The Conundrum of Prayer

There seems to be even more than usual to pray for these days. Another friend lost his job. Thanks to our buddies on Wall Street that 401(k) became a 201(k), and after the last 10 days is now more like a 101(k). My Mom told me she's concerned her money is going to run out before her time here does -- and she's 90. Shall I go on? $1.7 trillion deficit. War rages anew in Afghanistan. Our new leadership seems just as lost as the last. And so it goes. There is indeed plenty to pray for.

As I have mentioned before on these pages, I am of two minds about prayer, and sometimes I think Scripture gives us conflicting advice.

On the one hand, there are plenty of examples in the Bible of people praying fervently to God for very specific things. I have been re-reading my favorite Psalms the past few nights, and pretty much every psalm is a prayer, and most every prayer is for something pretty specific (forgiveness, deliverance from enemies, etc.). Today's readings are about prayer, including the oft-quoted:

"Ask and it will be given to you;
seek and you will find;
knock and the door will be opened to you.
For everyone who asks, receives; and the one who seeks, finds;
and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened."

This passage certainly invites us to pray for what we need, and indeed the corresponding passage in Luke 11 invites us to be persistent in our prayers and they will certainly be answered.

"Suppose one of you has a friend to whom he goes at midnight and says, 'Friend, lend me three loaves of bread, for a friend of mine has arrived at my house from a journey and I have nothing to offer him,' and he says in reply from within, 'Do not bother me; the door has already been locked and my children and I are already in bed. I cannot get up to give you anything.' I tell you, if he does not get up to give him the loaves because of their friendship, he will get up to give him whatever he needs because of his persistence."

That seems pretty clear. But here's the twist: what if we pray for the wrong things? And where does God's will fit in vs. what we are asking for? Doesn't His will count for something? How do we know that what we pray for is consistent with what God wants for us?

Praying for his life in the Garden of Gethsemane even Jesus' prayer deals with this:

...he prayed, saying, "Father, if you are willing, take this cup away from me; still, not my will but yours be done."

So what are we to make of this praying-for-something-but-not-praying-for-it? Asking for something and accepting at the same time you may not get it because it's not what He wants?

I don't know, and I've thought about it a fair amount. But there are a couple of things I've learned that I can share.

Prayer has the power to clarify our desires, motives, and intentions. If you pray honestly and openly, then part of the process will be to examine why you want what you want. This can only be a good thing. Persistent prayer also clarifies just how much we want something. I sometimes pray for things that maybe don't matter to me as much as I think. My persistence or lack thereof reflects that. I suspect that sometimes God wants us to work through these things ourselves through prayer.

Prayer also reveals God's will and teaches us to surrender our will to His. I have learned from the 12 Steps (see Step 11) that often the very best prayer is "praying only for knowledge of God's will for us and the power to carry that out." That really simplifies things. What else do you really need?

Perhaps one of the greatest gifts of prayer is that it has the power is to change the one doing the praying. Setting aside the time to be with God and open yourself up is transformative. I think it even changed Jesus that night in the garden. Has anyone ever prayed more fervently? Yet when faced with the awful reality of His sacrifice he totally surrendered to God's will, and through that surrender was granted the power to carry it out the next day, completely at peace and without fear. The knowledge of God's will and the power to carry it out.

God does answer our prayers, every time. Sometimes that's obvious, but other times we need to continue praying in order to have the insight to know our prayer has been answered, because the answer isn't always the one we were looking for.