On Asking
What does it mean to pray?
Many people think of prayer as a time where you close your eyes and recite a checklist of things you are thankful for, and then, at the very end, if there is something someone else needs to have, if after all that time of thanking God and reflecting on abstract theology you still want God to do something for someone, you can probably get away with it -but if your view of the Bible is all about yourself, then go ahead, you selfish man, and ask for something for yourself. It just means you aren't really thankful enough and, by the way, your requests will go unanswered.
When I was in the third grade, some of my Sunday School teachers taught me to pray in this way.
"Prayer is asking for something."
Fred Rogers
The word 'pray' means 'to ask'. How great are the walls we build to avoid asking God for anything!
We refuse to ask God, and then we posture piously about how little we think of ourselves and our desires, and then we wonder why God seems to do little for us!
"If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give what is good to those who ask Him!"
Matthew 7:7
Why do people hesitate to ask God?
Is it not because we are afraid to expect good things and then get let down?
If we ask God for something, He can always say 'no'. We can be disappointed when God says 'no'. No one wants to severely disappointed.
So we build up walls in hopes of scraping the bottom of the barrel.
And then what do we do?
We turn to complaining, although not because we like to complain.
We whine and complain about our world as a means of indirectly twisting God's arm. If someone defiantly disobeyed God, if he shouted blasphemies at heaven, heaven could punish him. We fear God just enough to avoid obvious disobedience while we stockpile bitterness inside.
One would do well to remember that God knows our needs before we even ask Him.
It is difficult to ask someone for something if we think he has little knowledge or concern for our needs. How wonderful to have a Father who cares and knows about the things we need, even before we ask Him!
"Therefore I say to you, all things for which you pray and ask, believe that you have received them, and they will be granted you."
Mark 11:24
There is also another obstacle to asking God for our concerns: our fear that others will find us selfish.
I commonly hear people thank God because of what He has done for another person, but to appear truly intelligent and sacrificial some people thank God because of His nature -as if this had nothing to do with the generous way He treats us.
To fully accept God's generousity, one should also accept the fact that He rewards those who pray to Him in the privacy of their closets.
How slow people are to accept that God rewards those who pray! How frightful to gaze into the magnitude of our indebitedness to God!
It is even daunting to consider a small aspect of another's debt to heaven. To gaze at one's own indebitedness seems maddening, and most people will do anything to avoid it.
Part of entering the life God has for us is to make our attitudes like little children. May God send His Spirit to live inside us and teach us everyday to depend on Him for our needs and to ask Him for many things.
If we choose to become like little children, we will also be able to accept the times when God says 'no'. When God tells us 'no' it can be sad, but trusting God never leads to the true disappointment most people carry with them.
And if we praise God for His generousity towards us, people may consider us selfish. Or they may think we are unintelligent. Or unpopular. God knows all the things people think about, and He also takes into account those who appreciate the good things He gives them.
May our lives grow in thankfulness all the more as we learn to trust in God and enjoy His great generosity.
Labels: Bible Reflection
7 Comments:
I couldn't agree with you more about being disappointed if God does not give you something you've asked for. I also really liked how you described when people try and mask their requests, using a lot of thanksgiving and praise in prayers just to sound less selfish to God.
Prayer has always troubled me. I can't help but feel what Jesus was talking about when he accused of the pharisees giving "vain babblings" in their prayers, when I listen to people praying out loud in church, or reading a prayer off of a page that someone else had written. Myself, I have always been attracted to the idea that if we love God, we'll follow Christ's commandments, and express our love that way. To be honest, I have not given God statements of praise or worship through a prayer in quite a long time. So often praise and even thanksgiving sounds forced in public prayers, but maybe I am wrong.
Despite the almost disintegration of my prayer life, I still find myself saying short prayers through the day filled with requests. The requests usually are like "Give me the strength to endure this task", or "please help me remember the things ive studied for this test", or "please give me the wisdom to resist the things that will drag me down". I think requests like that is good for people to give, it is affirming to God that you know he is the one to help, and you're asking him to augment your abilities for something you wanted to do anyhow (like resist certain evils, perform certain tasks).
I'm sorry for rambling; the question I wanted to ask you is whether you think certain types of requests are wrong to give? I doubt someone is doing themselves much good if they are asking God for the latest consumer item, or even for a certain event to play out the way they like (unless you believe God can control the outcome of future events). Things like that has always struck me as quite selfish, how is it God's business to add to your material possessions, or even your position in the world?
When God promised his people good things, does that include material prosperity as well?
Anyway, you've written a good post burning bush, i'd love to hear some further thoughts from you on prayer.
Hello Timothy,
When I read your writing I get this sense that Jesus would have no reservation about being around you. You don't wear your accomplishments on your shirt sleeves, and you are sensitive to fakeness. These few things will serve you greatly in life.
"The question I wanted to ask you is whether you think certain types of requests are wrong to give?" Timothy
The Bible does not make many qualifications about what we should or should not ask for. In the physical world we can say some kinds of things are better than other kinds of things: A corvette is better than a skateboard. Spiritually speaking, however, this claim is destroyed in the fact that children are often more thankful for their skateboards than grown adults are for their corvettes -which is very hard to explain!
The truth is ellusive, and the Bible promises us few easy answers. The more earnest our questions become, the more we must go inward to hear from God's Spirit. James tells us that if we preach against idolatry, we shouldn't rob temples ... our actions should reflect the things that are important to us.
"For everything created by God is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with gratitude;" 1 Timothy 4:4
Of course there is something scary about this: what if people start asking God for tyrannical political power or to have something that belongs to someone else or doing something obviously wrong.
In Paul's way of considering it, if you can thank God for those things, then you are in the clear! He takes the focus off of what kind of thing we ask for and he puts it onto our conscience: whether or not we would be ready to thank God for it.
A lot more could be said about this verse, how people so easily fail to thank God for the seemingly godly things like their family, their education, their food, etc.
"I listen to people praying out loud in church, or reading a prayer off of a page that someone else had written." Tim
How I wish I could say that has never been my experience ... It is scary to hear the prayers of hypocrites, and even more daunting to consider whether one's self has shared in with them!
In some ways, praying is like singing. It always sounds best when the singer is alone, even if it is in the shower.
"I doubt someone is doing themselves much good if they are asking God for the latest consumer item, or even for a certain event to play out the way they like" Tim
To get a feel of God's generosity, you really have to notice how gratuitous it is, or, existentially speaking, how absurd it is.
Everyone knows there is a lot of suffering and affliction in life. What few people dare to accept is that God could take it away at any moment.
Consider the wedding feast of Cana. There were probably sick people who needed to be healed, but Jesus turned water into wine ... when everyone could have been just fine drinking water.
Did it do the guests 'much good'? Perhaps ... if they gained a sense of how wonderful and generous God is. The Bible also has a lot to say in favor of people who learn to give in this way.
"...Unless you believe God can control the outcome of future events" Tim
I do believe He can! Jesus frequently commanded His disciples to pray for future events. I will leave you with only this example:
"Pray that you may not enter into temptation." Luke 22:40
Some final thoughts:
Tim, I want to commend you for the praying you do. Offering small, little requests to God like you do suggests that you see God as the One who meets your needs. I find myself offering these small prayers a lot, although they are very large in another sense because I am usually praying against my bad attitude!
The best times I have with God are those rare moments when I look back and remember the way I prayed for something and He answered my prayer. So often I am surprised by how many things he has done, and how little I have acknowledged!
Take care, brother Tim. It is a blessing to hear someone write as earnestly and as candidly as you have. I wish you the best, and I will pray for you!
Still Burning,
The Bush
Burning Bush,
Thanks for your kind words. One of the main things I worry about, however, is how many reservations Jesus would have being around me. Out of the whole bible, the character that reminds me of me the most is the young man in Matthew 19. I'm not rich by western standards, but certainly I am quite well off in world standards. The only thing that was separating the young man from being a true follower of Christ was the attachment he had for material possessions, and indeed when Jesus commanded he give them up he could not. I always struggle with materialism, and i'd never myself be able to follow that instruction from Christ. That's why materialism usually creeps into my posts over at existential christianity, i need the rebuke more than anyone else.
Perhaps this has also shaped my perception on prayer, if I ever asked God for a material possession i'd feel horrible, selfish, and above all weak-willed.
"The Bible does not make many qualifications about what we should or should not ask for." - Burning Bush
But don't you think something like that is implied? It was jesus who said that your heart will be where your treasure is. When the New Testament was written corvettes and dvds weren't around, materialism was found in the love of money and luxuries like purple silk etc. The love of money was explained as the root of all evil, and I guess my argument is that if any israelite prayed for more money when already had enough to fulfill his needs, it would be venturing into a love of money.
I know I am generalising alot here, as simply requesting some material possession does not entail materialism and the root of all evils, but I believe it can if the heart is only praying for it because it lusts after it.
"For everything created by God is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with gratitude;" 1 Timothy 4:4
Could it be argued that alot of things that are being prayed for nowadays have not been created by God, but by man? Even back then, I doubt paul would have included a false idol in his definition of created by God. It sounds more like a reference to God calling his creation "good" after the 7 days.
Also, I know I will be in the minority here, but sometimes I can't shake the feeling that some things Paul says is just wrong, and additionally they conflict with Christ's teachings. I haven't studied this question much, though, so i'll just leave it in the air.
"To get a feel of God's generosity, you really have to notice how gratuitous it is" - Burning Bush
I couldn't agree more, but I guess my experiences have made me extra wary in how you can apply that statement. To me, the foundation of the prosperity gospel is that God is generous, and hence he will give you money. It takes a wonderful thing such as God's generosity, and applies it to a possession that is a vice to so many people.
"I do believe He can! Jesus frequently commanded His disciples to pray for future events."
That is true, you've got me there, but is the philosophical ramifications of such a God possible? I should write a post about this!
-----
Before I go, i'd like to thank you for your blog. It has virtually become the only blog I visit every day, your posts are similar enough to mine to make me feel like im on the same wavelength when reading them. But they are also different enough to challenge me in how I view the world, the bible, and God.
Prayer is a very iffy subject for me, and I appreciate any honest writing about it. In my high school class, the teacher used to pick a couple of students to pray every morning, and there would be a whiteboard filled with requests. The people would go up and go through the list, almost reading off the whiteboard when they were communing with God. Eventually, the praying job used to be the most hated by the students, they used to groan whenever they were picked. This made me very disillusioned. Towards the end of year 12 I gave a devotion to my class about how prayer should be redefined as "the continual affirmation of Christ's impact in our lives", because our current usage of prayer is useless. Praise/worship has become vain and empty, requests have become meaningless, and thanksgiving is not done in joy. To make a long story short, a number of people found my theology "weird" after that, and my teacher was not impressed.
I know how negative I always sound when discussing prayer, I'd love to one day feel as comfortable and positive about it as you do.
Burn on,
Tim
This comment has been removed by the author.
Hi Timothy,
I don't know about you, but I'm beginning to like what happens in the 'comments' part a lot more than the actual post, which I fear might have just been me dealing with my past and replacing dogma with other dogma.
Your concerns about Matthew 19 especially grab my attention. I remember the first time I read that chapter in my 6th year and thinking, 'I don't know if I could do that!'. It seems like I'm always reading people equate Socialism with overcoming greed, and then I end up overlooking Christ's warnings about loving our possessions. Thanks for giving a very personal side to your reservations, Tim.
I like the description of prayer you gave as, "the continual affirmation of Christ's impact in our lives", although I suppose there are a number of things one could describe that way like love, faith, and perhaps repentence too.
I spent my 6-8 and college years at Bible schools so I recall a lot of what you were talking about. There was so much pretense ... and 'of course' so and so is a Christian because look at his parents, his grades, and how many people like him, etc. Faith is very different from a foregone conclusion as you seem to be well aware.
But sometimes when I hear people pray or talk about Jesus I sometimes begin to hear two voices, a voice that scoffs at them and another voice that says, 'hey, maybe they're for real about what they're saying...'. And you know what? It really is impossible to say for sure which voice is 'right'. And I think to myself, 'If I were them, I'd sure want people to give me the benefit of the doubt.' I'm sure that's probably occurred to you, but I don't think it hurts to say it.
I'm afraid I don't know about the philosophical implications of God changing the future. If God changed the past it seems like some odd things could happen. People have speculated that the universe could be destroyed. I would like to see a post clarifying your concerns because I seem fairly unfamiliar with them. An edifying twist at the end would be neat.
I do think I know what you are referring to about Paul. I have wondered about this topic a lot myself. Many people I have known (including Soren) have seemed to outright reject Paul's writings. Jesus seems so radical and ellusive whereas Paul wants to be practical and direct. Lately, though, I've been thinking about how radical 1 Corinthians 13 is -if one does not have love they are nothing- and I say to myself, "This man GETS it!". There are other things as well ... Romans played a heavy role in the reformation which got Christians back to the real Jesus. Also, Peter regards Paul's letters as Scripture.
Thanks again for the comments. Sorry my response was so long. Words are so easy to master, but so empty by themselves, you know?
Take care, Tim!
The Burning Bush
I find myself 'asking' all the time it's curbing any and all expectations.....thanks for your encouragement it really did touch me.
"One would do well to remember that God knows our needs before we even ask Him" (BB)
This is the aspect of Jesus' teaching about prayer I focus on...I guess struggle the complexities of prayer - but this sentence I do not struggle with. God knows before we ask - and I have always taken huge comfort in that idea.
Prayer is quite the interesting idea - and my thoughts on this are not yet solidified by no stretch. I do very little praying - audibly - not because I don't think it works - mainly because of the trust I have in God (and knows my concerns best - whether internal or audible) - and this view has worked well for me (and I would say God has provided all along).
But I do have questions regarding it and it's methodology as taught in churches. But I'll reserve those for now.
Post a Comment
<< Home