"When Prayer Doesn't Work"

"I always pray with joy because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now, being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus."

 

            You prayed for safety and the abuse continued.

            You prayed for healing and your loved one died.

            You prayed for reconciliation and your daughter continued in a life of rebellion.

            You prayed for salvation and your son settled down in the far country.

            At some point, any conversation about prayer comes to the place of considering when our praying does not work. At some point in or lives we must ask: Does prayer do any good? Do I have enough faith? Do I know how to pray? Is God even listening to me?

            We are focusing on "Remaining in Christ." The reality is that in order to grow and sustain a vital prayer life, you will almost certainly have to face times in your life when prayer does not work. Life will not always turn out as you expected. You will come to a place in your spiritual journey where God will seem distant to you.

Philip Yancey has done some good writing on this subject, both in his book "Disappointment with God" and in his book "Prayer: Does it Make Any Difference?" He writes this, "The trail of God at work rarely follows a straight line, which means our prayers may well produce different answers than we expect."

            In the survey on devotional life, some of you admitted to feeling disconnected or unable to hear God's Spirit. Some said that prayer seemed boring, or a chore, that you really don't feel like praying, or that a host of other things fill up the time you have set aside for prayer.

            I am thankful for your honesty. I believe that part of a sustained spiritual life over the course of years will be some times when prayer does not feel good, when prayer does not seem to be effective or of any use. That is normal in my experience. When you are in one of those times, please don't stop praying.

            I find it helpful in those times to move to a more conversational style of prayer. Talk to God over a cup of coffee, around the kitchen table. The point is to keep talking. It is also good to read the Psalms, even the laments, where that disconnected feeling is given words. Read hymns, for many hymns come out of faithful people struggling to find the presence of God again in their lives. Read the longer narratives in the Old Testament; the stories of Abraham, Jacob, Joseph, Moses and David. These I now find are not children's stories. These are not Bible "heroes" as I once understood that term. They are real people whose lives did not go the way they expected. In their stories we find gaps when God seems to disappear or be silent. So, when I am in one of those gaps, I find that story can be much more helpful than an intellectual answer.

            When I was a child I prayed about everything. But I especially prayed about things that had to do with my success at school or in sports. When I was 10 I was overjoyed when I experienced the dream of my young life. I made one of the Little League "A" team, the Windermere Giants. The "A" League was made up of 10- to 12-year-old boys, and that first year I did not play a great deal in the games. But every time I got up to bat I prayed that I would get a hit. Sadly, I struck out 15 times in a row. The next season, at age 11, I quit praying before each pitch, and began to hit the ball much better.

What I came to understand was that prayer is not about me getting what I wanted in life; especially it is not about realizing the dreams of boyhood, to hit the home run and be the hero. Prayer does not take away the need for normal physical and mental development, nor does it remove the need for patient practice, and for realistic goals. We need to struggle a bit in life.

            Years later, in seminary, I encountered a young professor known by all simply as "Henri," a man of remarkable hospitality and grace. He seemed to know all the students at the school by name. It was a few years later that he began to write popular books on prayer. Henri Nouwen believed that prayer should be taught and integrated into the curriculum. He felt a seminary needed to do more than simply have a chapel service each day, more than simply begin each class in prayer. He felt prayer should be the class. So he taught seminary students how to pray. What Henri taught me is that we should never replace prayer with competence.

            So, if we can go back to my simple scheme. I began by praying to get a hit, so I could be a hero. That kind of prayer didn't work. I moved on to develop a competence in hitting based on practice and learning, and then skipped the praying. Then Henri invited me to integrate prayer into competence. Competence is not enough. Study and practice and intelligence and experience are not enough. But as I reintegrated prayer into my learning and work, I knew that the goal of prayer was not to fulfill my desire for success or honor or status. Now it was about entering the work of God, the will of God, and realizing that such work is always beyond me, beyond anyone. It is then a matter of laying my competence before the Lord, at the cross, so that the Will of God might be accomplished by the power of God. Paul says, "I can do all things through Christ, who strengthens me." All of life is to be lived prayerfully. For me it may be sermons and visits and Bible studies, and for you it may be daily work and service and family. But all of life must be done prayerfully.

Paul thanks God as he prays for the people in Philippi. He prays with joy because of their partnership in the Gospel. They were the only church to send him provisions in prison. They were involved together in the work of God. So in his praying with thanks he enters the work of God with them, and it is not his work. He releases control; he releases his need to be the leader or the hero. There were leadership problems in that church, and he does not deny the problems, but he is not stopped by them either. He prays with thanks for the Lord's work in them.

            Then he prays that he who began a good work in them will carry it to completion. He trusts the work of God beyond what he can see, and he entrusts these people to the Day of the Lord. He is not worried about his timing, about being stuck in a prison while they are going through tensions and struggles with their leadership. Christ will carry his good work to completion, to the Day of Christ.

            We live in a world where so much is falling apart, and the loud voices can command our attention and our anxiety. But we have to listen and pray by faith, we have to tune our ears to the Lord's voice found beneath the loud voices. We also need to pray together. Prayer is personal, but it is not often private. The more we keep to ourselves and pray only by ourselves, the more we get stuck in feeling disconnected and distant from God. I have found that the praying that doesn't work is more often private and anxious praying. Honest praying with other people is good. It is energizing. It draws us into the faithfulness of God.

            Paul prays that "your love may abound more and more." Out of growing love comes a discernment to know what is best and to be pure and blameless. Good judgment and good moral living comes out of growing love, which is a product of prayer. Ralph Martin writes that in the Philippian church there was a tendency towards disunity and fault-finding, and that needed to be put right. So Paul prays that love might increase among them, before he writes about correcting their problems. He prayed that love would win, and that love would lead to discernment, clear thinking and courageous decision making. Then he prayed that they would be pure and blameless, so that out of a growing love there would emerge a moral life honoring God and they would be able to deal with the sin in the community.

            When we pray together, when we pray with thanks, when we integrate prayer into our competence, when we enter into the work of God prayerfully, then God works to increase our love and we experience him at work, carrying his good work in us to completion.

            Amen.