The NFL scene was on every newscast in the western world for days, even weeks. Damar Hamlin is an NFL player for the Buffalo Bills and he collapsed on the field as he and his teammates had an end-of-season battle with the Cincinnati Bengals. The game was eventually cancelled. Throughout the evening and for days afterwards, people in interviews and newscasts spoke of praying for Hamlin. Dan Orlovsky of ESPN even spent 90 seconds or so on international television praying specifically for Hamlin on live television. Thoughts and prayers. You hear that phrase a lot. So I write today about prayers. Maybe you agree. Maybe not. Write me your thoughts, if you don't mind.
Some famous people weigh in on this topic---
Quotes to start:
CS Lewis: “I pray because I can’t help myself. I pray because I’m helpless. I pray because the needs flows out of me all the time, waking and sleeping. It doesn’t change God; it changes me.”
William James: “The reason why we pray is simply that we cannot help praying.”
I remember a book from the 1990s, Letters from a Skeptic. Written by father and son, Edward Boyd and his son Gregory Boyd. Both were former Catholics. The father now an agnostic/ atheist, and the son, a Baptist minister and theologian. They share their correspondence, which includes many personal touches and family ties, but also deals with major theological issues. The father appears to argue, but in kindness and the son appears to answer, in equal kindness.
One chapter, titled Correspondence 11, from 1989, the father writes, “I’d like to kick around the issue of prayer. I don’t see that prayer ever works. Not only this, but I don’t see how prayer ever could work. If God is all good and all powerful, and concerned about us, doesn’t he already want the best for us? So wouldn’t he already be doing as much as he ever could for us?
What are you asking for in prayer? For him to care more? He supposedly already cares as much as he could. Are you asking him to do more? He supposedly is already doing everything he can. Are you informing him of some problems so he will do something about it? He supposedly already knows everything.
So you can’t inform him about anything. You can’t coax him to do anything. And you can’t empower him to do anything. So what the hell are you doing when you pray? The whole thing seems like a total waste of time to me.”
The son writes back, “Now onto your question about prayer. The main purpose of talking to God (that’s what prayer is) has little to do with asking for things. It’s to build a faith-filled loving relationship with our Creator and Redeemer. What kind of relationship would I have with Shelley if the only time we ever talked was to make requests of each other? Not much of one I suspect. And so it is with God. The main function of prayer is simply to be with Someone you love. To talk, to listen, or to simply commune with your Creator.”
I wonder if you have thought of prayer in that way. I know there is something about it that really speaks to me. I was reading a book last year written in the 1980s, by Marjory Foyle called Overcoming Missionary Stress. She compiled much data about how we are supposed to overcome the difficulties of life. In a section on Missionary Resources, she writes this:
“Another resource is God’s restoring power. Understanding this has become even more important lately due to the current fears about burnout. Some people seem to have gotten the idea that responding to a call to missionary service implies inevitable burnout. They are understandably reluctant to put themselves on such a disaster course. If it were true, I would be equally reluctant. I believe God has something reassuring to say about burnout that may solve the problem. The term “burnout” originated in rocket technology applied to booster rockets that expend a vast amount of energy, fall away, burnout and become useless bits of rubbish.”
“God does not waste people like that. Their bodies are the temples of the Holy Spirit. How can he be housed in a useless bit of rubbish?”
Foyle found the term ‘brownout’ better to explain what happens when we get exhausted. “Brownout means that electrical voltage has fallen and is working less efficiently.”
She writes much about our relationship with God and with the rest of the people in the community. Those are both very useful in overcoming missionary stress.
Then probably the best book on prayer that has been written in the last 20 years is by Philip Yancey, “Prayer: Does it make any difference?” (Publ. 2006) I like that he processes things with us and for us. Some of the topics in this book (and chapter headings) are:
1) Our deepest longing: Keeping company with God
2) Unravelling the mysteries: Why do we pray at all? What difference does it make?
3) Does prayer change God?
4) Ask, seek, knock (Matthew 7)
5) The language(s) of prayer
6) How are we to speak with God when our gut tells us one thing and our mind tells us something very different? Reality and circumstances tell us something else.
7) The dilemmas of prayer
8) How to practice prayer
You have to process these things or else prayer becomes a religious function. And it’s something that you say before a meal. Or don’t. And you wish you had.
I remember a personal story, and a young couple that lived next door invited me over for dinner. They were atheists and almost anti-theists; they were strong in their unbelief. When they put the dinner on the table, they began discussing whether they should allow me to pray as they knew it would have been my custom. Back and forth they discussed the matter, for 3 or 4 minutes! Finally, one said, “OK, you can go ahead and pray if you must.” I replied, “I don’t need to add to what you have said. Prayer is acknowledging God as Sovereign in that moment, and you’ve done just that the last few minutes. So you have already prayed.” That didn’t make them happy, but I imagined God smiling!
Prayer is acknowledging that God is, and you are not!
That may be the best way to define and ponder this. It’s getting into a relationship with him. It’s getting to speak with him. It’s hanging with him.
Are you watching the TV series, “The Chosen?” This notion of hanging with him is one of the takeaways from my watching this series now finishing the third season. There’s Yeshua and Simon Peter, John and James the Lesser, the women who were part of the entourage. All this community that was there. They loved each other, (most of the time) and they really enjoyed being with Yeshua. They never quite knew when he would show up or when he would be away, but it was Presence, it was being with him, that mattered.
You might remember the book by Brother Lawrence, The Practice of the Presence of God (publ. 1691). In his daily life, in his chores, in his ‘normal’ exercise of life, he could practice being with God. For him, that was prayer.
Prayer is being with him to whom you are offering praise. Or inviting comments. Inviting his opinion. Inviting his activity.
Sure, sometimes you ask him for things. There’s nothing wrong with that. My grandson was over here just a few minutes ago. I have 6 grandsons and they can interrupt my life anytime they want. I love being with him. He loves being with me. We have a good time together. He invited me to watch him bounce on the trampoline and to help him with his tunnel or to play catch with the different balls he finds. These are all activities about being present.
So when you think about prayer today, with all these thoughts from the Boyds and Yancey, Brother Lawrence and William James, Marjorie Foyle and CS Lewis, and from your own understanding, prayer is being with God.
No wonder the apostle Paul said, “Pray at all times.” (1 Thes. 5) It doesn’t mean ‘say words at all times.’ It doesn’t mean “ask for things all the time.” It means, “Be with God.”
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