October 2006

While here in Ohio (I am writing this article while on vacation) I was attending my brother's church and saw a newspaper article, which caught my attention.  It reported on a study done at some hospital which concluded that not only was prayer not helpful in the recovery of people who underwent surgery, but that those prayed for actually experienced more complications compared to those receiving no prayer.  To be fair, the article cited other studies that showed prayer to be of help to those in need.  By the end of the article the question seemed to remain:  Is prayer worthwhile?  One of the most mystifying parts of Christianity to me is the notion of prayer.   All of my life I have been taught that God is loving and just, perfect in wisdom and knowledge.  God provides all my needs and know what I need before I can even ask about it.  The Bible tells me to pray to this loving and just God, communicating my needs.  As I have grown up I have found prayer to be a crapshoot; Sometimes my prayers are answered and sometimes they are not.  But as these studies suggests, maybe prayer does not help people get better as much as we wish it would.  As I have struggled with the notion of prayer here are some things I have learned that have helped me make better sense of my prayer time.
     1.  Expand "Laundry list" prayers.  Let's face it, when someone is hurting, that is when we think about prayer.  The prayer chain is activated and we get serious about talking to God.  The temptation is to pray for that person and end the prayer at that.  Let me suggest that these moments are invitations from God to go deeper.  I have begun to pray prayers like, "God, if I am going to pray in accordance to your will, I need to know what you are doing here", and then just spend some time listening.  God wants us to listen, learning to be quiet long enough to hear is a lesson I am learning very slowly.
     2.  Pray listening to your feelings.  Before praying for someone, ask yourself the question, "How does this prayer request affect me?"  Is it making me sad, anxious, angry is some other emotion coming out in me?  Take these emotions to God, making them part of your prayer.  If you are angry, yell at God.  If you are scared, be honest about it.  You are depressed?  Talk about it.  God's desire is that you learn to trust enough to be honest in your conversations.  You may even find yourself beginning to pray for someone and end up just talking to God about what is going on in your own life.  God loves those kinds of prayers.
     3.  Remind yourself of God's power and your weakness.  We like to pretend that we can control our own lives.  When someone is ill, or the rain does not fall or our lives are falling apart, we are reminded that there is much that is out of our control.  We need to be aware of this fact when we begin our prayer.  The more we can remind ourselves of our dependency on God, the better off we are.  When we pray for someone who is sick, when we come to God in confession, when we fall on our knees because we have just lost our job, we would do well to pray,"God, I need you to help me".  As often during the day as we can we should remind ourselves of the many ways that we are dependent on God.

As I have expanded my prayer life in these ways, I have begun to view God differently.  God is no longer the cosmic giver of gifts.  God has become the lover of my heart, the one who desires to be known by me.  I used to be frightened when I thought about the fact that God knows me completely.  That fear is being replaced with comfort as I realize that God knows me completely, and loves me completely as well.

But what about those other people I am praying for.  Will this new prayer style improve their chances for being healed?  Perhaps.  One thing it will do, I am certain, is that it will remind me that because God loves that person as much as me, I can confidently leave that person in God's arms, knowing they will be safe.