I was just a kid the first time I heard Janis Joplin sing about needing a Mercedes Benz. I could tell that the woman could wail, but there was something about that song that did not sit right with me. I did not know anything about cars. I did not know anything about prayer, and I sure did not know anything about satire. But somehow I knew that there is more to prayer than asking God for stuff.
It seems selfish to ask God to bless me. It seems rude and more than a little presumptuous to ask the Almighty God to bless ME. I’m nothing special. And God is GOD! Why should the Creator of the universe worry about me at all? Because God created me. God created you. That makes God our parent. And, like any good parent, God loves his children and wants the best for them. That’s why Jesus called God “Father.” Because God is not some supreme being sitting way up in the clouds, unaware of and unconcerned about what is happening down here in Memphis, Tennessee. No! God in Christ came here to live with us. Jesus came here to walk beside us. Jesus came here to work beside us. Jesus came here to save us from sin. God is a really good father.
It seems selfish to ask God to bless me. It seems rude and more than a little presumptuous to ask the Almighty God to bless ME. I’m nothing special. And God is GOD! Why should the Creator of the universe worry about me at all? Because God created me. God created you. That makes God our parent. And, like any good parent, God loves his children and wants the best for them. That’s why Jesus called God “Father.” Because God is not some supreme being sitting way up in the clouds, unaware of and unconcerned about what is happening down here in Memphis, Tennessee. No! God in Christ came here to live with us. Jesus came here to walk beside us. Jesus came here to work beside us. Jesus came here to save us from sin. God is a really good father.
But God is NOT
Santa Claus! God has really important business to take care of. And there are a
lot of folks in the world. And some of them need real help. So sometimes we
think, surely, God is much too busy to listen to my shopping list of wants and
wishes.
God certainly does
have plenty to do. But, in the gospel of Luke, when the disciples ask Jesus to
teach them how to talk with God, Jesus says, “When you pray, tell God: ‘Give us
each day our daily bread.’”
Gimme gimme gimme.
Is that what it means to pray? Is Jesus teaching us to pray for what we want?
Sort of.
Prayer, after all,
is talking with God. And good conversation demands honesty. So, if there is
something you want or need, you can be honest with God about it. It will not
come as a surprise to God. Our Heavenly Father knows what we are thinking even
before we do.
In Psalm 139,
David prays, “O Lord, you have searched me and known me. You know when I sit
down and when I rise up; you discern my thoughts from far away. You search out
my path and my lying down, and are acquainted with all my ways. Even before a
word is on my tongue, O Lord, you know it completely.”
God made us, so
God knows everything about us. In Luke 12, Jesus tells his followers, “Even the
hairs of your head are all counted.”
God keeps a close
eye on us because God loves us and wants to take care of us. But God is not
some stalker just waiting to pounce on us when we are vulnerable. God wants to
give us good things, but God waits to be invited into our lives.
In the parable
that Jesus tells in Luke 11, we are the ones who go and knock on the door to
heaven. God provides when we ask. God already knows what we need, and God wants to give us good things, but God waits for us to ask.
In his letter to
the exiles, James writes, “You do not have because you do not ask.” (4:2) The
believers were fighting amongst themselves because they were envious and
jealous of one another. And they were so busy fighting that they had not even
thought to pray! It is no wonder they did not have what they needed!
John Wesley, the
founder of Methodism, once said, “God does nothing but in answer to prayer.”[i]
Did you hear that? “God does nothing but in answer to prayer.” God moves when
we ask.
So what happens if
we do not ask?
In The Workbook
of Intercessory Prayer, Maxie Dunnam asks, “What if there are some things
God either cannot or will not do until people pray?”[ii]
After all, lots of
God’s promises are connected with conditions which we must meet.[iii]
For example, in 2 Chronicles 7:14, God says, “If my people who are called by
name humble themselves, and pray and seek my face, and turn from their wicked
ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their
land.” IF my people humble themselves …. then I will forgive.[iv]
Prayer unleashes
the power of God! Prayer unleashes the power of God in us! And prayer unleashes
the power of God in others!
We do not pray in
an attempt to persuade God to do what is right. We do not pray to try to make
God work harder. We do not pray to try to convince God that we have the right
answer. When we pray, we open ourselves up so that the Holy Spirit can work in
us. And then, through us, God is able to work in others’ lives, too.[v]
So, yes, it is
okay to pray for the things you want. In fact, Jesus commands it. But, just
because we ask, that does not mean we will get what we want. Sometimes, we get
what we need. And sometimes it seems as if God does not answer at all. But God
always responds to our prayers. We just might not see it.
Sometimes we are
so intent on seeing dramatic answers to our prayers that we miss subtle changes
that are taking place.[vi]
When we pray,
whether it is for ourselves or for others, we usually want an answer right then
and there. We want what we want right when we want it. But prayer is not
ordering from a menu. We are not telling God what to do. We are telling God
what we want.[vii]
But remember that
guy in Jesus' story (Luke 11:1-13)? The man felt deep compassion for his friend. He wanted to
give his friend bread, but he had none to give. So he went begging for the friend. And he did not stop begging until he got help for the friend.
When we come to
the point of helplessness, when we realize there is nothing we can do, that is
the moment, Dunnam says, when our prayer becomes purified and powerful.
Because, in that moment, we come to a place of “utter faith in God to do what
we CANNOT do.”[viii]
Notice how the
fella in the parable keeps asking for bread. Over and over and over. He keeps
asking.
A couple of years
ago, Amy Grant released a song called “Overnight.” And the chorus says: “If it
all just happened overnight, you wouldn’t know how much it means. If it all
just happened overnight, you would never learn to believe in what you cannot
see.”
When we pray for
something over and over and over, new truths are revealed.
“There’s freedom
in hitting bottom,” writes Anne Lamott in Help, Thanks, Wow: The Three
Essential Prayers. “There’s freedom … in seeing that you won’t be able to
save or rescue your daughter, her spouse, his parents, or your career, relief
in admitting you’ve reached the place of great unknowing. This is where
restoration can begin, because when you’re still in the state of trying to fix
the unfixable, everything bad is engaged: the chatter of your mind, the tension
of your physiology, all the trunks and wheel-ons you carry from the past. It’s
exhausting, crazy-making. Help. Help us walk through this. Help us come
through. It is the first great prayer.”[ix]
Lamott continues,
“I try not to finagle God. Some days go better than others, especially during
election years. I ask that God’s will be done, and I mostly sort of mean it.”[x]
“I want to tell God what to do,” she
confesses. “But it wouldn’t work.”[xi]
Instead, she prays
for God to help and trusts that God does help. We don’t have to know how God
helps.
“When we think we can do it all ourselves… it’s
hopeless.”[xii]
But, as we
continue to pray, we find ourselves slowly being able to let go and trust God.[xiii]
And that may be
the biggest miracle of all.
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