In her song “Life Uncommon,” the secular American folksinger Jewel sings, “There are plenty of people who pray for peace but, if praying were enough, it would have come to be…” Her words are a common critique about prayer which implies that praying is useless and our time is better spent doing something about the problems we face. Is this how you view prayer? Do you see prayer as a bunch of words devoid of any actual usefulness or power?
David Wells wrote a while ago about our problem in understanding prayer.[1] He claims that the problem modern Christians have with prayer today can be summed up as two misunderstandings: as a misunderstanding (1) of its nature and (2) of its practice.
In its nature, Wells says, prayer is rebellion. It is rebellion against the status-quo. It is a stout refusal to accept things as they are. It is an affirmation that God wants things to be different. Perhaps our prayers lack power today because we have forgotten the nature of prayer. We ought to understand prayer as a tool to fight for what is right and good. What Wells calls rebellion, I think is better called “resistance.” Prayer is a tool to resist what the world tries to impose on us, against all that is contrary to God’s will. Prayer is our way of saying, “I do not accept that…” And it is our way of pleading to God, “Lord, you must change this situation…”
As much as we misunderstand the nature of prayer, we also misunderstand the practice of prayer. In the parable about the widow and the unjust judge (Luke 18:1-8), Jesus teaches that our prayer ought to be characterized by perseverance and persistence. Wells uses the term “contend.” In other words, the woman of Jesus’s parable contended with the unfair Judge. Of course, God is not an unjust judge and we do not wrestle with God that he might acquiesce to our point of view. Rather, it might be that as we wrestle with God, our prayers and our hearts because more and more in line with what God wants. It is fair to say that Jesus contended with God the Father in prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane (Matt 26:36-44), and yet Jesus did not pray to overrule God’s will, rather he prayed that God’s will would be done. As we read his prayer, we see Jesus’s heart’s desire is to be in line with the Father.
Jesus is an important model for us in understanding prayer. He prayed before making major decisions. He prayed when pressed and stressed. He prayed at pivotal moments of his life and ministry. These are all express examples for us today in how and when to pray. All of these examples of Jesus’s prayers show us how to align our hearts with God. Does that heart-attitude which Jesus showed also characterize your prayers?
When we consider our problems with prayer, it is difficult to separate the nature of prayer from the practice of prayer. They are both important. I think when we have a proper understanding of the nature of prayer, we would fervently pray against the injustices and evil in the world. We should constantly pray that God’s will is done on earth. If we truly believed, as the altruism says, that “Prayer changes things,” then we would constantly be devoting ourselves to the One who can truly set things right. And we would never give up until things were set right. Such is prayer: it is resistance against the prince of this world and it is wrestling with God until His glory is revealed, both in our lives and in the world. Amen! Lord, may your will be done!
[1] David Wells, “Prayer: Rebelling Against the Status Quo,” Christianity Today, 17:6 (November 2, 1979).
