Prayer is an interesting concept. As a child I would pray for forgiveness, pardon, toys, a good grade, to score with that one girl, and just about anything I could think of. It was my last resort if I wanted something really badly. Most of the time, the results I wanted didn’t materialize. I have a vibrant memory of standing in front of my church praying that my fathers friend be healed of his cancer. He died shortly after. My prayers went unanswered. Years later I heard the saying “God answers all prayers. He just says no most of the time”. God had said no to most of my prayers, or at least that’s how I perceived it. It was the ultimate rejection by the ultimate being. It upset me.
As I got older, I started hearing more “prayers” from people. I would read about people who thanked Jesus for letting them win the lottery, and I realized that they had probably “prayed” to win, along with millions of others. I would watch as Pat Robertson asked his congregation to pray that God would shake up the Supreme Court. It caused me to think about prayer and it’s purpose. Could I, or should I, effectively pray for something to happen? More importantly, do I have the right to try?
And that’s when I came to a realization. Prayer is about arrogance. Prayer is about asking God do do something for the pray-er. Either I’m asking God to give me something or I’m trying to sway God’s mind. If my mother gets cancer, I pray to God to cure her. If I buy a lottery ticket, I pray to win. These are demands on God, as if God, with infinite reason, will say “oh, wait, Ben is praying for something, maybe I was wrong about that” or “hmm, Ben has a good point, I hadn’t thought about that”. Do I, limited as I am, have the ability or right to influence God? People will take it even farther, gathering together to have a “group prayer”, implying that God can be swayed by the polls if enough people support something. Can you imagine that late night poll call?
“Hi, my name is Susan. I’d like your opinion on an important. How do you feel about a hurricane in Florida? Are you ‘Strongly In Favor’, ‘In Favor’, ‘Neutral’, ‘Against’, ‘Strongly Against’.”
Even better, imagine one of God’s advisers saying:
“Well there is a strong conservative support for hurricanes, but if we send one now the liberals may prove a problem in the fall election “.
These demands or beliefs about how God works comes from a limited mind, from how we work. Our imperfections are reflected in God. Because we can be swayed by opinion, our belief is that God will listen to us and will be affected. That just can’t happen. God, if truly All-Knowing, has already decided the best action to take.
That’s not to say you shouldn’t “talk to God”. My grandmother was fond of saying that “there are no atheists in foxholes”. And while I don’t agree that statement, she did have a point, albeit unintentionally. Talking with God is a good way to sort your feelings out. I may be angry about my dog dying; angry at the man who dented my car, or at God for “giving” my dad a stroke. If I can’t get that anger or that fear out it festers and grows, it hurts me. So if I talk with God about this anger, if I can yell at God, it gets it out. God, in turn understands and can handle this. God becomes your sounding board so that if I’m afraid or angry, I talk with God about that and it helps me me work it out. God’s plan for me might be that I suffer and anguish, but that doesn’t mean I have to tough it out in silence. I can yell at God in the form of a prayer and maybe that will give me some relief.
Part of having a faith in God means that you have trust in God. You have to accept that, if God has a hand in this universe, your perspective is so much smaller that anything you want is irrelevant in the totality of God’s plan. It’s not to say don’t be angry, don’t ask a question, but don’t expect that your prayer will have any impact on God’s decision.
So on my deaths door I won’t expect God to miraculously cure me. God has made a decision and I have to accept that because it’s part of God’s plan. Otherwise I don’t have faith in God, I only have demands.