After A Weekend Of Praying... What's The Point?

For a few years how I'm been thinking critically about prayer. All my life I've been taught that praying is good... in fact it's in the top three of what a Christian should do: Read your Bible, pray, and go to church. It's funny how those were always the answers of how we can get closer to God, growing up in a children's ministry (not that they're bad things at all, just ever present as "the answers").

What do we expect from prayer? Do we expect God to answer our prayers? If I pray that God would restore my relationship with somebody, but that never happens, or maybe it's an issue where that person is sick, and passes away before there is restoration, what does that say about prayer and about God?

We would answer that God must not have desired that. It must not have been in his will.

Or what about a child dying of cancer, as is becoming more and more regular. You pray for healing, but it never happens. What was the point of praying if it doesn't change an outcome? If God answers the prayer it was God's will and God's will came about because you prayed. If God doesn't answer your prayer (meaning to have things happen as your prayer requests) then God had his will happen anyway, and apparently you can't change it anyway because it's his will.

These are questions that have been floating around in my head for a while. I'm glad they are being expressed elsewhere, in what would seem to be a very open discussion, in the next Nooma video, featuring my main man, Rob Bell.




I've asked the question for a while; is it right to pray for something to occur or not occur? If we don't know what God will do, is it correct for us to petition God to sway his doing to what we think he ought to do? Isn't that prideful? Isn't that making God some sort of voodoo doll, where we use him to make things happen to people/place/situations/etc. Should we only pray that God's will be done. After all, isn't that how Jesus prayed?

He certainly asks for God's will to be done. But he also makes requests. Give us our daily bread, forgive us our debts, and deliver us from temptation/evil.

Here is my take on it. There is universal truths of justice that God strongly adheres to. They are promises from him. Just as he promises that if we give our first fruits, we will be taken care of and his blessing will be upon us. Some of these promises we find to be economically, socially, psychologically correct, and thus scientifically justifying them... but others are harder to show through science, or we just haven't dared to prove them yet. I believe it is these truths/promises that Jesus prays in petition to God for. God has already called these things His will, so to pray for them is to pray for God's will.

You can even look at Abraham talking to God about Sodom. Where God intends to destroy Sodom, Abraham pleads mercy in account of those who are following God. Abraham seems to make a deal with God to spare the city if ten who are righteous are found there. And God agrees. Did Abraham just change God's mind? Was God's will challenged and changed? Is Abraham more just than God himself?

NO!

Abraham "reminded" God of who He was. Abraham pleas on behalf of justice found in the promises of God. God did not forget these. Abraham, however, just exercised them. By exercising them, Abraham is now more in tune with God's will. He understands the heart of God better. God doesn't just want to do for us, but he wants to develop us. Just like a parent is a bad parent if they do everything for their kids. They can't be feeding them with the airplane spoon at the age of 15. That's being a horrible parent. God instead wants us to feel like we're driving. He'll put us on his lap in the car while he drives, so we feel like we're "big," so we get a feel for what is coming for us, so we can know that God believes we can bring justice. When we start feeling what God feels, we will begin to understand what is truth and act as God acts.

I think it's very similar when we pray. Prayer gives us an open forum to plea justice. It also gives us a forum to hear God's response to our plea. We tell God what we feel may be right, but then we ask God, "What really is right?" Prayer isn't how you get people to not die from cancer. If you think it is, you will be as hurt as my family who believed that very thing, with a startling conclusion, when my grandmother passed away. Prayer is how we get closer to God and understanding his ways. It is where we communicate with God to find out what is right, what is wrong, what is just, what is our own misconception.

Prayer certainly does grow us. It's like the class you are excited to go to at school, when knowing an answer makes you proud, because this class is just that cool! Prayer is also where we can tell God what we've learned about him, and allow him to expand even further about what we've learned.

I feel like I could keep babbling about this forever. I do think prayer brings about change. Maybe sometimes God holds back his will slightly, in hopes to we will step up and remind him about it. I do know that prayer brings about change in the person praying, even if there is no effect that can be seen in what is being prayed for.

I'll be interested to watch this Nooma when it comes out later this month. I'd like to see if Rob's take is close to mine.

Am I right about prayer? I don't know. But you may be... or maybe we both are. Give your thoughts in comment form!