-or- For What Shall I Pray?
I must have been Out East, attending Yale Divinity School. Sitting with some fellow students, I was called upon to pray. I prayed for several important things, though I do not remember what those were. What I do remember are the trivial things I prayed for: that it wouldn't rain over the weekend, that our soccer team would win on Saturday, that we would pass Monday's test.
I remember these three things because after I finished the praying, one of my fellow classmates criticized my prayer. My colleague declared to me how preposterous it was to believe in a Supreme Being that cared one iota about trivial things such as whether or not I pass a test, it rains, or which intramural soccer team wins--and the like. At the time I reacted with the appropriate righteous indignation: "Of course God cares; of course God listens and responds to all of our prayers."
Today, I have a much different opinion. I have a different understanding about how prayer works. And I have a different understanding as to how God acts in the world and what God's purpose is.
This change began in me with a revulsion from a common Christian platitude: "God has a plan for you." or "It is all a part of God's plan." Such nonsense is used in an attempt to comfort people in the midst of suffering or satisfy them in the midst of the confusion of life. The platitude takes such forms as "God needed an angel in heaven and that is why he took ______ away from you." Even more dreadful than that is the phenomenon of the televangelist turned judge: "Haiti was struck down by an earthquake because of their sinful pact with the devil." Somehow, it is supposed to be comforting to one and to all that every little thing that occurs in life is a detail in some larger plan, that every event is a cog in the machine which God has designed this life to be--that every little thing that happens to me has some great purpose, which is unfathomable from my very mortal and finite perspective.
But sisters and brothers, I tell you, God does not micro-manage.
It is true, God does have a plan, or put in a better way, God always acts with a purpose. However, it does not follow that God, therefore, has written into this plan whether I pass a test or my team wins, etc. In fact, when and how I die may not even be written into the plan--as significant as that event may seem from my own perspective.
Think about it. What kind of Being would God be, if God were a micro-manager?
+ God would be a caricature of an omnipotent being, that is, a god who uses their infinite power to orchestrate minuscule events--like smiting an ant hill in the battle against evil.
+ Such a god would be a fairy tale, like the magical Santa Claus who visits every boy and girl on earth in one night, having kept a naughty/nice ledger on each of them throughout the year.
+ God would be a fable, the likes of which we see in the movie Bruce Almighty. The point of the movie has nothing to do about God, but instead is a lesson in morality. The focus is on the haughty pridefulness, and self-centeredness of humankind. Bruce was unable to successfully take over God's job because his desires and perspectives remained too narrow--remained all too human. In the movie, God is only a foil for our tragic narrowness.
+ Such a god would be pagan: one who is directly seen in nature, and who is the direct, supernatural cause for every (natural) thing that happens.
+ Lastly, such a god would be a dread being. One who uses suffering as a teaching implement, uses suffering in order to change or control the behavior of individuals. We have a word for such a being: Tyrant.
No. God does not fix events; God empowers people.
God's plan focuses not so much on what happens in life so much as the one to whom life is happening.
Failing one test does not negate the intellect with which God has blessed me. God gives me the gift of my mind to use, instead of rigging every test so that I might ace it.
And when tragedy comes, it is not a part of God's plan, because God's plan for me is always for the good. Instead, God has a plan to build me up so that I can deal with the changes and chances of life. Yes, God created the wind, but he does not tell the wind how and when and where to blow. There is no divine butterfly effect.
Does this mean that we should stop praying for the little things?
Certainly not. We are to pray without ceasing, for big things and for small things.
But we must have a different understanding of what it means to pray, that is, what happens when one prays. Prayer is not a magic spell that calls down power from on high to fix events in the world. We do not pray to God in order for God to change things. Such a view of the efficacy of prayer is a pagan conception of the relationship between the gods and humankind. The pagan prays to appease the gods so that they, in turn, act in certain ways--bestow certain blessings.
No, this view of prayer must be rejected. Prayer does not change or alter God actions or purposes. Instead, prayer changes people. In prayer, we allow the Holy Spirit to so work on our minds and hearts in such a way that we are free to act, free from despair.
In the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus prayed to his Father that the cup of suffering would be taken from him. Jesus prayed God would spare him from the Cross. What was the result of that prayer? The cross certainly happened, so did God ignore his own son? Did God hear, but do nothing? Not at all. Instead, through Jesus' prayer, God was preparing his son for the task ahead--giving him courage in the face of death, giving him faith to trust in God's larger purpose for him. God's plan cannot be derailed by small incidentals. And to God, even death is incidental.
Thus, we pray so that we may be blessed with the gifts of the Spirit of God, in order to meet the changes and chances of life with courage and faith. God does not control. God invites. God repairs. God forgives.
And so, when my loved one dies, it is not because it was a part of God's plan. Rather, God's plan is able to break into the world through that death. Death, which is a natural stage of life in the world, is the opportunity for God to assert God's larger plan for us. It is the moment in which eternity can break forth into time, or rather, pull the traveller out of time and into eternity--where God's will is done as a matter of course. In eternity, the will of God and the nature of things are one. But even there God does not micro-manage. God simply exists. And all things exist in and through God. That is, God is all-in-all. Meanwhile, in the world, we still wait for this consummation, we still wait for God's will to be done on earth as it is in heaven. And so, in the meanwhile, God works indirectly.
And in the meanwhile, we continue to pray for everything, great and small.
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