Prayer Re-thought

Matthew 6:8 NIV

Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him.

Why Do You Pray?

A couple of years ago we were awakened by a violent shaking near our bed.  It wasn’t an earthquake but for us something much worse.  Our youngest son still slept in a small bed at the foot of our bed and in the middle of the night started having a seizure.  He had never gone through one before and we had not experienced a seizure ourselves nor seen one of our kids have one.  The disorientation caused by just having been asleep and the shock of witnessing one of our children experiencing something so terrible threw us into a panic.  His eyes were rolled up into the top of his head and his body was stiff as a bamboo pole.  Not knowing what to do, we called 911 and soon emergency personnel were at our house helping us with Ben.   I rode with him in the ambulance and after a couple hours, we were sent home, reassured that the seizure had not harmed him and did not mean that he would have other seizures.  Throughout this ordeal, both Mary Jo and I prayed for Ben, prayed for wisdom about what to do for him, prayed for the nurses and doctor to know how to help him and prayed that he would recover without damage to his brain.  We did not hesitate to pray when the seizure began and never questioned the value of continuing to pray on the way to the hospital, while in emergency and after we returned with the doctor’s clearance.

Prayer is one of the most frequent activities engaged in by people world-wide and specifically within the Christian community.  Those who pray rarely question the logic of it or its validity when doing so yet there may be many times when we wonder if we should keep praying about a matter and countless hours and perhaps even days when prayer does not cross our mind.  Why do we pray?  What is a father whose child is addicted to meth hoping to accomplish by praying?  How come a woman going through a divorce prays or a young man needing work prays?  Why does a high school student pray when facing a tough final?  Is there a reason why a mother prays for her family or a grandparent prays her health?  What do you hope to accomplish by praying?

It seems so simple, right?  We pray to get something.  We see in the Bible plenty of examples of people who prayed and did hope to get something.  The accomplished and mostly good King Hezekiah found himself in a tough spot.  In the fourteenth year of his reign, Hezekiah’s country Judah was being ransacked by a huge Assyrian army and now they were at his doorstep, surrounding his hometown of Jerusalem.  It was an impossible situation; he had no hope of being able to fight off the Assyrian invaders…starvation or capitulation seemed to be the only options he and the people of Jerusalem had.  The general of the Assyrians mocked Hezekiah and the Hebrews for believing the Lord might answer their prayers and rescue them.  "Do not listen to Hezekiah, for he is misleading you when he says, 'The Lord will deliver us.' Has the god of any nation ever delivered his land from the hand of the king of Assyria?  Where are the gods of Hamath and Arpad? Where are the gods of Sepharvaim, Hena and Ivvah? Have they rescued Samaria from my hand?  Who of all the gods of these countries has been able to save his land from me? How then can the Lord deliver Jerusalem from my hand?" (2 Kings 18:32-35 NIV)

Many of us have felt like it was hopeless to pray and perhaps Hezekiah did too.  The Bible does not say that Hezekiah himself prayed for deliverance from the Assyrians although we might assume he did.  We do know however that he sent messengers to Isaiah the prophet and asked him to pray for God to drive off the Assyrians.  Isaiah’s reply was, “Tell your master, 'This is what the Lord says: Do not be afraid of what you have heard — those words with which the underlings of the king of Assyria have blasphemed me.  Listen! I am going to put such a spirit in him that when he hears a certain report, he will return to his own country, and there I will have him cut down with the sword.'" (2 Kings 19:6-7 NIV)  But the Assyrians did not leave immediately.  More threats came from their general and Hezekiah himself prayed.  Now, O Lord our God, deliver us from his hand, so that all kingdoms on earth may know that you alone, O Lord, are God." (2 Kings 19:19 NIV)  That night one hundred and eighty-five thousand Assyrian soldiers were struck dead by a plague sent from the Lord and Hezekiah gained fresh insight into the Lord’s power and care for him and the nation of Judah.

At the age of thirty-nine, the Lord told Hezekiah through the prophet Isaiah that he was about to die.  Devastated by the news, he prayed for God not to take his life.  Hezekiah turned his face to the wall and prayed to the Lord, "Remember, O Lord, how I have walked before you faithfully and with wholehearted devotion and have done what is good in your eyes." And Hezekiah wept bitterly. (2 Kings 20:2-3 NIV) Of course Hezekiah was overjoyed when the Lord through the prophet Isaiah promised him fifteen more years of life and he did gain them.  Something interesting happened though in those fifteen years.  Hezekiah lost his interest in praying.  Things went so well for him and he was so prosperous that it seems he became comfortable and his interest in God casual.  There were all sorts of issues he faced we can be sure but he solved them on his own.  Hezekiah was smart and a talented leader and it seemed to him that everything was going so smoothly that he didn’t need to waste his time praying or bother his head with it…and it is true.  He was doing well.  He was successful, popular and content.

Later, a contingent of Babylonian merchants and politicians came to Jerusalem to meet with Hezekiah and the king welcomed them with open arms.  Hezekiah received the messengers and showed them all that was in his storehouses — the silver, the gold, the spices and the fine oil — his armory and everything found among his treasures. There was nothing in his palace or in all his kingdom that Hezekiah did not show them. (2 Kings 20:13 NIV)  Now, this seemed like a lovely gesture of comradery and neighborliness.  Hezekiah was smartly hoping to form an alliance with an up and coming international power that could help both him and his country in the future.  Of course it was a little boastful on his part, showing off his riches and bragging a bit about his accomplishments but he had great reason to be proud of his work and what harm was it anyway to show off some.  The Lord immediately sent the prophet Isaiah to Hezekiah to explain the ramifications of what he had done in welcoming the Babylonian contingent into Jerusalem.  Then Isaiah said to Hezekiah, "Hear the word of the Lord:  The time will surely come when everything in your palace, and all that your fathers have stored up until this day, will be carried off to Babylon. Nothing will be left, says the Lord. And some of your descendants, your own flesh and blood, that will be born to you, will be taken away, and they will become eunuchs in the palace of the king of Babylon." (2 Kings 20:16-18 NIV)

Hezekiah’s reaction to this rebuke from God is fascinating but quite representative of how the mind responds to the Lord when it has lost its sensitivity to the way God thinks. "The word of the Lord you have spoken is good," Hezekiah replied. For he thought, "Will there not be peace and security in my lifetime?" (2 Kings 20:19 NIV)  God had nothing more to say to Hezekiah after that reaction to the warning.  Hezekiah was not thinking like the Lord; it was as if they had nothing in common with each other.  Now we realize that there are plenty of people who don’t care how their actions will impact the generations that follow them.  They don’t worry about what their career move will do to their children, how their divorce will impact their grandkids, what will happen a hundred years from now if they choose one school over another.  Who thinks that way?  God does.  He cares what sort of life we lay down for future generations and it matters to Him the decisions we make and their ramifications for ourselves and others.

There is an interesting statement Jesus makes about prayer and praying that has confused many Christians and non-Christians.  Talking about pagans and all who misunderstand what is to happen when we pray, Jesus commented, Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him. (Matthew 6:8 NIV)  Now it is easy to confuse this statement with those of atheists who teach that praying is irrelevant and useless.  That is not at all the gist of this as Jesus goes on to explain how prayers should be presented to God.  In fact immediately after this verse He then gave us the model prayer to be certain we all know how praying should go.  If prayer is not giving God key information that He might not be aware exists, then why do we tell Him about what we want and what we need and about our concerns?  It is because as we pray, our mind comes in contact with God’s mind and all we care about becomes immersed in Him and is transformed by His thinking.  The panicked minds or the calm and faith-filled minds are all changed by going to the Lord in prayer.  As  we bring before Him the things He already knows and cares about, we find that we lose our own view of what we face and we begin to see it as He does.  It is not a terrible storm.  It is Christ in the boat.  It is not a devastating loss.  It is the Lord lifting us to a new opportunity.  It is not the end of the world.  It is the beginning of a more important journey.

Every situation we face, whether we deem it good, bad, frightening or inconsequential, we can go through it with God’s mind thinking through our mind or push forward on our own.  When we pray to Christ for help or guidance or simply to honor Him, we put ourselves in touch with God who miraculously guides us through what we face and gives us His thoughts about what is before us and what we do not yet see.  Hezekiah stopped thinking that it was important to see things God’s way but you haven’t!  You want God to tell you to relax and trust Him.  You look forward to being guided by Christ through your next crisis or job opportunity.  You want the Lord to tell you what to think about your trials as well as your victories.  Prayer is how our Savior shows us the way…even when we don’t realize we need directions.  It takes practice learning how to recognize when it is God leading you and when it is just you forming an opinion.  That is why we need to pray all the time that His voice is not a stranger to us when we need to know it is Him!