DOES PRAYER "WORK?"

​When people are asked, “Do you pray?” the majority say, “Of course.” Surprisingly, this holds true even among those who say they really don’t believe in any god. Prayer seems to be a rather ubiquitous part of human experience. On the other hand, what people mean by “prayer” is much harder to pin down.

---

Henri Nouwen, spiritual teacher, college professor, and priest writes:
"For many of us prayer means nothing more than speaking with God. And since it usually seems to be a quite one-sided affair, prayer simply means talking to God. This idea is enough to create great frustrations. If I present a problem, I expect a solution; if I formulate a question, I expect an answer; if I ask for guidance, I expect a response. And when it seems, increasingly, that I am talking into the dark, it is not so strange that I soon begin to suspect that my dialogue with God is in fact a monologue. Then I may begin to ask myself: To whom am I really speaking, God or myself?" 
— Henri J.M. Nouwen (The Way of the Heart: The Spirituality of the Desert Fathers and Mothers)

Nouwen identifies a key element to the problem of prayer. It is not so much a cry to God, a search for communion with existence itself, but rather my own desires, pains, wants thrown into the darkness hoping that what I request comes true. It is more akin to “wishing” than anything else. This turns God into a god who dispenses favor, like a transcendent vending machine, rather than the other side of a relationship of love.

Scripture teaches much about prayer. People don’t always get what they want. Job cried out to God asking for answers. He received terrible answers from his friends. Instead of divine answers he came away with divine presence and grace. Paul reports in II Corinthians 12:8-9, “Three times I appealed to the Lord about (an affliction he wanted taken away), that it would leave me, but he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness.” Jesus himself, on the night of his arrest, uttered a prayer: “Abba, Father, for you all things are possible; remove this cup from me; yet, not what I want, but what you want.” (Mark 14:36). Avoiding the cross was not an answered prayer. 

James tells us, “Elijah was a human being like us, and he prayed fervently that it might not rain, and for three years and six months it did not rain on the earth. Then he prayed again, and the heaven gave rain and the earth yielded its harvest.”  This seems like a perfect example of Jesus teaching, “Ask, and it will be given you;” (Matthew 7:7) However, when you read Elijah’s story in I Kings 17, it seems clear that the prayer is an expression of God’s will, not Elijah’s. The intercession in the Lord’s Prayer, “Your will be done on earth as in heaven,” must always stand behind every prayer.

So, what exactly is prayer about? Philosopher and theologian Soren Kierkegaard wrote, “The function of prayer is not to influence God, but rather to change the nature of the one who prays.”  Changing the nature of one who prays is the work of God. Prayer is to open one’s heart and mind to God revealed in Christ. It can happen in words, in silence, in the work of our hands, a daily walk, or a song. Anytime we manage to put the constant barrage of thoughts, wants, needs, concerns, calendars aside and dwell in the present moment, honest and aware of the trials and grace of life, we are at prayer. Listen, and God will speak.

When it comes to praying for others it is among our chief callings. Yet, saying, I’ll pray for you seems so impotent. Henri Nouwen helps me understand that a key to praying for others is in the empathy and compassion I share with them. To pray for others is to take into myself some bit of the pain and suffering of others. When that shared pain rests in my heart, it rests in God.

It is the mystery that the heart, which is the center of our being, is transformed by God into his own heart, a heart large enough to embrace the entire universe. Through prayer we can carry in our heart all human pain and sorrow, all conflicts and agonies, all torture and war, all hunger, loneliness, and misery, not because of some great psychological or emotional capacity, but because God's heart has become one with ours." 
— Henri J.M. Nouwen (The Way of the Heart: The Spirituality of the Desert Fathers and Mothers) 

Prayer is whatever brings us into the presence of God with a listening ear, and an open heart and mind. Prayer is communion with God and so, communion with those for whom we pray.

Pax Christi,
Tim Olson, Lead Pastor