Prayer for/from the Weary

Greetings all,

I have been working on stuff for this post since 9:00 this morning and here it is 10:15 at night and I am just now getting around to typing it. I have been thinking alot about prayer lately as we have made this shift at church from praying specific prayers for certain things to the simple prayer of "God Do Something!" That shift came as a by product of our prayer meeting last month as we were sitting around worrying about church stuff and trying to figure out what we needed to do and how we needed to ask God to bless what we were doing. Amidst that we came to this revelation that all we were really doing was asking God to place His stamp of approval on our plans, but we were not necessarily depending on Him to do anything of substance.

We had to wonder if our prayer was birthed from an expectancy that God could and would do something like Elijah when we prayed for God to send fire from Heaven or was it birthed out of a hope that He might do something like the person that buys a lottery ticket and prays, "O God let me win." Our simple prayer of "God Do Something" was as much a statement of trust and expectation as it was anything else. The Father knows what we need and His desire for us is good, so we can and should trust Him to know what needs to be done in our personal life, our congregational life, and in our community life. At the same time I have been asking myself, "But shouldn't pray be something more? Can we simply wait on God to do something or shouldn't we be acting on His behalf?"

Amdist all of these thoughts running around in my scattered brain I have been reading a book about Martin Luther King Jr. and the power of his preaching. The book is called King Came Preaching: The Pulpit Power of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and it is written by Dr. Mervyn A. Warren. It has been a fabulous book on the simple mechanics of preaching, but more than that it has been full of excerpts from 15 different sermons that Dr. King preached. Not only have those excerpts led me to reading his sermons, they have also provided both inspiration and "hmmmmmmmmmmm" moments. Yesterday I was reading chapter six and the subject of prayer came up through out the chapter and there were a couple of quotes that struck chords with me regarding my questions about prayer in general. Let's call that a "hmmmmmmmm" moment.

The first is found on page 136 and it came from a sermon entitled "The Answer to a Perplexing Question." It begins, "The idea that man must wait on God to do everything has led to a tragic misuse of prayer. He who feels that God must do everything will end up asking him for anything. Some people see God as little more than 'a cosmic bellhop' that they will call on for every trivial need. "

Okay, I have encountered these people who expect God to find them a parking place, or their missing keys or at its worst, a job when they won't even send out a resume'. Is this what we are doing with "God Do Something?" Are we expecting Him to do things that we shouldn't be expecting Him to do? Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.

The second is found on the following page from the same sermon, "Well I am sure we all need to pray for God's help and guidance in this integration struggle, but we will be gravely misled if we think it will come by prayer alone. God will never allow prayer to become a substitute for work and intelligence. God gave us minds to think and breath and body to work, and he would be defeating his own purpose if he allowed us to obtain through prayer what can come through work and intelligence. No, it is not either prayer or human effort; it is both prayer and human effort. Prayer is a marvelous and necessary supplement of our feeble efforts but it is a dangerous and callous substitute."

For King prayers and work went together with prayer being the imploring request to God to act on behalf of humanity working in cooperation with the intelligence and ability to work that He placed in each of us. Can you see my confusion based on these quotes? How is a humble, country preacher supposed to ignore such strong words from the man who changed race relations for an entire country? As I read the chapter I kept thinking, "Did we have it right to start with? Should we be asking God's blessing on our actions? Should we be asking Him to empower the outcomes of our efforts? If they go hand in hand, does that mean we do them simultaneously, or does one come before the other?"

Some enlightenment came from reading Thomas Merton, a Trappist monk from Bardstown, Kentucky and some of his writings regarding war and praying for peace. He pointed out what a bizarre contradiction it was for us as a nation to pray for peace while at the same time we invest billions of dollars into building war machines to better enable us to eradicate the human race from the planet. He was writing amidst the Cold War and was really addressing the stockpiling of nuclear weapons, but his point is applicable across the board especially in light of MLK's belief that prayer and action go hand in hand. Merton is basically stating that we need to make sure that our action doesn't contradict our prayer. He uses the example that he completely understands the fellow who will prayer for healing and take medicince, but it would be ridiculous for a fellow to pray for healing and then drink poison. Our actions must align with our prayers, or we are probably praying in vain.

Add to my reading of these two influential men of the sixties the story of Paul and Silas from the 16th chapter of Acts who are in prison praying and singing hymns to God. Luke tells us that the prisoners were listening to them, but he does not bother to tell us what the words of their prayers were. I don't know about any of you, but I would like to know the words of the prayers that led to an earthquake that shakes the foundations of the prison, frees the prisoners and converts a jailor and his family. I would like that little recipe for getting God to do something in the same way I would like the recipe for P.F. Chang's lettuce wraps; but for whatever reason Luke does not seem to feel like we need to know that magic formula any more than the owners of P.F. Changs are publishing their secret recipes; and I think I know why.

I would venture to guess that Luke is a much wiser man than I who anticipated folks like me coming along after him who would look to the words of the prayer as a formula for God to act and with an expectation that He would. In essence as if the prayer was the contract to force God to act on our behalf. I can see me now, "God I prayed Paul and Silas' prayer, but I have yet to feel the earth move and the walls haven't shaken and my bank account still only has $4.23. What is up God? Are you slacking on Your end? You did it for them, now You have to do it for me!" Now some of you are probably thinking that I am being a little obstinate with God, but you know that even if you weren't willing to type it or say it out loud, you would probably be thinking the same thing. So often we expect God to respond in very defined and specific ways and we like to be the author of those definitions and specifics.

I wonder if that is part of the problem with trying to broaden my understanding of prayer? I want to be in control. I want to tell God what I want Him to do and what I am willing to do. I want to say, "Okay God, You bring the people into the church and I am willing to preach them a good sermon about You;" but I think I am much less inclined to say, "God I will go preach on the Lancaster Square at noontime if that is what You need me to do to reach people with Your love." It can be a little unnerving to turn control of our life and actions over to the creator of the universe. He just might ask us to do something uncomfortable, or potentially embarassing or even humanly impossible. He might expect us to move out of our comfort zone to use the gifts that He has given us and that we are comfortable with using in a less comfortable environment. I can remember as a young man, probably like many of you, not wanting to hear the call of God because I was sure it could only be a call to serve as a missionary in someplace that had brightly colored snakes that could kill you with one bite and no indoor plumbing! I don't like to give up the illusion that I have control over placing myself in snake encountering spots, even if it is God that I am supposed to be trusting with that control.

Perhaps prayer is first and foremost about giving up control. Perhaps it is not us asking God to bless the actions that we have decided are appropriate to take, but rather to surrender control of the outcome of those actions and to listen to guidance on how to perhaps change going about some of those actions. Paul and Silas' prayer had to have been along the lines of "God we are weary and worn, beaten and imprisoned and there is nothing we can do, but we know you can do something. God Do Something while we do the one thing we can do, sing your praises."

Clearly they were giving up control, because I cannot imagine them praying for an earthquake. Who would ever think to pray for an earthquake for a prison escape? A key, sure; a shovel, maybe; an earthquake, probably not! But they did pray and they did do something. They surrendered control to God in prayer and He Did Something incredible. Work, intelligence and prayer went hand in hand so MLK would have been proud. Their work of praising did not contradict their prayer of "God Do Something," so Merton would have been proud. Their very prayer and simultaneous action embodies our prayer at BUMC of "God Do Something" as we continue to put one foot in front of the other trying to communicate to people how much Jesus loves them and how they are deserving of His love.

Maybe the appropriate prayer is "God Do Something" prayed with a willingness to do whatever it is He calls us to do while at the same time doing the things that we can do in our intelligence and ability. Prayed with an expectation that not only can He do something, but that He will do something. Prayed from lives that are lived in cooperation with God and that do not contradict our prayer. We cannot ask God to do something then push Him out of the way while we do it. How many times have I asked my kids to do something only to end up telling them, "never mind, I'll just do it myself because it is easier that way." It isn't that it is easier, it is that it leaves me in control of how it gets done. Finally we must pray out of a desire to give up that kind of control and to trust that God knows what He is doing even if it gets done differently than we would have done it.

Paul and Silas were weak and weary when they prayed something from prison. At times we are all weak and weary in our lives when we finally decide to pray. There are those in this world who are weak and weary and don't even know that prayer is an option for them. For all of us, from all of us, out of hearts that long to see the earth shake and walls to come tumbling down while we give up control we pray, "GOD DO SOMETHING!" and we truly expect that He will with our cooperation!

In Christ's love,
Faron