mercy. And in that space, where nothing flashy necessarily happens, something miraculous does happen. We are seen. We are heard. We are loved. Not because of our power, not because of our political affiliations, not because of our salary, not because we can make the best speech, not because we made a national holiday in When we pray, we are seen and heard and loved, because God is always more interested in our hearts than in our headlines. In quietly sitting with God and with each other, we echo Jesus's vision of the true house of prayer. A house that welcomes the broken, the hurting, the outsider. A house without exploitation or pridefulness. A house where all nations, all peoples, are invited into God's love. That's why this morning was so heartening to me to see so many different nations represented here. Represented other religions, people of other faiths coming together. So today, even if the nation does pray sometimes with one eye on the camera to make sure they're being seen— and if we are honest, that does happen, and we've probably done it ourselves once in a while— well, maybe today though we could be reminded to pray differently, that we pray simply, Maybe more like Frog and Toad. More about just sitting with God. About being. We trust that God's Spirit moves powerfully in silent rooms and in broken hearts. Usually more in those ways than in grand stands and loud stages. We remember that God's kingdom is not a loud, flashy movement. It's a mustard seed. Small, hidden, and yet strong enough and big enough to shelter all nations, all peoples, all bodies, all wombs. And today our prayers include all: Black and brown, white and indigenous, refugee and citizen, sick and strong, gay and straight, believer and doubter. We sit, we wait, we trust. God is no respecter of persons, and God is reaching out to every single person on this earth, calling to them, "Come to me, all you who are weary and carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest." Ho, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters! Come, buy and eat and listen so that you may live! Let anyone who is thirsty come to me, and let the one who believes in me drink. Yet even now, says the Lord, return to me with all your heart, for he is gracious and merciful. Listen, I am standing at the door and knocking. I will come in I will come to you and eat with you, and you with me. Call to me and I will answer you, and tell you great and hidden things that you have not known. And Jesus also says, I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry.
Come to me.
I will give you rest. Today, on this National Day of Prayer, we have the chance to do something truly subversive. We answer the National Day of Prayer not with performance, but with presence. Not with arrogance, but with a quiet hope. We sit with God, like frogs at matooke. We sit with each other, We sit with the brokenness of the world and the promise that God is already at work healing it, bringing about the renewal of all things. So like Frog and like Toad, in our sacred sitting together with God and with each other, maybe the real miracle of prayer happens. Before we end today, I want to invite all of us in here through a song I'm going to share at the end to remember Elijah the prophet of Mount Horeb. He was weary, he was alone, he was running for his life, and he was scared. And the Lord told him to stand on the mountain of the Lord because he was about to pass by. And a mighty wind tore through the rocks but the Lord was not in the wind. And an earthquake shook the ground, but the Lord was not in the earthquake. And a fire blazed across the mountainside, but the Lord was not in fire. And then after the noise and the fury had passed came a sound like sheer silence. And it was there, in that still whisper, that Elijah met with God. And on this National Day of Prayer, when there is so much noise to surround us, may we seek not the thunder of a public display, but the quiet whisper of God's presence. May we climb the small hidden mountains of our own hearts and sit with the one who desires to meet with us. With us there. And as we close today with this song, my prayer is that we will listen for the still small voice of the God who meets us on the mountain, in the stillness, in the quiet. This will be our closing today, Up on the Mountain.
Stand before me on the mountain. I will pass in front of you today. And there came a wind, an earthquake, and a fire, but the Lord was not in them in any way. Whoa, whoa, up on the mountain. Unfolding like a manuscript before us, waiting for the mystery we'll share. Whoa, whoa, up on the mountain. Whoa, whoa, up on the mountain of the Lord. Whoa, whoa, up on the —mountain! Whoa-oh! Up on your mountain of gold, you'll not care when the earthquake or fire... You'll not care when the earthquake or fire... You'll not care when the earthquake or fire... You're not scared when the earthquake or fire...
So as we close our time together today, let us just close in a moment of quiet prayer. You speaking to God, but more importantly, allowing God to speak to you on this day. And take as long as you need. There's no time limit. We're gonna let God set that for each of us today. May the Lord be with you and bless you and keep you, and may you experience the true peace of the Lord in this quiet moment together. And just before I say my final word, for all of those who are watching on camera today, I just want to remind you that chaplains are here for you. If you would like a visit from us, for us to come and be present with with you. We just want to remind you we care, that you matter, and that we are here to be with you. In the name of the Lord, let us pray.
