Having stuck out my neck on the subject of answers to prayer, I probably should be a bit more specific. Generalizations don’t count for much without backup from real life experience. The following are some of my discoveries—first, the controversy between formal and informal prayer. I’m for both. It appears to me that we (both me and you) spend more time talking about prayer than praying—my impression, of course. So, why find fault with another person’s prayer habits? Prayer isn’t practiced enough, why discourage any of it? There are benefit on both sides. Many prayers of saints who have gone before have lasted. That these prayers are still prayed attests to their appeal on many levels. The words repeated from century to century have spoken the thoughts of many hearts. I won’t fault them in favor of the spontaneous. Prayers from a liturgy open to us the petitions of earlier believers. They express needs and feelings similar to mine. If you’re a words person like me, you’ll find that time-tested prayers, like sermons by some spiritually mature believer from another era, can open the heart when a spontaneous struggle may not “get past the ceiling.” We rely on the Holy Spirit to correct our prayers (Rom 8: 26), and the prayers of others can also be corrective if in a more limited way. Ancient, liturgical prayers instruct, as well as correct.
Spontaneous prayers are ours alone. David says this: “Trust in him at all times, O people; / pour out your heart before him; / God is a refuge for us” (Ps 62: 8). Spontaneous prayers can be an overflow, revealing a person’s heart. Jesus compares people to trees in an orchard—i.e., the good tree that bears good fruit and the evil tree that bears evil fruit. He adds: “For out of the abundance of his heart he speaks” (Luke 6:45). Spontaneous prayers have been described as “just talking to God.” That’s fine, isn’t it? So, maybe our prayers aren’t beautiful, maybe they aren’t perfect. What mother will fault her sweet baby’s early efforts at speech because the grammar and pronunciation aren’t just right?
And what if your prayer is angry? One of the most memorable prayer times of my life was a moment I would later think of as a spiritual temper tantrum. That my heavenly Father answered at all still seems wonderful to me. I’ve concluded that he cares about truth—even when it’s messy, even when it’s not pretty. I think God would rather we have an honest fight with him than go away in cold discouragement, faith withering on the vine like fruit damaged by a late frost. To put it another way, it seems to me that God prefers heart truth, warts and all, to lip service—the tepid copy of something we think we’re supposed to say. Read Psalm 88.
We have to consider time when we think about prayer. We’re awash in this culture with instant gratification, fast foods, data streaming at “unprecedented speed”—in fact, kwickie everything. In prayer, we address l’Eternel, as the French put it. We have to remind ourselves that God is not constrained by time. This too: He will answer on his terms. Why not? He’s God and, as he inspired Isaiah to declare, “there is no other” (Isa 45:6). Response time may stretch to decades. That kind of answer has come to me, especially when I was complaining about something in Scripture. He listened, let me settle down and live some more life (a great source of perspective) before explaining a verse I didn’t understand or disliked in his Book. Another challenge is No. Truth be told, we probably have a hard time with that answer. It was many decades before I could bring myself to thank God for one such response. Also, if sin is “cherished in the heart,” God will not hear, we’re told (Ps 66:18).
Another eventuality is the partial or unrelated answer. At times, I’ve received a small and lovely blessing, something very different from my current request, not at all the answer I was looking for. It would be easy to find fault—to say, “God, that’s not what I wanted.” I’ve come to see such times as a sort of halfway house on the way to my larger concern. It’s as if my Father were saying, “You have to wait, but be encouraged. Just know I’m listening.”
Sometimes the Lord answers instantly—like the time my daughter watched warts on her hand disappear while she prayed. Or the time I lost my car keys, needed them badly, and received a mental image as I was praying—the keys, in the drawer just behind my chair.
from the Edgefield Advertiser, oldest newspaper in South Carolina
May 26, 2021
with thanks for the great image–jaclyn-moy-m0r3EmnnMvg-unsplash.jpg
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