How are we
supposed to pray? If God is truly all-powerful, and He has a plan for us,
doesn’t that make our prayers kind of pointless? Or even a distraction from the
goal at hand? Should we just let life unfold in the way it is supposed to and
stay out of the way?
These are
questions that I have actually wrestled with for a long time. It isn’t easy to
figure out how to pray, and considering that most of the time we only do it
when we are in need, it makes things increasingly more difficult, consequently
making these questions all the more prevalent.
First and
foremost though, I think that it is important to remember that prayer is not
designed solely as a petitioning of the Lord. If we only look at it that way,
we truly might be asking for the wrong things, and worse yet, we might be
fighting, although probably in vain, the Lord’s plan for us.
When it comes to
prayer, the best basis we have, by far, is the Lord’s Prayer given to us by
Christ. However, I think that Jesus’ words in these moments are often times
misunderstood. He tells us what we shouldn’t do, and then goes on to tell us
that if we pray, we should pray like this:
Our Father in heaven,
hallowed
be your name.
Your
kingdom come,
your
will be done,
on
earth, as it is in heaven.
Give
us this day our daily bread,
and
forgive us our debts,
as
we also have forgiven our debtors.
And
lead us not into temptation,
but
deliver us from evil.
What
is often missed is that Jesus is not simply implying that when we pray, this is
the only prayer we should make. Instead, he is actually providing us with a
“template” of sorts as we pray. When we look at the first couple of lines, it
becomes readily apparent that all prayer should begin by worshipping the Lord.
This is vitally important because before all else, we need to acknowledge that
God is the great “I am” and we owe all things to Him. Then you’ll notice that
the next component of the prayer enlightens us to the fact that we should be
praying for God’s will to come to fruition. Both the nature and the placement
of this are important. Next, we will petition to the Lord, but before that ever
happens, it is essential to put His will above our own. In this way, if they
align, fantastic, but if they do not, we are placing priority on the will of
the Lord. As noted above, we are then given the opportunity to ask the Lord for
our “daily bread” and probably the “daily bread” of others ;) But it is
important to remember that Jesus does not, in the famous words of my old
priest, tell us that we should be asking for cake. I believe that “daily bread”
is meant to imply the things we need, not simply the things we want, which are
not always easy to separate. After that, the end is pretty straightforward. We
ask for forgiveness, we ask for the strength to forgive, we ask that He keep us
from temptation, and we ask that He keep us within His protection. All of these
things are things that we should ask for on a daily basis if not multiple times
per day.
So
what does this all mean regarding the sovereignty of God and whether or not we
will interfere with “the plan” with our numerous petitions? To this I would say
that ultimately our prayers do not have the potential to alter the course of
God’s plan, but they do have the capability of allowing us to play an active
role in that plan. You see, when we pray, we are establishing a bond with the
Lord. We are actively pursuing a relationship with Him. And our involvement in
this relationship will inevitably involve us in God’s plan. Prayer allows us to
be both privy to God’s work in our lives, but it also helps us to be okay with
it.
At
the end of the day, God’s Kingdom will be established here on earth. We cannot
stand in the way of that, but we can certainly play a role in making it a
reality. Our prayer is an essential component of that. The more you seek to
align your will with God’s, the more active He will be in your life. Sure, you
can sit idly by and let things unfold around you, and they most certainly will,
but you can also take an active roll. Either way every piece of the plan will
fall together perfectly, the only question then becomes whether you did
anything to help it along. You do have that power.
In
closing, I want to share with you something that I heard at retreat this week
that I think sheds some interesting light on these questions. It is a simple
prayer, and it goes like this: “Lord, for everything that has happened, thank
you. For everything to come, yes.”
Now
I understand that this can seem a little dreadfully all-encompassing. I
actually think that our first inclination is to fight this, how can we offer
our gratitude for everything that has happened in our lives? I could give you
all the theological arguments surrounding this question, but that isn’t what I
want. All I will say is this: This week I met young men who have been through
the darkest of storms and still manage to offer overwhelmingly powerful
gratitude for the lives they have been given. If they can find this
gratefulness in their hearts, then I too can say, “Lord, for everything that
has happened, thank you.”
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