How Many?
If I wasn't controversial enough in the last blog post, let me try again!
Several years ago, when I was in college (okay, more than "several"), I was in a prayer meeting with fellow believers when from across the room came this prayer: "Lord, there are enough of us here asking for such-and-such that you have to do what we ask." At that moment, I didn't quite know what to make of that prayer, though I was intrigued later by the fact that what my brother prayed for did not come to pass. Maybe there weren't enough of us after all? Maybe we weren't all "in agreement" with our brother's prayer (I know I wasn't)?
Or maybe "getting what we want" isn't the point of prayer in the end.
I've been a pastor now for twenty-six years, and in that time I have endured the ritual of "passing the mic" in worship service to share (often lengthy) prayer requests. I've endured endless "prayer chains" and "prayer lists" and "prayer cards" and just about every other way we have invented of sharing prayer requests. And I've watched as people pinned their hopes on "getting enough people praying" so that their desire can come to pass. (I was even told once point blank that a person in the church "almost died" because I wasn't praying enough or in the right way for them.)
Do we really believe in a God who is so small that he's counting the people who are praying to determine if the request will be answered? Do we really believe God thinks, "More is better"? How do we find out what the quota is? How do we determine if we've gotten enough people praying? And what if we're one or two short on the quota? "Well, sorry, Bob, you had 99 people praying and you needed 100. Request denied."
This whole heresy is a product of the classic American belief that "bigger is better." I do not know of anywhere in the Scriptures where we are told that if we get "more" people praying (for whatever it is), we will get our wish, our hope, our prayers answered (in exactly the way we want). I do know we are encouraged to pray for one another (James 5:16, which also ties together prayer and confession of sin), but that seems to have more to do with caring for one another than it does for "getting our prayers answered."
Let's remember the purpose for prayer: it's about relationship. It's about connecting with God. Sharing our concerns with one another is about connecting with and caring for each other. We might find in the midst of sharing our needs that we can be Jesus' hands and feet to one another! We might be the person God uses to answer someone else's prayer. But that happens in community, not in sending generic prayer blasts out into the ether.
I prefer to have a few people whom I know truly love me praying for me. Even on the night when it mattered the most, Jesus didn't even share his prayer requests with the whole group of eleven. He took three who were closest to him further into Gethsemane and shared his heart. We don't read any situation where Jesus told the whole group of thousands to pray for this or that, nor do we hear him telling them if they do, God will have to do this or that.
We need to rethink our attitude toward and beliefs about prayer. As Martin Luther once said, "Your thoughts of God are too human." J. I. Packer, commenting on Luther's statement, puts it this way: "We think of God as too much like we are."
Several years ago, when I was in college (okay, more than "several"), I was in a prayer meeting with fellow believers when from across the room came this prayer: "Lord, there are enough of us here asking for such-and-such that you have to do what we ask." At that moment, I didn't quite know what to make of that prayer, though I was intrigued later by the fact that what my brother prayed for did not come to pass. Maybe there weren't enough of us after all? Maybe we weren't all "in agreement" with our brother's prayer (I know I wasn't)?
Or maybe "getting what we want" isn't the point of prayer in the end.
I've been a pastor now for twenty-six years, and in that time I have endured the ritual of "passing the mic" in worship service to share (often lengthy) prayer requests. I've endured endless "prayer chains" and "prayer lists" and "prayer cards" and just about every other way we have invented of sharing prayer requests. And I've watched as people pinned their hopes on "getting enough people praying" so that their desire can come to pass. (I was even told once point blank that a person in the church "almost died" because I wasn't praying enough or in the right way for them.)
Do we really believe in a God who is so small that he's counting the people who are praying to determine if the request will be answered? Do we really believe God thinks, "More is better"? How do we find out what the quota is? How do we determine if we've gotten enough people praying? And what if we're one or two short on the quota? "Well, sorry, Bob, you had 99 people praying and you needed 100. Request denied."
This whole heresy is a product of the classic American belief that "bigger is better." I do not know of anywhere in the Scriptures where we are told that if we get "more" people praying (for whatever it is), we will get our wish, our hope, our prayers answered (in exactly the way we want). I do know we are encouraged to pray for one another (James 5:16, which also ties together prayer and confession of sin), but that seems to have more to do with caring for one another than it does for "getting our prayers answered."
Let's remember the purpose for prayer: it's about relationship. It's about connecting with God. Sharing our concerns with one another is about connecting with and caring for each other. We might find in the midst of sharing our needs that we can be Jesus' hands and feet to one another! We might be the person God uses to answer someone else's prayer. But that happens in community, not in sending generic prayer blasts out into the ether.
I prefer to have a few people whom I know truly love me praying for me. Even on the night when it mattered the most, Jesus didn't even share his prayer requests with the whole group of eleven. He took three who were closest to him further into Gethsemane and shared his heart. We don't read any situation where Jesus told the whole group of thousands to pray for this or that, nor do we hear him telling them if they do, God will have to do this or that.
We need to rethink our attitude toward and beliefs about prayer. As Martin Luther once said, "Your thoughts of God are too human." J. I. Packer, commenting on Luther's statement, puts it this way: "We think of God as too much like we are."
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