None of it was unusual. Not spending the morning with my parents, not the fact that we had to be back in LaPlace for a specific time and certainly not the meal we managed to squeeze in before returning home.

As soon as we sat in Flanagan’s, a restaurant in Thibodaux, I sent a text to my daughter Victoria who attends Nicholls State. She was in the library down the street from us studying for a final exam.

Although she had no time to join us for lunch, she was interested in dessert, another fact that was not unusual.

Victoria arrived with her boyfriend, Dustin, and we managed to cover many different topics of conversation before we finished off our dessert. On our way out of the restaurant, my dad spotted a couple he knew and soon joined them at their table.

“He’s praying for those people,” Dustin said, more than a little surprised.

Victoria, who has witnessed this on many occasions, wasn’t at all surprised.

“Yeah, he does that,” she said.

“That’s so cool,” Dustin replied as he walked away smiling.

It is cool. My dad doesn’t say that he’s going to pray for you. He just prays — wherever he is, whatever the need. And it convicts me.

F.B. Meyer wrote, “The greatest tragedy in life is not unanswered prayer, but unoffered prayer.”

Thinking about prayer is not praying. Reading about prayer is not praying. Not even writing about prayer is praying. Only praying is praying; only prayer gets results.

Hebrews 4:16 invites us to “… approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.”

Praying at a moment’s notice, in a restaurant. None of that should be unusual.

Ronny Michel may be reached at rmichel@rtconline.com.