One of the favorite themes of Josh (not his real name), an ex-Christian with whom I have been corresponding, is prayer — or rather the uselessness thereof.
Lately he wrote about a friend who has fallen on hard times, so hard, in fact, that food is scarce. He decided that it would be wrong to help him out, because as a Christian, he needs to do what Jesus instructed, namely, “go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you” (Matthew 6:6).
Josh interprets this passage to mean, “Don’t tell anyone about your need, or it won’t be secret. If you ask people for help, you are not doing what Jesus said to do.” Then he adds, “Do you think God would work a miracle and provide food if he does this?”
Now most of Josh’s rants against Christianity I ignore, especially since they arrive in my mailbox several-fold per day, but this was such a twisted understanding of what Jesus said that I felt I couldn’t let it go by unanswered.
So I replied: “It’s important to realize that God often answers prayer through us, sometimes even when we are not aware of it.”
He responded in a large font, to emphasize, I suppose, the justice of his point:
They ought to do what their fearless leader said to do: pray in secret and don’t let people know what you need.
I wrote back, in what I hoped was a calm-sized font:
If you read it in context, you will see that in the passage from Matthew about praying in secret, Jesus is cautioning against religious ostentation for human praise. He never says we should keep our needs secret or that we shouldn’t ask for help.
But are you thinking of prayer as just asking for things and then receiving them (or not receiving them)? That is one form of prayer, but that is not the essence of what prayer is.
The essence of prayer is presence.
Josh, however, did not seem interested in the concept of prayer as presence. He was too focused on disproving the validity of prayer of any kind.
God as vending machine
Like a lot of people, Josh views God as a vending machine. If you drop in your prayer and don’t get back what you asked for, then you’ve been cheated, which goes to prove that the promises of the Bible are not true, prayer is a sham, Jesus is a fraud, and God probably doesn’t exist.
Can we ask for what we want?
So what is prayer, if it’s not just asking for something and getting it — or not getting it? Of course there is nothing wrong with asking God for what we want. Jesus says more than once in the gospels, “What do you want me to do for you?” I believe God treasures our prayer of petition, whether it is for ourselves or for other people. Indeed, God treasures whatever we do to acknowledge the divine presence and to be present to the One who loves us.
A biblical example of unanswered prayer
But let’s look at an example of “unanswered” prayer from the Bible.
Paul tells us in his second letter to the church at Corinth (12:1-10) that following an extraordinary religious experience, he was given a “thorn in the flesh.” What was this thorn in the flesh? Some people have thought it was a physical problem such as an illness; others have said it was probably something emotional; or perhaps persecution or temptations or difficult people he had to deal with. But whatever it was, he prayed for it to be taken away. And he prayed, he says, three times — which really means over and over.
Paul, saint though he was, did not get what he asked for. Nevertheless, he seems to feel that his prayer has been amply answered. Why?
The answer Paul hears is, “My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness” (12:9).
God has given him something more precious than what he asked for. God has given him assurance of the divine presence, assurance that he is valuable to God, assurance that God’s grace and power are at work in him, even in what Paul himself considers weakness.
Our Heart’s Desire
Second, I suspect that Paul learns through this experience what is really important to him.
Psalm 37 says, “Take delight in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart.” The problem is that we don’t always know what we truly want in our heart of hearts. I believe that when we persevere in prayer, the Spirit of Jesus will teach us what our heart’s desire really is. It may not take long for us to learn. It may take us a lifetime. We will learn that the deepest desire of our heart is God. That is how each one of us is made, whether we know it or not.
We will receive the desire of our heart, and we will know, like Paul, that our prayer has been answered. Whatever else we desire and pray for, we will desire and pray for it in the Spirit of Jesus who always says, your will be done.
Take delight in the Lord,
and he will give you the desires of your heart…
Be still before the Lord, and wait patiently for him;
do not fret over those who prosper in their way,
over those who carry out evil devices.
(Psalm 37:4,7 NRSV)