Dead Prayers

Devotional Classics, Martin Luther, Excerpts from Table Talk, etc.

"'Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks find, and to him who knocks the door will be opened. Which of you, if his son asks for a loaf of bread will give him a stone? Or is he asks for a fish will give him a snake? If you, then, who are evil know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him?' (Mt. 7:6-10)

"Are we so hard of heart that these words of Jesus do not move us to pray with confidence, joyfully and gladly? So many of our prayers must be reformed if we are to pray according to these words. To be sure, all of the churches across the land are filled with people praying and singing, but why is it that there is so little improvement, so few results from so many prayers? The reason is none other than the one Jesus speaks of when he says, 'You ask and you do not receive because you ask amiss' (Ja. 4:3) For where this faith and confidence is not in the prayer, the prayer is dead. (p.134)

The very last sentence is what grabs me. The possibility of a prayer being dead fills me with alarm. And yet, how else could Luther or I explain what we see around us? God promises lavish provision and, even in churches, there is great need and misery.

Not that I would expect a life without difficulty or suffering in this present evil age, but I would expect a people joyful and glad with confidence in their prayers and in their worship, as Luther writes. It is not the lack of "answered prayers" that makes me think prayer is dead, but that for all the answers received there is so little improvement and so few results in churches. (These are not my words only, but most people and many sociological studies reflect the same sort of thing.)

My most remarkable dead prayers have been ones where God answers, but I am looking the other way entirely. My prayer is not dead because God is unwilling to answer because I have not gritted my teeth and held my breath in "faith" in just the right way. My prayer is dead because it slips away into forgetfulness because I did not really care much about it and have moved on to some favored distraction or because I am looking for a particular kind of answer and God has something else, something better in mind.

This can be seen plainly in the prayers of the Jewish people in the first century. They were oppressed by the Roman government and prayed earnestly for deliverance. God sent them deliverance from Rome and so much more in Jesus, but because it was not in the way or time they expected, they refused his provision. Could this be the same problem for the churches that Luther talks about? Perhaps this lack of confidence and faith creates a blind rush towards our desires and away from God's intended provision. It's probably why James continues in 4:3 with how we ask amiss: "that you may spend what you get on your pleasures."

How many times have I been the same way? Do I pray for bodily pains to leave me without looking for sins that may be causing them? Do I look for fellowship with other people without practicing the gifts he's given me to build up such a fellowship? Do I pray for other people to be kinder and easier to live with when I am unwilling to become the very thing I pray for? Perhaps many prayers lie on the floor if my life, dead from misuse and resistance to God's loving provision more than remaining unanswered.

Perhaps many of God's answers to my prayers do not simply scratch an itch I have, but cure the disease of which I am only concerned with a symptom. Perhaps God's answers always go a bit deeper than I would like into the needs of my life. Yes, there will be praise and "Amens" for God's great deeds and kindness. Perhaps I also need a bit of reflection and action related to God's answer to benefit fully.

Lord, I see that many of the things you want to give me, I have refused for a long time. My prayers were dead because my trust in you was lacking. I have become like the ungrateful servant who buried his talent because he did not trust his Master. How have I buried my prayers and your answers like this, out of mistrust? Too often I am unwilling to trust and obey, so your answers pass me by or at least lie unused. Forgive me. Lead me aright. Amen.

This reminds me that it is dangerous to pray and not live out the prayer. I find it easy to pray and forget rather than let my prayers move out into my life. As I remarked from Douglas Steere a while back, "If we ignore these leadings, they poison future prayer." I do not think God leads me into unceasing frantic activity (that I get from myself and other people), but I find prayer changes me and encourages me to change, sometimes in small ways, sometimes in large ways. To leave such changes unimplemented inoculates me against hearing God later.

Faith moves me to implement answered prayer like a man who sells everything to get a field with buried treasure in it. Following my own desires moves me to dread and resist God's direction given in prayer and so improvement and results in my life with God become scarce. When the answers are not what I hoped for or seem absent, I need to reflect on God's goodness and love and set aside my fears of losing things I don't really want anyway.