Prayer is so simple. It’s talking to God. You don’t need to use religious jargon. Nor do you have to put on a “holy vibe,” whatever that means. You just come as you are.
Prayer is also listening. I don’t think we always think about the listening part of prayer. Yet it’s an important element. We must not leave it out of our prayer life.
But though prayer is so simple, or at least in some ways, I still have some questions about it. And so for the next few weeks, I want to address some of those questions. Some of them may seem to have an obvious answer, but we do well to still ask them for many times, it’s in the asking of questions that new discoveries are made. Now some of the questions may not have an answer, or at least not a clear one that I can give, but that’s ok. We still need to ask.
To start off, I have a rather elementary, but perhaps complex question. Here it is: “Does anything happen when we pray?” The answer has to be “Yes!” does it not? Why do we pray if it doesn’t make a difference? And yet I think we have all faced times in which we wondered if God was listening. We have all thought that perhaps God has not answered some request we have offered up.
The Bible is clear however, that God hears our prayers. In fact, he invites us to “ask, seek, and knock” (see Luke 11:9). And when we do, he promises to answer. Or at least when you continue reading Luke 11 that’s what Jesus seems to be saying. So this is good news. God hears. He doesn’t turn a deaf ear to us. He is present.
But once again, I know we have all had experiences where we sometimes doubt that God is really present and listening to us. I hope you realize that you are in good company when you feel this way. Just read through the Psalms. Many times they offer a plea of “God, where are you? Are you listening?” Or read the biographies of those in whom we classify as the “great saints” of the past. As you do, you will discover that they too had times of doubt as to what God was doing in their lives.
The older I get the more I resonate with the statement that “there are no simple answers.” I feel this way about the question of whether prayer makes a difference. And yet I simply do believe that prayer in fact does change things. Scripture along with all of history is clear about the “power” of prayer. But if we are honest, we all have times of doubt.
A couple of years ago I read Peter Enns book entitled The Sin of Certainty: Why God Desires Our Trust More Than Our “Correct” Beliefs. Reading this book stirred in me my insatiable desire to have all my Biblical and theological “ducks in a row.” And by the way, this is not always a good thing. Why? Because in doing so, intimacy with God sometimes gets misplaced.
What Enns book leads me to think in dealing with the question of “does prayer change anything?” is that the simple answer of “Yes!” may just be enough. The clarity of Jesus when he tell his disciples, “If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you” (John 15:7) should be trusted. This doesn’t mean that I shouldn’t seek answers to my questions concerning prayer. But what it does mean is that at the end of the day, when the answers don’t seem complete (or correct) enough, I bow my head and seek the face of God.
There is quite a bit left unanswered in this short essay concerning this question about prayer. For example, how does God’s sovereignty work in relation to our praying? Perhaps more can be written later about this. But for now, the point is to trust that prayer effects change. I don’t always see it, but it could be that my vision is a bit cloudy. So I keep trusting. I keep praying. For what else shall I do? It is God who is my creator, salvation, sustainer, rock, and hope and it is to him in which I turn.
Leave a Comment
