Why do we bother to pray? I’ve heard people say that they have stopped praying because there is no evidence that their prayers have been answered. Then I hear other people speak about having prayer answered. However, I think evaluating prayer on whether or not it is answered is the wrong understanding of prayer.
First of all, here is what I think prayer is NOT:
Prayer is not like giving a wish list to Santa or a to-do list to a spouse. It is not saying, Okay, here God, these are the things I need done; now get busy. God is not our personal robot, or our servant. Sometimes prayer is seen as -- if I pray it, God should just do it. However, there are some things I’ve prayed for that I am now very glad that God didn’t just do. So prayer is not a to-do list or wish list for God.
Prayer is not magic. It is not saying, “Abracadabra” and having something appear. It is not about finding the right words to say so that your prayer is answered. God is not a genie in a bottle mandated to grant us three wishes.
Prayer is not negotiation. There are times when we will find ourselves praying, okay God, I’ll do this, if you’ll do that. Or I promise never again to do that, if just once you do this. It’s natural to pray this way. It comes from the deep emotions we are feeling, but that is not how prayer works. We don’t negotiate with God or bargain with God. God loves us. God is working with us. We don’t have to negotiate for God’s compassion.
Prayer is not manipulation. Prayer isn’t about doing & saying the right things so that we can back God into our corner, into our way of seeing things. We don’t have to be the best defense lawyer in the world, pleading our case before God. It isn’t about trying to trick God into believing what we are saying. God loves us. God is already on our side.
So, if that is what prayer is NOT, then what is prayer?
Prayer is relationship. As we open our hearts in prayer to God, we are forming and nurturing a connection with God. Just like we need to take time to be with and speak with our family and our friends in order to maintain & grow a relationship with them, so it is with God. Prayer is our connection time with God. It needs to happen daily, even several times a day.
Prayer is an act of love. We don’t have to have certain words to say, or any words at all. Prayer really is about love, about thinking about God in love, about opening ourselves to receive God’s love and compassion. Too often we can end up thinking of God as judging us, and noticing only our failures. But, in reading scripture and in considering how Jesus responded to people, I am convinced that judgement is not what is on God’s mind. God looks at us and loves us, knows what is going on for us and loves us, grieves some of the choices we make but understands and loves us. God is the father in the story of the prodigal son who is waiting with open arms to welcome us & compassionately embrace us as we enter into prayer.
Prayer is expression and emotion. As we pray, all that emotion and feeling deep inside of us is given a place. For those who know Star Trek, we are not Vulcans, who must contain and restrain every emotion. We are humans, and we have emotion! In our society, there is not much place for emotions, especially for the deep emotions of anger, sadness, grief, loneliness and despair. We’re encouraged to “Don’t worry; be happy.” But it doesn’t work that way. There are no good or bad emotions. There are just emotions – the feelings that stir deep down. We need a place to express all of them, the easy ones such as joy and delight, and the challenging ones such as anger, frustration, fear, spitefulness – all of them. In prayer, there is room for them all. God understands, receives and lovingly holds each one.
Prayer is listening as well as speaking. Prayer is not a one way street. It isn’t just us talking on and on, and on and on. God has something to say to us as well. Sometimes I hear God like a voice in my head, not a Morgan Freeman or Charlton Heston voice, but a gentle whisper with words that I wouldn’t have expected at the moment. Sometimes God’s message comes in something that someone else says to me – not that they know that they are giving me a message from God. Sometimes it is just a deep knowing, an intuition that grabs me and won’t let me go. And sometimes I have no clue what God might want to say to me. But I know I need to listen, to watch, to pay attention. And I know that I need to discern and discuss with others to test what I think God is saying.
Here’s the thing. We don’t really need to pray. God knows what we are feeling, thinking and experiencing, without us saying one word. One of my favourite scriptures is Romans 8:26 in which Paul says: When we do not know how to pray, the Spirit intercedes for us with sighs too deep for words. So we don’t even have to have words for what we are feeling or experiencing – our sighs become prayers. So why do we pray?
I’d love to be able to explain why some prayers are not answered, especially those prayers that come deep from our hearts for healing for a loved one. I know that it isn’t because we are praying wrong or not enough. If God loves us & we love God, & we & God love the person who is sick, then why in the world wouldn’t God heal them when we’ve prayed for that? It is enough to make one stop praying. It is enough to make one stop believing in prayer.
I tried that once. When I came back from working with the church in Jamaica, I was overwhelmed by how much we had compared to how little they had. I stopped praying. I just couldn’t ask God for anything when I already had so much. How I could thank God for anything imagining that God was giving to me and not to those I met in Jamaica? How could all the people of Jamaica be faithfully praying (which they definitely did) and not have a better situation in their country. I couldn’t make sense of it all, so I stopped praying……
But that didn’t last long. It felt worse to not pray. I couldn’t stand the disconnection between me and God. I felt arrogant when I wasn’t praying. I felt lonely and miserable when I wasn’t praying. I felt ungrateful and lost. So, I started praying again. I had to pray. My soul needed to pray. I couldn’t logically find rhyme or reason to how prayer worked. But I had to pray, that I knew.
So I pray. Sometimes God feels very close as I pray. Sometimes I have no clue where God is, or if God is, and yet I pray. I choose to pray, because it connects me with the Divine presence, the one who is Holy Mystery & Wholly Love. In prayer, I am tapped into a power source, that gives me energy for living. I pray because it brings my life into alignment, making sense out of things I can’t begin to make sense of on my own. Prayer for me is a journey, which gradually unfolds. Sometimes it is only in retrospect that I see where God was moving in my life, supporting, comforting, guiding, nudging, cajoling me.
I can’t imagine life without prayer. It is as important to me as breathing. I can get angry at God. I can laugh and chuckle with God. I can cry and know that someone, the great Divine someone, receives my tears. God’s heart is big enough for all my emotions. There is nothing I can do to drive God away. And so I pray, all day, every day. I do as we are instructed in the 1st letter to the Thessalonians, “Pray without ceasing; give thanks in all circumstances.” I can’t imagine life any other way than rooted, grounded and filled with prayer.
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