A Real Prayer
God not only emphatically
teaches us to pray, He also lovingly teaches us how to pray!
In the middle of middle school, I was given a
paperback New Testament, and, in a moment of inspiration, I decided I would
read it, instead of just leaving it on my shelf to gather dust. And so I
started with the Gospels - and let me just mention in passing, that if you
haven't yet acquired that soul-nourishing habit of reading the Bible daily, one
of the best ways to begin is simply to commit to reading through the Gospels. Even
a single chapter every day, taking literally only 2 or 3 minutes of your time,
will get you on the Way....
Now, even though reading the Bible is, in
itself, always a good thing, it's still possible to misuse or confuse that, as
well as every other good thing (remember: even the Devil can quote Scripture
for his own purposes!). As often happens when one latches on to just a small
part (instead of the whole!) of Scripture, I thought I understood clearly a few
verses, and I jumped to the wrong conclusions.
The verses which I seized upon are very
familiar: "Ask and you will receive; seek and you will find; knock and the
door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks, receives; and the one who
seeks, finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened." Now
these verses are familiar not just because they are enticing, but they also
encapsulate a fundamental teaching repeated often by Jesus: God is our loving
generous Father - pray to Him, and He will answer your prayers!
Now, Jesus said it, so I believe it, and I
thought, "Wow, this is great - I've got to try this out!" So the next
day, which happened to be in the middle of winter, some friends and I were
bemoaning the fact that it really hadn't snowed yet that year. "Maybe it
will snow tomorrow," one friend suggested hopefully. "No, I bet it
won't!" replied the pessimist in our midst. "I bet it will," I
piped in, and before giving the matter any clear thought, I had done just that:
shook hands, and made a bona fide bet that it would snow the next day.
When I got home, I did something I had never
done before - I checked the weather forecast in the newspaper! It took me
awhile to decipher the page, but at any rate, what soon became clear was that
the weather would be clear, with 0% chance of precipitation for at least the
next three days. So, I did what any brash teenager with a desperate bet on the
line would do: I prayed! "Oh God, in the Name of Jesus, I ask You for snow
here tomorrow!" I was asking, seeking, knocking - I opened my Bible, used
the exact words Jesus had prescribed, tacked on the Lord's prayer for good
measure, and I went to bed with a smile on my face as the snowflakes already
started dancing in my dreams.
But when I awoke, there was no snow! All day
long - no snow! Even after bedtime, I stayed awake until past midnight, peeking
out my bedroom window every 15 minutes hoping for a glimpse of at least a
powdery sprinkle that would qualify. But, no snow - only the cold stars
laughing in my face!
Well, not only did I lose my two-bit bet, but
I also was in big danger of losing a bit of my faith. Now, in situations of
like levity, others have put the Word of God to similar tests, and when the
test failed, they have bitterly walked away from their faith - you probably
personally know such people. And I'll admit it was a crisis of faith for me
too, because God had apparently not delivered on a pretty clear promise.
But the grace of God helped me to use my
sagging doubts as a springboard to a higher faith. I imagined myself hearing
Jesus speak those words personally, and then boldly asking for something bad,
like: "God, in the Name of Jesus, because of its sins, I ask You to
destroy New York City!" This was the very opposite attitude taken by
Abraham, who pleaded for divine mercy for Sodom and Gomorrah! I immediately
realized how revolting it would be to ask God to do anything bad for others, or
for myself, for what good father would give his son a scorpion, even if he
said, "Give me a scorpion, pretty please?"
So, I realized, God was not some blind Santa
Claus that would ever deliver us a box of matches or stick of dynamite just
because we asked in the right way! God loves us too much to ever take part in
any transaction that would lead us to harm. So God's answer to every sinful,
scandalous, selfish, stupid, silly, or even merely untimely prayer, is to set
us down, embracing us as He knows best, and whispering in our hearts,
"Even when you ask for the world, you ask for too little - why don't you
ask Me for Me instead, so I can give you the Holy Spirit?"
You see, God not only emphatically teaches us
to pray, He also lovingly teaches us how to pray!