I have always wanted to have a sailboat on a large
lake. But when a friend suggested I pray for it, I backed off.
"First, I should pray for health," I said. "And not
just my own, but my family's."
"Don't forget world peace," he added.
"And a cure for all diseases. Be sure to name them all, with
their appropriate Latin names, so God knows exactly what your instructions are,
because we wouldn't want hangnails to be eliminated before cancer. But
yes, there's a lot to cover before you can ask for the sailboat," he
agreed.
That kind of thinking, that reluctance to honestly ask God
for what we really want, is arrogance posing as humility. It seems
humble to not ask God straight away for our own desires, and to put other
larger matters first. But doing that implies we have power in all this.
As if by asking God to cure diabetes before asking for a raise, we might
actually affect God's priorities.
Do we actually think that if no one asked for anything
trivial, and everyone got focused on world peace, God would finally see that we
had reached some quota and say, "Right, now that four billion and one
people have asked for it, I will make it happen. But, don't anyone ask
for a sailboat right now, or I'll get distracted." Sorry, but I just
don't think our prayer requests have that kind of power.
So, why do we bother to pray?
Prayer is about connecting with God, about having a
relationship with our divine creator. I believe God desires that with us,
and that God actually cares about our trivial wants, our big dreams, and our
petty grievances. This may strike you as humbling news, but I believe we
can come to God with anything and God will work with it. Thus,
prayer is not all up to me. With prayer, not everything depends
upon what I do and say.
For example, when I have a selfish desire, prayer inevitably
helps in that it exposes it for what it is. By honestly praying for what I really
want, I am sometimes shamed into realizing I should not want that thing after
all.
One time I actually prayed something like this:
"Lord, please don't let him get that job because if that pompous
moron has any more success in life, it will drive me so crazy with jealousy I
won't be able to sleep . . ." After those words crossed
my mind, I couldn't help but notice that these words were not from the person I
wanted to be.
When we just think such things (not in prayer), one's mind
allows the toxicity to bubble along, unchecked. But when we lay a desire
like that out in front of God, it gets exposed. And once exposed in
prayer, God can work on it with you, transforming your initial prayer into a
prayer asking that the envy you feel will lose its sin-soaked hold on your
heart. That is a kind of prayer-power which you might not have thought
of.
Honest prayer is full of surprises for us. When I
begin prayer, I think I am praying for one thing, but by the end of the prayer,
I have amazed myself at what I have come up with. I didn't know I was so
worried about a family member, until her face dominates my mind during prayer
time and shuts out the very thing I thought I had wanted to pray for.
That prompts me to make a phone call after my prayer concludes, which in turn
leads to more adventures.
Sometimes, when I am praying for something I know is
foolish, I come to the realization that there is a deeper need beneath
it. Praying for a lengthy winter vacation in Florida might really be a
prayer to spend more time with family, to be somewhere away from the computer
and the cell phone. Before the "amen" in this prayer, God has
revealed all kinds of ways I might connect with the people I love, and none of
them require an airline ticket. By the end, I may still want that Florida
vacation, but in prayer, God has taken my desire and led me someplace new.
Sometimes we pray to God with so much specificity, it sounds
like we are lecturing a sloppy subordinate at work about when and where to show
up for a key event, complete with last names, details about the hospital room
number, and the exact diagnosis. However, I think what God really desires
from us is an honest emotion, straight from the heart. We should trust
that God can and will take care of the details.
So, the power in prayer is not just from being able to
present God with a "laundry list" of our perceived needs. The
power in prayer comes from regularly talking frankly with God. It comes
from developing an on-going relationship which invites God to work with whatever
we take to Him.
________________________________________________________________________________
These thoughts are brought to you by CPC's Adult
Spiritual Development Team, hoping to encourage you to pursue some spiritual
growth this spring at CPC.
________________________________________________________________________________
No comments:
Post a Comment