I don't know if you are like me at all but praying for myself often seems wrong. Can I really pray to God asking for a pretty girl to say 'yes' when I ask her on a date? Or healing from a rare disease? Aren't those prayers selfish? Does God care? Sometimes we add, "if it be thy will, Lord, do this," and I wonder if that negates the whole purpose of prayer. I mean, if it is God's will that we are healed from cancer, would we need to pray for it to happen? We also sometimes pray for other people. Doing so is unselfish, yes, but isn't it also intrusive and coercive? Am I allowed to ask God to show someone the light, because then aren't I limiting that other person's free will? These questions haunt me and my prayer life. What does God care enough about that we should pray for? Does God mind if we are selfish? Can we pray for something that we think is good but actually would hinder other people's free will? Can we change God's mind and will? If we can't, is there any purpose praying?
If you are anything like me and have asked these questions and wonder what it is you should be praying for and how it is you should be praying, don't worry. I have the solution. It might be strange to you, however, so I'll start by pointing out that often there are three different general modes of theology from which we approach theological questions: a theology of creation; a theology of the cross; or a theology of resurrection. Typically, those who approach theology from resurrection focus on grace and redemption and love. For example, rather than sending someone to prison for committing a crime, we should offer therapy and support. Those who approach theology from the cross focus on our sin and absolute need for Jesus Christ. These folks often then emphasize belief in Christ for the sake of salvation and that nothing else matters, because we and the world are broken and in need of ultimate, divine redemption. I am, usually, a creation theology guy. I and others who fit into this category of doing theology typically focus on relationship and God's intended purpose for us as human beings. My theology of creation is vastly different from the norm but it is useful here.
It seems to me that the only rational reason for God's creating humans in His likeness is for us to share in the divine life with Him. God did not create us so that we might be saved or so that we might serve God. Originally God created us so that we might enjoy the life that He has given us and serve with Him caring for and living in Creation. Any other reason for God's creating us makes God a tyrant Creator. A tyrant Creator is not the God we believe in (maybe God is a tyrant, but we don't believe He is, anyway).
All of this matters because prayer is, as we know, communication with God. Any time we communicate with someone, whether it's God or not, we reflect the relationship with the person in our communication. For instance, when I talk with my son, I often speak with a softer, more excited voice than normal. I also often am talking about numbers and letters and the random things that we see. I don't communicate that way with other people because I am not their father and I am not trying to teach them the alphabet, how to count, or why worms wiggle into the ground as I do with my son. How I communicate with my son is a reflection of the fact that I am, indeed, his dad. Likewise with God, so we need to be clear what type of relationship we have with God. Are we merely servants or sinners in need of salvation, or are we supposed to be more than that? Of course the categories of cross and resurrection are important and, in fact, central to our faith, but I do not see how they can define the intended relationship God had planned for and with us. The only God could have intended for our relationship to be defined by the cross and/or resurrection is if God also intentionally created us as sinful so that we would need Jesus to die on the cross and be raised. And that, to be plain, is not the Creation story. God made us good and we, through our given free-will, chose a posture of rebellion. Rather, according to our Creation story, it seems that God intended us to be sharers, to an extent, in divinity and the divine life and joyously live in and with Creation while caretaking Creation. Based on that, it seems logical that we must also believe prayer, our communication with God, should be a reflection of God's intended relationship with us and aim to restore that relationship.
Put another way, we certainly may be, and often are, in need of forgiveness and salvation. Because of God's intended and hoped-for relationship with us, however, our prayer in those many instances should not be, "Father, forgive me," and instead should be, "Father, I hope that I can see and know in my heart that you have already forgiven me." The cause for the difference is that, when we see our proper relationship to God and the relationship God wants and has always wanted, we also see that God has already done all that He can to restore the relationship. The rest is up to us. We then need to do our part in restoring the relationship. Our role in life becomes key when we prioritize God's intended relationship for and with us and think of the work of Christ as, while central, making possible that original intended relationship.
Our prayer life changes drastically when put in these terms. Look, if God isn't a tyrant God who created us only to test who would believe and have salvation, then it is not necessary to pray for forgiveness, that other people would come to believe, that the church do exactly what I-me-I want, or anything of that ilk. God has already done the work of restoring the relationship He intends and now it's up to us, as individuals, to live into that relationship.
Most of our typical prayers, then, are irrelevant or inappropriate. The selfish, 'I hope she says yes' type of prayer that I started with are definitely inappropriate. Whether or not we receive favors from God do not, or at least should not, affect our relationship to God. Our own heart, mind, and body are the only things that affect our relationship to God. Likewise, the prayers of healing and protection that are overwhelmingly common if your church worship includes prayer time are now irrelevant. God intends to have deep, divine relationship with all of His children, and has already done and is doing all He plans to do in that regard. Protecting our uncle Jimmy while he travels to Hawaii or healing our aunt Jane from cancer won't, or shouldn't, affect their relationship with God. Change what I said earlier, then, to read that only our hearts and minds should affect our relationship with God. Beyond that, too, it doesn't make much sense to pray for a single person when God wants to care for all of us at the same time.
Since I've essentially taken away our most common prayers, the prayers of intercession on our behalf or on others' behalf, you may ask, "So what in the heck can we pray for?" Obviously we are now getting to the point of the matter. What we can and should be praying for are the attributes God hoped we'd have when He created us in the divine image. Theologians and scholars throughout Christian/Jewish history have pointed out the fact that we probably don't look like God in appearance. The image-likeness between divine and human has more to do with morality and spirit. Yet, since we are often sinning up a storm or concerned about external happenings--whether we get that job promotion, whether so and so claims to have faith, whether our aunt Joan lives or uncle Jimmy returns home safely--we ignore or forget the intended inner being and relationship of God's creative work. Essentially, we should pray for the restoration of Adam and Eve's spirit and mind, without that fruit-eating bit, and for the mind of Christ.
In practical terms, such prayer means that rather than praying for safe travels for our uncle Jimmy, we pray that God help Jimmy make smart decisions--not text while drive and pull over if he's tired. Such prayer means that rather than praying for aunt Joan's healing, we pray that she know the strength and peace of God no matter what miracles may or may not happen. Such prayer means that rather than praying that so-and-so shape up, we pray that we can be a source of God's light and patience to them. Such prayer means that rather than praying for specific actions to be taken by the church or country, we pray for God's wisdom to be made known in our individual and collective minds. Such prayer means that rather than praying for the Bruins to win the Stanley Cup, or for a job interview to go well, that we have the courage and confidence of Christ to live as a disciple in all places and times.
Yes, our prayer then becomes more vague and less convincing. Many pastors and prayer-experts out there would say that we should have the confidence that God can do all things, even the specific thing of healing David of acne if we prayed about it. Jesus did say, after all, that faith can move mountains. I agree that we should have such faith and confidence. But I disagree that we should aim that faith and confidence at external happenings for three reasons: 1) If what we pray for doesn't happen, because it's not in alignment with God's will, then we may lose hope and faith, and that's no good; 2) The external happenings are not the express intention of God's creating us; 3) Similar to #1, we then attempt to imprint our thoughts and desires on the world. God gave us free-will but not free-will to dominate the will of others or of Creation. Others are also free, for good or for ill, to make whatever choices they want. Including specific, external requests in our prayers dampens the free-will of all people around us. Take, for example, the prayer for safe travel. What if someone chooses to drive at 120 mph going the wrong way at the very time uncle Jimmy is on the road? Praying for safe travel then limits the free-will of the maniac and, also, of uncle Jimmy, who might choose to do something stupid and text while driving and not see the maniac coming. Praying for specific, external happenings is a reflection of our sinful nature, trying to shape the world into our likeness, rather than a reflection of God's hoped-for relationship with us.
At the end of the day, what God wants and what is best for us is to share with God in deep, gratifying relationship with Him through the good, bad, and ugly. Like with a good friend, the relationship shouldn't change because of what happens in life. Indeed, we know we have a real friendship when the friend sticks by our side no matter what and can still be honest with us. So, too, with God. We know we have a real, deep relationship with our God when we can abide in His presence even when His constructive criticisms are convicting and challenging, even when aunt Joan dies, even when we are fired for no good reason from employment and our first job interviews go horribly, even when we honestly tell God we aren't sure what He's doing and if we can possibly agree.
Perhaps we can and do still pray for all the stuff I'm saying we shouldn't, but I do think we shouldn't pray for any of it until, at least, our perspective on our relationship with God changes and our prayer life changes to, indeed, reflect that relationship. Perhaps what we should do is simply pray, "God, I'm here." Pray that one over and over again, 24/7, until we realize that it is our being in God's presence and sharing in life with our God--how amazing it is that we have life!--is what most matters.
Showing posts with label prayer. Show all posts
Showing posts with label prayer. Show all posts
Wednesday, June 27, 2018
Wednesday, April 4, 2018
Prayer is Work
The phrase, 'thoughts and prayers,' has come under a lot of scrutiny in the past couple of years, and rightly so. When 'thoughts and prayers' are a substitute for real action, rather than the foundation of action, then those thoughts and prayers are rather hollow. From a Christian perspective, prayer is good regardless, but for 'thoughts and prayers' to be truly effective, we need to have a better understanding of how prayer is work.
Prayer is work for three reasons. The first is the most obvious: it takes time to pray. If those of us who are religious are honest, we'd have to admit that we don't pray nearly as much as we should. Distractions in life are too numerous to avoid, it would seem, so we fill our day with everything but prayer, except for maybe the few minutes after we wake and before we sleep. Finding and making the time to pray as much as we should is, then, work.
We may not want to consider prayer work. Yes, prayer is supposed to be a natural outpouring of our faith and love of God. Yet we must understand that we find our greatest joy, peace, consolation, etc. not from our faith generally but from spending time with our God. If we are not spending time with our God, then we need to make sure that we do, and that requires work. We have to work at making time to pray. And there should be no question that, if Christians (and Jews and Muslims) are responsible for anything it is to pray. Jesus said things like, "When you fast... when you pray," assuming that we would. Fasting, of course, is another form of prayer that is definitely work.
Fortunately, prayer is the easiest kind of work we can possibly do. If we ask, "when do I ever have the time to pray?", the answer is simple: you can pray with your family, you can pray while you eat, you can pray while you garden, you can pray while you do the dishes, while you cook, while you have sex, etc. If our greatest joy, peace, consolation, etc. come from spending time with our God, why not pray all the time? You don't always need to set aside time to go to a quiet place to pray. That is important, certainly, but your prayer can be the acknowledgement that you live before our God, that you are working before God, you are eating before God, and so on.
Having said that prayer is the easiest kind of work we can do, I must also say that it is among the hardest things we can do. That is because we are often confused as to what we should pray for or how we should pray. Again, simply recognizing that we are in the midst of God can be your prayer, but there are certainly times when we must put words and thought to our prayer. What should we ask for? What can we ask for? Should we even be asking for things? I'll answer some of these questions in my next post (I hope), but for now I'll say that prayer seems hard because, a) we think we need to be some type of expert, and b) we aren't sure where God is calling us to go. For the answer to a), I point you to my Holy Pastor Doing Stuff You Tube video on how to pray. Prayer doesn't need to be complicated. Just say what's on your mind. The answer to b), however, is that we need to learn how to listen. Prayer is work because listening is not our forte.
So the second reason prayer is work is that, in prayer, we can come to understand one another. We must listen in order to understand others, of course, and in that silent listening, we may learn how to see life from another person's shoes. In prayer we can ask, "what is so and so thinking? Why do they act that way?" If we are silent and listen, and truly open, God may show us.
Thirdly, and most importantly, prayer is work because we can come to an understanding of God. Again, if we listen in silence during our prayer, God's will for us will become known. Rather than fretting about the right thing to say and whether what we are praying for is in alignment with God's desires for us, why don't we just ask God, and then listen for the response, what God is doing with us and where God is calling us?
The latter two reasons, especially, are where we can put some meat on 'thoughts and prayers.' I would wager that most people who say, 'thoughts and prayers,' and nothing else, don't even make the time to truly pray. But if we do make the time to pray, then our thoughts and prayers cannot merely be, "God, comfort these people, show them your love, be good to them, etc. etc." That's a good prayer, and much needed after a tragedy when 'thoughts and prayers' is most heard, but it's also a relatively weak prayer. If our prayer is instead a prayer of understanding, of sitting in silence to listen to the rhythm of other people's hearts and the will of God, then we will be changed and then forced into action. If we come to understand the plight of our neighbors, we cannot sit back and do nothing; if we come to understand God's desires for us, then we cannot then sit back and do nothing. If prayer is taken seriously, then, it will lead to work, to action, in the name of God and our brothers and sisters. It cannot be otherwise. Those who express thoughts and prayers and then do nothing are clearly either not praying or not working at prayer. Like God, we cannot hear the cry of the needy in our prayers and then not seek to liberate them.
What can't happen is the creation of a division between 'thoughts and prayers' and action. Surely, as I've said, there are many who use 'thoughts and prayers' as an excuse for action. But good prayer, prayer that we work at, leads to holy action. Action without prayer or pre-prayer will be action that is either misguided or unsustainable. Think about it: if one day you woke up and said, "I want to run a bike shop," and then you started looking into what it would take to run a bike shop, would you have as much patience and determination to follow through as if you thought and prayed for weeks about what you want to do, what you are gifted by God to do, and then concluded that you want to run a bike shop? Obviously the sustainable action--the sustainable bike shop scenario--is the one that has worked at prayer before action is taken. Not only might you quickly lose interest in running a bike shop in the former, prayer-less scenario, but you might also make mistakes along the way. We must keep thinking and praying, then, but really work at it. Work at prayer so that we can, as a society, not remain stagnant and not remain far from God's intentions for us and instead take right, holy action.
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Once we can understand prayer as work that we Christians should and must do, easy and hard work, then we can also put the role of our pastors into better perspective. This may seem like a radical shift in subject and I suppose it is to an extent. But if Christians are called to the work of prayer, then pastors are especially.
Unfortunately, the role of pastor has been tweaked in harmful ways in the past hundred-fifty-plus years. This is particularly true in Methodist churches. Back in the day, pastors were theological and spiritual and moral guides. Evangelicalism, despite its modern bent, combined the twin aims of revival and reform because, to John Wesley and Charles Finney and others, the role of pastors and of the church is to listen for God's nudging and then follow ardently. Strong abolitionist and feminist and nearly communist movements sprung out of the original evangelicalism. Pastors were the lead, the impetus for revival with the vision for reform, and the daily/weekly tasks of the church were delegated to the church proper. What happened was that churches became established, secure, stable, and wanted the pastor not to push them too far ("hey, we've done so much already") and instead to take care of them ("hey, wouldn't it be nice to get a visit from the pastor?"). Slowly but definitely surely, the theological and moral, prophetic and visionary leadership of pastors dwindled away. The spiritual comfort aspect of pastoral ministry took center stage. Nowadays, then, pastors spend most of their days and weeks writing and preaching sermons that don't tackle moral or so-called political issues at all, teaching bible studies, and visiting people to ask basic questions like, "How are you doing? Okay, let's pray." Meanwhile, people in the churches do very little of the work they used to, whether it be visiting, holding one another spiritually and morally accountable, preaching and exhorting, or leading community activism.
All of this is connected to churches having a hard time understanding that when a pastor is praying, she or he is working. It should be clear that churches' insistence that pastors settle down to care for the individual spiritual needs of the congregation has also led to a desire for tangible pastoral work on behalf of church members. You see, if a pastor is no longer a holy reformer of church and society, then a pastor no longer has need to pray, because prayer is the work a pastor does listening to the needs of the downtrodden and oppressed and to God's loving Spirit. The only prayer a pastor can do is with the church members for good health, promotions at work, or more members. But none of that is not the ultimate work of the church or of Christians generally. Churches and church members tend to want to know that their pastor is tangibly working for the time they expect. If a pastor is paid for forty hours, then the pastor must be able to account for how all forty hours were spent between worship and sermon preparation, Bible study, visitation, meetings, or the like.
Instead of our current model, however, we should return to the model of a pastor at prayer. It may seem like cheating, for instance, that I count about half the time I spend on my bike, Cato, as work for the church. But that is work for the church, because my role as pastor should be in hearing God's call, listening to how we are out of step with God's intentions for us and how we might get back into step with God's desired path for us. The church in this scenario is not a collection of people being cared for, but rather a family working towards God's kingdom. What does that kingdom look like compared to the world we live in? The answer must come in prayer. The pastor must be the leading figure in such prayer. We need to be grounded in the working of God.
Yes, we can say that a pastor should pray on his or her own time, but a pastor's 'own' time is when they need to pray for their personal life. A pastor must be personally renewed as well.
My hope is that in understanding the role of prayer in our Christian and church lives we will have a healthier relationship with God and also a more Christ-like impact on our world, as our churches once again claim the part of activism for the sake of transformation.
Prayer is work for three reasons. The first is the most obvious: it takes time to pray. If those of us who are religious are honest, we'd have to admit that we don't pray nearly as much as we should. Distractions in life are too numerous to avoid, it would seem, so we fill our day with everything but prayer, except for maybe the few minutes after we wake and before we sleep. Finding and making the time to pray as much as we should is, then, work.
We may not want to consider prayer work. Yes, prayer is supposed to be a natural outpouring of our faith and love of God. Yet we must understand that we find our greatest joy, peace, consolation, etc. not from our faith generally but from spending time with our God. If we are not spending time with our God, then we need to make sure that we do, and that requires work. We have to work at making time to pray. And there should be no question that, if Christians (and Jews and Muslims) are responsible for anything it is to pray. Jesus said things like, "When you fast... when you pray," assuming that we would. Fasting, of course, is another form of prayer that is definitely work.
Fortunately, prayer is the easiest kind of work we can possibly do. If we ask, "when do I ever have the time to pray?", the answer is simple: you can pray with your family, you can pray while you eat, you can pray while you garden, you can pray while you do the dishes, while you cook, while you have sex, etc. If our greatest joy, peace, consolation, etc. come from spending time with our God, why not pray all the time? You don't always need to set aside time to go to a quiet place to pray. That is important, certainly, but your prayer can be the acknowledgement that you live before our God, that you are working before God, you are eating before God, and so on.
Having said that prayer is the easiest kind of work we can do, I must also say that it is among the hardest things we can do. That is because we are often confused as to what we should pray for or how we should pray. Again, simply recognizing that we are in the midst of God can be your prayer, but there are certainly times when we must put words and thought to our prayer. What should we ask for? What can we ask for? Should we even be asking for things? I'll answer some of these questions in my next post (I hope), but for now I'll say that prayer seems hard because, a) we think we need to be some type of expert, and b) we aren't sure where God is calling us to go. For the answer to a), I point you to my Holy Pastor Doing Stuff You Tube video on how to pray. Prayer doesn't need to be complicated. Just say what's on your mind. The answer to b), however, is that we need to learn how to listen. Prayer is work because listening is not our forte.
So the second reason prayer is work is that, in prayer, we can come to understand one another. We must listen in order to understand others, of course, and in that silent listening, we may learn how to see life from another person's shoes. In prayer we can ask, "what is so and so thinking? Why do they act that way?" If we are silent and listen, and truly open, God may show us.
Thirdly, and most importantly, prayer is work because we can come to an understanding of God. Again, if we listen in silence during our prayer, God's will for us will become known. Rather than fretting about the right thing to say and whether what we are praying for is in alignment with God's desires for us, why don't we just ask God, and then listen for the response, what God is doing with us and where God is calling us?
The latter two reasons, especially, are where we can put some meat on 'thoughts and prayers.' I would wager that most people who say, 'thoughts and prayers,' and nothing else, don't even make the time to truly pray. But if we do make the time to pray, then our thoughts and prayers cannot merely be, "God, comfort these people, show them your love, be good to them, etc. etc." That's a good prayer, and much needed after a tragedy when 'thoughts and prayers' is most heard, but it's also a relatively weak prayer. If our prayer is instead a prayer of understanding, of sitting in silence to listen to the rhythm of other people's hearts and the will of God, then we will be changed and then forced into action. If we come to understand the plight of our neighbors, we cannot sit back and do nothing; if we come to understand God's desires for us, then we cannot then sit back and do nothing. If prayer is taken seriously, then, it will lead to work, to action, in the name of God and our brothers and sisters. It cannot be otherwise. Those who express thoughts and prayers and then do nothing are clearly either not praying or not working at prayer. Like God, we cannot hear the cry of the needy in our prayers and then not seek to liberate them.
What can't happen is the creation of a division between 'thoughts and prayers' and action. Surely, as I've said, there are many who use 'thoughts and prayers' as an excuse for action. But good prayer, prayer that we work at, leads to holy action. Action without prayer or pre-prayer will be action that is either misguided or unsustainable. Think about it: if one day you woke up and said, "I want to run a bike shop," and then you started looking into what it would take to run a bike shop, would you have as much patience and determination to follow through as if you thought and prayed for weeks about what you want to do, what you are gifted by God to do, and then concluded that you want to run a bike shop? Obviously the sustainable action--the sustainable bike shop scenario--is the one that has worked at prayer before action is taken. Not only might you quickly lose interest in running a bike shop in the former, prayer-less scenario, but you might also make mistakes along the way. We must keep thinking and praying, then, but really work at it. Work at prayer so that we can, as a society, not remain stagnant and not remain far from God's intentions for us and instead take right, holy action.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Once we can understand prayer as work that we Christians should and must do, easy and hard work, then we can also put the role of our pastors into better perspective. This may seem like a radical shift in subject and I suppose it is to an extent. But if Christians are called to the work of prayer, then pastors are especially.
Unfortunately, the role of pastor has been tweaked in harmful ways in the past hundred-fifty-plus years. This is particularly true in Methodist churches. Back in the day, pastors were theological and spiritual and moral guides. Evangelicalism, despite its modern bent, combined the twin aims of revival and reform because, to John Wesley and Charles Finney and others, the role of pastors and of the church is to listen for God's nudging and then follow ardently. Strong abolitionist and feminist and nearly communist movements sprung out of the original evangelicalism. Pastors were the lead, the impetus for revival with the vision for reform, and the daily/weekly tasks of the church were delegated to the church proper. What happened was that churches became established, secure, stable, and wanted the pastor not to push them too far ("hey, we've done so much already") and instead to take care of them ("hey, wouldn't it be nice to get a visit from the pastor?"). Slowly but definitely surely, the theological and moral, prophetic and visionary leadership of pastors dwindled away. The spiritual comfort aspect of pastoral ministry took center stage. Nowadays, then, pastors spend most of their days and weeks writing and preaching sermons that don't tackle moral or so-called political issues at all, teaching bible studies, and visiting people to ask basic questions like, "How are you doing? Okay, let's pray." Meanwhile, people in the churches do very little of the work they used to, whether it be visiting, holding one another spiritually and morally accountable, preaching and exhorting, or leading community activism.
All of this is connected to churches having a hard time understanding that when a pastor is praying, she or he is working. It should be clear that churches' insistence that pastors settle down to care for the individual spiritual needs of the congregation has also led to a desire for tangible pastoral work on behalf of church members. You see, if a pastor is no longer a holy reformer of church and society, then a pastor no longer has need to pray, because prayer is the work a pastor does listening to the needs of the downtrodden and oppressed and to God's loving Spirit. The only prayer a pastor can do is with the church members for good health, promotions at work, or more members. But none of that is not the ultimate work of the church or of Christians generally. Churches and church members tend to want to know that their pastor is tangibly working for the time they expect. If a pastor is paid for forty hours, then the pastor must be able to account for how all forty hours were spent between worship and sermon preparation, Bible study, visitation, meetings, or the like.
Instead of our current model, however, we should return to the model of a pastor at prayer. It may seem like cheating, for instance, that I count about half the time I spend on my bike, Cato, as work for the church. But that is work for the church, because my role as pastor should be in hearing God's call, listening to how we are out of step with God's intentions for us and how we might get back into step with God's desired path for us. The church in this scenario is not a collection of people being cared for, but rather a family working towards God's kingdom. What does that kingdom look like compared to the world we live in? The answer must come in prayer. The pastor must be the leading figure in such prayer. We need to be grounded in the working of God.
Yes, we can say that a pastor should pray on his or her own time, but a pastor's 'own' time is when they need to pray for their personal life. A pastor must be personally renewed as well.
My hope is that in understanding the role of prayer in our Christian and church lives we will have a healthier relationship with God and also a more Christ-like impact on our world, as our churches once again claim the part of activism for the sake of transformation.
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