Sometimes I find it hard to pray. I know prayer is not and should not be all about asking for things. God is no genie in a lamp. But when there are needs, when I see people hurting…I want to pray. And sometimes in these moments, I get stuck between wanting to pray for the right things and praying for the things I want. And no…I’m not talking about struggling between praying for world peace and winning the lottery. It’s that I want to want the right things. Sometimes I get stuck trying to figure out just what the right things are.
My rational mind says that while there are miracles that happen every day (and I absolutely believe that), most people aren’t going to be healed of an incurable disease, for example. And even when it is something like cancer, where there is a chance…at least some probability…of being healed, I am hesitant to pray for healing. My reluctance to ask for such things stems from not wanting to be wrong. And this not pride…at least I don’ think it is. It’s fear. I don’t want to have to wrestle with the implications of my prayers always seeming to be answered with a “no.” What would that say about me? About my relationship with God? About the gap between what seems like a good thing…and what God does? It would imply I don’t know what is best. I don’t know what is right. And that would be a hard realization…even though intellectually I have no doubt it is true.
The Apostle John extols us in one of his letters that when we ask God for things that are in accord with His will, then He will hear us…and then we can have confidence that we have received what we asked (1 John 5:13-15). When I read that, I walk away feeling this pressure to know God’s will. And if I don’t know His will, then what is the point of praying? So at times, as I said, I struggle with prayer. Not knowing what His will is, I settle for prayers that ask Him to send peace and comfort to those who are suffering. I pray that He would give people strength in the midst of pain. I ask that He would be present to those who are hurting and struggling. And there is nothing wrong with these prayers. These are all good things. These are things people need…things we all need. And I believe these are all things God would want for each of us. But in my heart, I know these are safe prayers….generic prayers. They may be good, but they don’t feel right. They don’t ring true in my soul.
So what do I do? How do I pray so that it is both in accordance with His will and yet it also feels true to me…to my soul…to what I want to say. Not surprisingly, I think I found the answer in Jesus.
There are many things one can pull from the story of the Transfiguration, but as I was searching for help with prayer, I think I stumbled on a subtle but powerful detail we often miss. Moses and Elijah were “talking with Him” (Matthew 17:1-8). They were just standing there…talking to Jesus. Yes, they may have “shown like the sun.” But it was still just a conversation. We don’t know what they said, but they were not on their knees…they were not bowed down…they weren’t burning incense or lighting candles. They were just talking to Him like a regular person. They were talking just like anyone else. That is not sacrilege that is intimacy. Here were two creatures, two creations talking to God. Just standing there talking. I am not sure we need any more encouragement than that to simply talk to God. What more evidence do we want to abandon any need for pomp and circumstance in our prayers. We can just talk to Him. We can have a conversation…just like we do with everyone else. No fancy words, no fixed structure. Just talking to Him…straight from our heart. The difference, is that we know He loves us unconditionally.
But what about needing to know His will? What about the conflict when the thing we want to pray for…whether healing or deliverance or dare we say a miracle…is not His will for that situation? What if he has a different plan from what we want? Can we “just talk to Him” then? Again, I think Jesus gave us the answer.
In the garden of Gethsemane, Jesus…fully God and fully Man…prayed. Not only did He pray, but He was anxious in His prayer. In fact, He was so fervent in His prayer, that He was sweating drops of blood (Matthew 26:36-46). But the salient point in this story is what He pray in this moment. He asked to be spared. He asked for a miracle. He asked for a different plan. This was his fully human heart praying to the Father. He knew God’s will. He knew His plan. And yet still He asked if there was another way. He asked God to change His mind….to change his plan. This was Jesus being human. This was Him sharing His heart with the Father. And I believe this was Jesus teaching us how to pray just as explicitly as when He gave us the ‘Our Father.’
And speaking of the ‘Our Father’ (Matthew 6:9-13), the last piece of this prayer puzzle is found right at the beginning. When Jesus showed us how to pray, he began with the Aramaic word, “abba”, which means father. But importantly, we need to recognize that this term was not the formal reference for one’s biological father. This was the term that children would use for their “daddy.” It implies intimacy. It implies love. Jesus us told us to come to the Father like this…assuming intimacy and assuming love.
What we have in these three examples of “prayer”…which most would agree is just a word for talking to God…is God’s answer to my hang up about not being sure how to pray. In all these examples we see that God desires me to come to Him…boldly as a child does to their parent. He wants me to share my unfiltered heart. He wants me to share my “wants” and my fears and all those things that make me anxious or fearful. Whatever is on my heart at the moment, He wants me to bring to Him. I don’t need to pretend or worry that my prayer isn’t “right” or fear I am not asking for His will. He wants me to ask for whatever I truly want…whatever it is I think is the right thing for me or for someone else. He loves me…and so He wants me to come to Him as myself. The God of Truth does not want me to hide my real feelings or to try to be something or someone else. He wants my heart, my thoughts, my will. And if I do that…if I am honest and real and true, then He can teach me about Himself. Then He can show me more than what I am seeing at the moment. Then…and maybe only then…can I see the miracles that are happening…even while the answer to my prayer is “no.”
“Our prayers may be awkward. Our attempts may be feeble. But since the power of prayer is in the one who hears it and not the one who says it, our prayers do make a difference.”
― Max Lucado, He Still Moves Stones