What Does Prayer Do Anyway?
Prayer is an interesting thing, and so often our ideas about it seem like they contradict each other. We tend to believe that prayer works in some way or another. When we pray for someone who is sick, asking God to heal them, we hope that God will in fact heal them. We trust that God will hear our prayers and act according to our request. At the same time, when we pray for something and it doesn’t happen, we need a way to make that make sense. We say that God answered our prayer in a way we didn’t expect but we would understand someday. Sometimes, our theology leads us to the conclusion that it doesn’t really matter what we pray for. God already knows the future, so the outcomes won’t change whether or not we pray. Everything that must be, will be, exactly the way God intends it. Your destiny is set according to God’s plan, so praying is nothing more than a nice gesture, a token to show God that you are paying attention. Of course, God already knows exactly how well you are paying attention whether or not you pray. So, why pray at all then? If everything is already settled, why take the time to ask God for things? Some will say that the purpose of prayer is to teach ourselves faith. Prayer is a spiritual discipline that doesn’t change God at all, but it can shape our lives, making us more faithful.
A common problem that theologians run into is the diversity of views in the Bible making it difficult to find one universal theology for the whole thing. There are certainly parts of the Bible that would make us think that prayer doesn't change God’s mind because God’s mind can’t be changed, certainly not by mere humans making requests. God’s wisdom and patience are both perfect, and God has nothing to learn from us. I don’t want to suggest that is wrong, but it isn’t universally true. Abraham negotiates with God on behalf of Sodom and Gomorrah in Genesis 18:22-33, and God agrees to Abraham’s terms. Moses pleads with God not to destroy the people of Israel in Exodus 32:11-14, and successfully changes God’s mind. Jesus tells the disciples a couple times that they will receive what they ask for in prayer: Matthew 21:22, Mark 11:24, and Luke 11:5-13. As much as our theology may teach us that we can’t really change God’s mind, Scripture is full of examples of people persuading God and encouraging us to pray and believe that we will receive what we pray for. Maybe we are the problem. Maybe people were just much more persuasive in the Old Testament.
While we may be stuck between these two views of prayer: God listening to what we have to say and fulfilling our requests and God not needing to hear our prayers because God’s plan is already definitive, the Bible has some other views of prayer worth exploring. Two interesting examples can be found in Revelation 6 and Romans 8.
While many people read Revelation 6 and get excited about the broken seals and the infamous four horsemen, the breaking of the fifth seal precedes an interesting story of the spirits of martyrs under the altar in the heavenly court saying what appears to be a prayer. They bless the Lord and then lament that those cruel people who killed them haven’t yet been punished for their sins against the innocent. The implication of the prayer is that they would like God to execute righteous vengeance against the wicked. The martyrs are awarded white robes and then told to rest longer until the number of martyrs is complete. Essentially, they are told to go back to sleep until everyone else who will die has died. Now, this may seem no different from the explanation that God’s plan is ultimate and our prayers will be answered with a reminder to be patient for God’s timing. However, this is all that happens after the breaking of the fifth seal. Keep in mind, the previous four seals each released a horseman with tremendous power to wreak havoc on the entire world. When the seals break, something of cosmic significance follows. Therefore, though their prayer isn’t immediately answered, their coming together to speak to God in this way is an event of major significance in the world’s story.
There are a number of important points to consider in this story. One, these are people who are already dead. It isn’t only the living who can speak to God in meaningful ways. Two, this is an entire group of people speaking one message to God. Perhaps the reason this is so important is because the entire company of martyrs is crying out to God for justice. Maybe prayer is more powerful when all the people speak it together with one voice. This is why we come together to pray and worship as a community. Three, the prayer is an event of incredible importance, even though the answer is that they are simply told to wait. While we often think of prayer as a means to an end, a way to get something from God or strengthen our own faith, maybe prayer is important in and of itself. The act of a community praying to God is just as significant as plague and war being unleashed upon the earth, and I cannot emphasize this enough, it isn’t the outcome of the prayer that is important. The mere utterance is the result of the fifth seal breaking.
In Romans 8:26-27, Paul teaches us another important thing about prayer. When we pray, we aren’t praying alone. Somewhere deep beneath the limits of human language, the Holy Spirit speaks. Sometimes, we fail to communicate the things we truly want. Sometimes, we fail to actually understand ourselves. For whatever reason, we lie to ourselves, bury our deepest intentions and motivations, and trick ourselves into thinking we want something that we don’t. When we fail to know ourselves, God searches us and finds who we truly are, and then God prays on our behalf.
People who really like nature documentaries probably already know that elephants are able to communicate in deep rumbles that are too low in pitch for humans to hear. These rumbles can travel exceptionally far, and help herds of elephants to know where other herds are. And we are probably all familiar with the idea of dog whistles. Understanding that animals can communicate at pitches above and below human hearing should help put things into perspective for us. The world goes far beyond the narrow limits of our senses. We are deeper than our own perception can take us, but God can reach the full heights and depths of our souls. Praying is not an action that we undertake alone. Sometimes prayer is done with a community. Sometimes praying involves those faithful Christians who have gone before us and rest with God. But we can always trust that God is with us in prayer, listening not only to our words but to the heights and depths of who we are. There are many reasons why prayer may be important in our lives, but perhaps most personally significant is this: amidst all the lies we tell ourselves, all the fractured memories, all the false beliefs, all the mislaid plans and misshapen dreams, prayer is the one moment in our lives when we can be fully seen and known, more deeply than anyone can see and know us, even ourselves. Prayer is that moment in our daily life, when God looks upon us and makes us real.
