I HAVE A CONFESSION TO make about prayer. I'm sorry to say that I have used prayer to quiet a crowd, to terminate an appointment ("Let's pray about it"), to start a committee, to feign blessing the food when my thoughts were miles away; and I have used "I will pray for you" as a bromide of comfort.
Using prayer like some tool to accomplish my purposes is like feigning love to get your spouse to do something, or like using friendship to get your way. It is a mechanistic view of prayer.
But I also must confess that I'm too much of a skeptic, too much of a child of this scientific age, too much of a logical, rational mind to appreciate prayer adequately. Don't misunderstand me. I pray. I have experienced the comfort a pastor's prayer can give at a person's sickbed; I have experienced the peace it can bring to me personally as I confront a problem; and I have experienced the importance of family prayer as children and parents express their hopes, dreams, and concerns to their heavenly Father.
But there are aspects of prayer that trouble me. I'm troubled the most when I read of the great success stories of prayer in the Bible. Stories like those of Daniel, whose prayer closed the mouths of hungry lions; Hezekiah, whose prayer changed God's mind and his life was extended; Hannah, whose prayer resulted in her pregnancy; and then there was the church prayer meeting that opened prison doors.
Clearly the implication of these examples is that prayer gets results. It works. Their prayers were answered. To be honest, I have a hard time identifying with these Bible stories. Is God changed in His activity because of my prayer? Do I twist the arm of God by what I say? If I were better at prayer, would I get better results?
I recall lying prostrate on the floor of my house begging God to spare my mother from an early death by cancer, but my mother died anyway. I remember the anointing service for my nephew's 24-year-old wife of a few months who was dying with cancer, but she died before they'd been married a year.
I don't get results like those Bible heroes of prayer. And if you don't get results, what do you do? If something doesn't work, what do you do? Stop. Insanity is defined as continuing the same behavior and expecting different results.
Should I Stop Praying?
I'm tired of making excuses for why prayer didn't heal someone. I don't like the answers that some, like Job's friends, would propose:
I'm tired of making excuses for why prayer didn't heal someone. I don't like the answers that some, like Job's friends, would propose:
"I tell you the truth, if anyone says to this mountain, 'Go, throw yourself into the sea,' and does not doubt in his heart but believes that what he says will happen, it will be done for him" (Mark 11:23, NIV).
"If you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mulberry tree, 'Be uprooted and planted in the sea,' and it will obey you" (Luke 17:6, NIV).
I haven't moved any mountains or mulberry trees, so I struggle to understand prayer. Not satisfied with all the success stories, and in a desire to find examples of prayer that I could identify with, I went to the Bible again. I found some different illustrations.
David pleaded with God that the baby born to him and Bathsheba wouldn't die (2 Sam. 12:16), but in the end the child died.
Paul sought to have his "thorn in the flesh" removed (2 Cor. 12:7, 8), but in the end it was not removed.
Jesus sought to have the cup pass from him (Matt. 26:39), but in the end He went to the cross.
Certainly there is more to prayer than simply answered prayers for David, Paul, and Jesus. They didn't always get their prayers answered. How am I to understand prayer?
On the one hand, we have the picture of God as the unchanging, immutable one who has mapped out the history of the world from beginning to end, and nothing I do has any impact on Him. If that's our picture of God then prayer is nothing more than self-hypnosis-doing what God willed us to do. On the other hand, we have the picture of God as responsive to human appeals. Then He can appear rather capricious.
You can find support for both pictures of God in the Bible. On the one hand, the Bible speaks of the unchanging God (1 Sam. 15:29; Ps. 33:11; James 1:17). On the other hand, the Bible speaks of God as being responsive to us and asks us to bring our requests to Him (Matt. 7:7; Isa. 65:24).
We have multiple pictures of God, and maybe that's my dilemma. I have too narrow a picture of God. I'm trying to box God into my puny mind, creating mind games that limit Him. I'm concerned that I don't come to the place of skepticism that Job came to. In his speech in Job 21:15 he suggests about the wicked:
"Who is the Almighty, that we should serve him? What would we gain by praying to him? " (NIV).
The question of "What would we gain?" is the question asked by many of the heathen in the Old Testament. It's a question that reveals a picture of God.
Designer Gods
The gods of the ancients were supposed to make it easy on their followers. Their gods, when sacrificed to, would look out for their followers. The rain god brought rain; the fertility god brought children; the green thumb god brought good crops; the war god brought victory in battle-a god for your every need.
Gods who could do the most for you were chosen. And if the god was not working for you, then you changed gods or stopped praying. If the neighboring tribe had better crops, their god was better. If they got more rain, their god was better. If they were triumphant in battle, their god was better. You wouldn't think of serving a god that couldn't deliver you from some trouble or deliver you to some joy. The purpose of the gods was to smooth the path for human beings.
That was what was so startling about the three worthies and their response to King Nebuchadnezzar. The king says about his golden image:
"But if you do not worship it, you will be thrown immediately into a blazing furnace. Then what god will be able to rescue you from my hand?" (Dan. 3:15, NIV).
The king challenges Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego's God to a duel. "Your God will not rescue you." And Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego reply:
"O Nebuchadnezzar, we do not need to defend ourselves before you in this matter. If we are thrown into the blazing furnace, the God we serve is able to save us from it, and he will rescue us from your hand, O king" (verses 16, 17, NIV).
But then Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego present a startling new concept of God:
"But if not, be it known unto thee, O king, that we will not serve thy gods, nor worship the golden image which thou hast set up" (verse 18).
These Hebrews proclaimed faith in a totally new kind of God-a God who may not always make things comfortable for his followers, and a God that is not made in the image of our perceived wants. This is no designer god created by humans to please humans. This is not a god made in the image of humanity.
What kind of God do we have? Is our God made in our image, there to fulfill our needs, to provide protection, to heal our diseases? Is our God a designer god tailored to satisfy our needs, to fit the cut of our personality?
Such a concept of God is a heathen idea of God-no less heathen than the gods of Nebuchadnezzar. If our god is called on like Santa Claus at Christmas to fork over the rewards, if our god is there to make sure it doesn't rain when we have a picnic planned, if our god is prayed to to help us win the lottery or avoid the car accident, or if our god waits genie-like in the bottle of prayer to fulfill our wishes, then our god is a designer god. A god fabricated by our feelings and conditioned by culture. Just because we call him Jesus makes him no different than the gods of Nebuchadnezzar. He is no more than a lucky rabbit's foot. A god to be used in case of emergency, to be prayed to when there is pain.
Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego's God was not a designer god.
Yes, my God could heal this cancer, but my commitment is not predicated on His healing powers. Yes, He could save my child, but I don't worship Him because He is a divine lifeguard. Shadrach, Meshah, and Abednego made commitments to God that went beyond getting what they wanted.
I'm not interested in getting to the place where I see prayer as an exercise in futility appealing to the unmoved mover, as a placebo of false hope for the weak-minded. Neither am I interested in seeing prayer as access to the divine credit card, getting whatever I want whenever I want it.
As Ellen White says prayer is: "conversation with God as we would talk with a friend."2 The difficulty of conversation with God is that you are having a conversation with someone who can do anything.
On a very much smaller level it is like the difficulty of having a friendly conversation with a very rich person when you have some real needs. Imagine me having an informal conversation with Bill Gates and not thinking the entire time how I might get him to give a few million to Southern Adventist University. But Bill Gates needs friends too-not just those who are after his money. And God needs friends too-not just those who are after protection and healing.
Maybe I shouldn't be thinking in terms of what I gain beyond relationship. When I talk to a friend, do I worry at the end of the conversation that I have not gained anything? The real core issue here is not what I think about prayer; it's what I think about God. What is my picture of God? For our picture of God determines our understanding of prayer.
God as the Unmoved Mover or God as the Divine Genie: neither picture of God is adequate. At some level prayer makes a difference or God wouldn't have told us to do it. And the difference isn't just on our side of the equation.
A Different Picture of God
I would suggest that building a relationship with God requires interaction, and interaction indicates that there is some mutual influencing. The relationship that we have with God is dynamic and not static. The course of human history is not a product of divine action alone. God's will is not the ultimate explanation for everything that happens.
Prayer gives us identity. I have twin daughters. I went to one of them, Julie, and asked her who she was. I sometimes got them confused with each other, and so she replied in a matter-of-fact way, "I am Julie." Then I questioned her further: "No, really, who are you?" She again replied, "I am Julie." I again asked her who she was, and in exasperation she finally said, "I am your daughter!"
Who are we? Our identity comes in our relationship with our creator. "Our inescapable identity is that we are children of God-creatures-and our only consistent access to that identity is through genuine prayer." Prayer is not reaching to Santa Claus in the sky. Prayer is not a vain exercise of moving the unmoved mover. It is a process of establishing my identity as creature as I learn dependence on my Father, my Creator.
So what is prayer good for? We establish a relationship with God through prayer. A mother was listening to her little boy say his prayers. "Thank you, Father, for Mommy, Daddy . . . and please make St. Louis the capital of Missouri." His surprised mother asked, "Why did you pray for St. Louis to be the capital of Missouri?" "Because that's the answer I put on my test," he replied.3 There are times we want the answer we want, but that doesn't trust the relationship.
The Continuing Dilemma
I still don't understand: On the one hand, if my prayers don't affect how God handles things, then why pray? On the other hand, if my prayers do affect how God handles things, then what kind of God do I believe in?
I don't have a perfect answer to my philosophical dilemma. I think my mind is too small to understand God, and I am making a word problem for myself. Like the question "Can God create a rock larger than he can lift?" my lack of understanding is a self-created puzzle that grows from being a creature and not the creator.
In the scientific world of physics and quantum mechanics, scientists are discovering the existence of things that a rational mind finds impossible. For instance, the existence of dark matter that is believed to make up 90 percent of the mass of the universe is difficult to understand. The room you are in could be full of it. There are also some suggestions in physics of the existence of a universe parallel to ours.
But there are aspects of prayer that trouble me. We're incredibly ignorant when it comes to the nature of the physical reality of the universe. Should we get overly worked up if we don't fully understand the nature of the spiritual universe?
There is a reality out there that we can't explain with formulas, and prayer is one such reality. All the philosophical models in the world will never get us to total understanding.
But let us remember that understanding is not the goal of life.
"Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away" (1 Cor. 13:8, NIV). We know only in part-"we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror" (verse 12, NIV). "And now these three remain: faith, hope, and love. But the greatest of these is love" (verse 13, NIV).
Prayer is a way to love: others and God. The bottom line is that after all is said and done, Jesus told us to pray, and so we pray.
BY GORDON BIETZ
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Gordon Bietz is president of Southern Adventist University in Collegedale, Tennessee.
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