Today, Faith and Leadership posted a blog my dad wrote on prayer. It was a follow-up to a program he did at church (the video of which is at the bottom of this post). Especially in the wake of my sister’s boyfriend’s illness (if you missed it, here is my Thanksgiving post about Shane), the question of whether prayer works has become not only theologically interesting but deeply personal for my family.
In addition to that, a very dear friend of mine recently learned that something for which she had been praying very, very hard did not happen. Walking with her through that, before and after the outcome, has been difficult for me. I don’t think she would call herself a Christian, so my whole framework for how to help her understand prayer is out the window; what’s more, she jokes (but, I wonder, perhaps actually thinks) that I have a special link to God, so my prayers really matter.
This makes me VERY nervous. For one thing, prayer is a struggle for me. For another thing, prayer isn’t something you can be good at; we’re all just infants crying out for food (stole that image from my dad’s talk). I prayed (and pray) for her not because I thought my prayers would work, but because I love her.
Because the thing is that prayer doesn’t work. It isn’t supposed to “work.” In Timothy Keller’s book The Prodigal God (Dutton, 2008), he looks at the parable of the prodigal son and points out something very important about the elder son: by his obedience and faithfulness, the elder son is actually trying to control the father. He believes that his being a good son will “work” on his father and win him favor. How often are our prayers–and so many other things we do–meditated attempts to “work” on God?
When Shane was in the hospital, I didn’t know how to pray; and now that he’s better, it’s almost harder to talk about what I think of prayer. Many people have declared Shane’s recovery a miracle, and that’s exactly what it is. But what does that mean? How do we talk about that? In his program on prayer, my dad pointed out that every time someone declares, “It’s a miracle! God answers prayer!”, it is always within earshot of someone for whom it seems God did not answer prayer. Who is in earshot, and how does that change what we think about prayer?
In talking to my friend about her unanswered prayer, I had to remind her: God doesn’t often get God’s way. I have no doubt that God wanted to grant her request just as much as she wanted God to, but we live in a world where people don’t get what they deserve and God’s will is not done.
So…what is the point of prayer again?
Here’s a quote from an article Andy Crouch wrote for the book For the Beauty of the Church (Baker Books, 2010):
“What we do in our churches, when we do what we should be doing, is unuseful! It is better than useful. Does prayer work? Should prayer work? No. Prayer does not work. It does something better than work. Prayer brings us into the life of the one by whom all things were made and are being remade.”
Prayer, like worship, like beauty–like love–is unuseful. It does not work. God’s will is not done because God gives us the freedom to be in a relationship with him, a relationship not of control but of love. Prayer, ultimately, is about building that relationship, conforming our will to God’s will–and having someone to cry out to when our prayers seem to go unanswered, because the listener grieves along with us.
Here’s the thing: although I’m totally comfortable with that conclusion and could go on about it quite a bit longer, it doesn’t actually help me with my friend with the unanswered prayer. She asked me the other day, “Why do I even pray?” And honestly, I don’t have an answer for her.
If prayer is about a relationship with God, do you have to have that relationship in order to pray, or is prayer part of establishing that relationship? There’s a chicken-and-egg quandary here that makes me uncomfortable, one I don’t have to deal with in the confines of a confessional seminary. Who can (or should) pray? Do we need to love God in order to pray? Or is God’s love for us all enough that anyone can pray?
I don’t have the answers, so I’ll close the only way I know how:
Dear God, I rarely know what I’m doing when I pray. Help me to be honest about my desires while praying for conformity to your will. Give me strength to continue to love and trust you in a world where your will is not done. Thank you for being a God to whom love is more important than control. Amen.
Curious: is the notion that prayer is about relationship rather than about a concrete response on God’s part Biblical or just the way we’ve made sense of the way it often seems inefficatious? I mean, it doesn’t have to be Biblical for it to be true, but this is something I’ve struggled with quite a bit, and since you’ve done some thinking about it I thought I’d ask. When a friend’s life is in danger and I pray, “God please don’t let my friend get murdered,” is it just about the relationship? It seems that the scriptural model is often about concrete things like that…
Great question. You’re absolutely right that the biblical model is asking for concrete things–and I always encourage people to be honest with God about what they want, even when at times it may feel selfish. But the question is, what are you expecting that to do–are you trying to use God to get what you want or sharing your heart? I think we should pray for concrete things, but realize that we can’t expect a direct correlation with what we pray for and how God responds. The Psalms, especially the Psalms of vengeance, ask for such concrete things as God bashing their enemies’ children’s heads against the rocks…but what is the real purpose of that prayer, to get God to do that or to express profound grief to a listening God? There’s plenty of room for a more in-depth exploration of an explicitly Bilical theology of prayer, but those are just my initial thoughts…
Very interesting article. May I ask a question concerning helping your friend with prayer? Is your friend a born again believer in Jesus Christ? I believe the Scriptures are quite clear that without the relationship of being in Christ first, then we have no right or privilege to call on God for anything. Not to say that we couldn’t but God has no obligation to answer someone who is not His child.
I believe all people are God’s children…which was exactly what I was asking. God has no obligation to answer any of us because God is God.
All people should/need to be God’s children, but not all people can/will be God’s children. Only God knows who will and will not accept God’s own invitation to enter into the Father and child relationship
And YES!! You are absolutely right that God has no obligation to answer any of us because He doesn’t owe us anything yet we owe Him a life.
I still believe all people are God’s children. A parent loves even the wayward child; a mother or father (or a perfect one, as only God is) doesn’t disown a child simply because that child doesn’t love his or her parent back.
What a wonderfully faithful and honest post about prayer. It’s something I struggle with as well. There’s a passage in a old Frederick Buechner book, On the Road with the Archangel, that is about the best description of prayer I’ve ever heard. Maybe you’ve heard of it.
In any event, thanks for the great post!
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Problems with Prayer…
1. Incompatibility with God’s sovereignty
For God to answer many of our prayers would involve going against what He already plans to do. Will He change His mind in every circumstance for us?
2. Incompatibility with God’s inscrutability and man’s finite understanding
Prayer as communication relies on a shared understanding of the situation at hand. God is thinking 10,000 moves ahead and has determined what He will do or allow, while we spin our wheels asking Him to change that because we have no way of comprehending what He is up to.
3. Incompatibility with Cessationism
Prayer as a conversation invites a reply. To pray always results in us believing that God speaks back to us, not just through His word, or through circumstance, but within our hearts. And yet there is no more open revelation. How do we know the voices in our hearts are God? What will we do when that which we are calling a “leading” turns out to be based on an undeniable falsehood?
4. Incompatibility with unanswerable prayer
Prayer assumes that God can do anything. To draw on a popular atheist retort, why doesn’t God heal amputees? Why doesn’t God physically move mountains? There are certain things that no amount of prayer will solve.
5. Incompatibility with unanswered prayer
Prayer assumes that God is willing to answer at least some of our prayers. Then why does God never seem to answer some prayers, like calming a crying baby in the middle of the night. Or keeping the rent check from coming in until after payday. Simple, small requests where “wait” is not an option.
6. Incompatibility with the suffering of the neediest
The North Korean government operates (yet denies) a prison camp by the name of Camp 22 in the northeastern corner of their country. Atrocities of the worst sort occur there. One of the things they do there is conduct human experiments, some in gas chambers. A story was related where a family of four, a husband, wife, and two children, where placed in a gas chamber and gassed to death. Even though the parents where vomiting and barely able to breath themselves, they tried to protect their children with mouth-to-mouth breathing. It didn’t matter; the gassing continued until they were all dead. Another story is told of a guard who was asked to find 50 healthy women, then to feed them chemical-soaked cabbages. These women immediately began to vomit blood and all died. How about here in America, homeless families, sick people with no insurance, starving children? Why would God answer my prayers, a man who has a job, shelter, food, freedom, insurance, a loving family, etc. Why would I want God to spend His time on me instead of them.
7. General lack of falsifiability
When the answer to any prayer is defined as “yes” “no” or “wait,” you have completely stripped prayer of any meaningfulness. You could pray to a milk jug and always get an answer.
8. Dangerous to man’s sense of responsibility and creativity
When we pray, we choose to leave the matter in God’s hands in faith. This results in us “waiting on Him,” and not acting in our own power. To the extent that we believe that only God can respond is to the extent that we reduce our own efforts. The story is told of a man sitting on the roof of his house in a rising flood. He prayed for rescue: a log floated by, but he waited for God to save him; a boat came by, but He waited for God to save him; a rescue copter showed up, but he waited for God to save him; then he drowned. This is an extreme (and likely fictional) example. However, it illustrates the point. Prayer tends to make us passive and ignore the possibilities we could explore on our own.
9. Creates the tendency for judgmentalism in the church
If God is not answering prayers for personal or financial needs it may be because you don’t have enough faith, there may be sin in your life, etc.
10. Creates an unhealthy cycle of expectation and disappointment
We strive to pray in faith according the James, then watch our faith get broken when the prayer isn’t answered, resulting in less faith the next we pray. Psychologically it takes a toll and can cause us to question God and Christianity.
11. Is too easily confounded with circumstance
Is someone’s death the answer to a prayer that God would bring a person back to righteousness? Is someone’s healing the answer to the same prayer? In the first case we assume that God judged, in the second case we assume that God was merciful, when quite honestly we just don’t know. Did your favorite sports team win the game because you prayed? Or was it because they were better? What is your explanation for the lack of answered prayer of those rooting for the other team?
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