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| Praying hands. Image source. |
So I want to talk about how Christians connect the concepts of "praying for something" and "doing the thing yourself."
Back when I was evangelical, I had this belief about prayer: Prayer is so important. If we are doing some big thing for God, or if we really really need something, we absolutely have to pray about it. Of all the things we could potentially do to ensure the success of the venture in question, prayer is the most important.
We would always say that- prayer is the most important part. If you're working on something that you feel like God wants you to do, and you work hard but you don't pray about it, well you're shooting yourself in the foot. What are you even doing, trying to do things without prayer, as if you don't need God?
When I was a college student, I was getting ready to go on a summer mission trip, and I had to send out my fundraising letters. Yeah this is a thing in evangelical culture- young people go on mission trips that cost several thousand dollars, and they write letters to adults in their church, to ask for money for the trip. The basic structure of the letter has to be like this:
I'm going on a mission trip to [some place] because [big lofty ideas about God]. Here's how you can help: First of all, pray for us. Prayer is the most important thing! Second, give me money. [but maybe word this a bit more politely]
And then I kept a list of all the people who had donated to my trip, and the amounts, to see how close I was to the target amount. I did *not* reach the target amount, and had to add a few hundred dollars of my own money. (I wrote about this here: A Little Story About a Mission Trip and Money.)
Anyway, the reason I'm telling this story is, we all had to say "prayer is the most important thing." We all had to say that if someone prays for me to raise the money, that's more effective than actually *giving* me money. We all had to say that, but nobody kept track of "I have 15 people who agreed to pray for me, wow that's great." What we kept track of was, how much money have we collected so far, and how much more do we need? When it was time to pay up, those of us who hadn't raised the whole amount had to pay for part of it ourselves. There was no part of the process where we were asked how many people prayed for us, and were judged on whether or not it was enough.
We claimed prayer was the most important thing. If someone prayed for me to be able to raise the money, if they prayed really really hard, then God would prompt various people to give me the money I needed. And, it might happen that someone is praying really hard- "God, please help Perfect Number raise the money"- spending a lot of time, a lot of emotion, really really begging- because we believed prayer was most effective if you prayed over and over, and if you "really meant it"- and then God would cause a thought to occur to this person, in the middle of their praying- "hey, what if *I* gave her some money?"
Yes, it can happen that you're praying for something, and the way God answers your prayer is by making you realize that *you* should do it. Indeed, God will only answer your prayer if you "really mean it"- and if you truly do want me to get the money for the mission trip, then you will certainly be willing to put in some of your own money. Otherwise, I guess you don't "really mean it" when you're praying, and God won't listen to your prayer.
So in this ideology, we kind of viewed prayer like this: You pray really hard for God to do something, you put a lot of emotion into it, and this hands the task over to God, who has various strategies available to accomplish what you asked, if God decides that's what should happen. Sometimes this means that God will then prompt the very same person who was praying, to make them realize that *they* have the ability to do something about it.
So I'm writing about this because I want to compare it with what I believe now. In my post The Prayer That Jesus Taught Us To Pray, I talked about conceptualizing prayer like this: We're *not* asking God to do these things; we're making a statement about how we think things should be, and this gives us clarity about what actions *we* should take to make it happen.
In both cases, you pray for something and then you do the work yourself- but they're so different. In the ideology I used to have, God was in charge of doing the things- we just needed to pray really really really sincerely and persistently, and then God would do it. And sometimes this "God doing it" would involve, somewhat surprisingly, making you realize that *you* should do it. Kind of an unexpected and indirect thing, but sure, that's a valid strategy God can use.
But now I don't believe God acts in response to prayer. It's on us. I don't think you can pray really hard, and then sit back, assured that you've done your part to put the wheels in motion to get this done.
You could think about the difference between these 2 ideologies as cutting out the middleman. Pray to give the task to God, and then God gives it back by giving you the realization that you should do it. I find this really ineffective and error-prone- there are several failure points where someone/Someone might bungle the handover.
And here's another example: There have been times where I saw somebody unhappy, and I wanted to help them, but I didn't know what to say. What if I said the wrong thing, and made it worse? So I prayed about it a lot. I asked God to help them feel better. And I felt good about that, because God is always perfect- if I attempted to help them, I might do it wrong, but if I pray and then God is the one who takes on the task of helping them, well, God will surely not screw it up like I would. I remember being glad that I could pray, and not take any action myself- it was a way to help, without any of the risk.
Maybe that's bad? That you can pray, and feel like you did something, and so you no longer have the burden of being obligated to do something. Remember how we always said prayer was the most important thing? That it's more effective to pray and ask God to do something, rather than to do something yourself. Maybe this belief is not good.
The apostle James wrote,
Suppose a brother or a sister is without clothes and daily food. If one of you says to them, “Go in peace; keep warm and well fed,” but does nothing about their physical needs, what good is it?
Is prayer the same way? If you see someone in need, and you pray for them, and do nothing else, would James say, "what good is it"? I never would have interpreted this verse that way, when I was evangelical- because I did think prayer counted as "doing something."
But also, when I was evangelical, I believed that an important part of prayer was listening to God. You pray for something, and you also sit quietly and see if God tells you anything. It very well could happen that you pray for something, and then when you sit there and listen to God, God answers by saying that *you* should do the thing. I did believe that was very important. You don't just pray and that's all- you pray and then listen for whatever God has to say about your prayers.
I saw a poll on the internet one time- a Christian was asking other Christians how they understood prayer, and the 2 choices were:
- Prayer changes God
- Prayer changes me
Christians say all sorts of things about prayer, but in this case, it was boiled down to these 2 views- which I agree is a helpful way of looking at it. Do you believe you pray, and then God goes and does something about it? Or do you believe you pray, and it helps you to become a better person? (Possibly by inspiring you to do the thing yourself.)
Personally I don't believe in either of those- but I think this helps clarify the differences in how Christians view prayer.
So my point is, I now believe that praying should go right along with doing the thing yourself. But in a very different way than I did back then.
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Related:
The Prayer That Jesus Taught Us To Pray
The Parable of the Talents: Risk and Return in Building the Kingdom of Heaven
