Prayer Changes Things

Prayer Changes Things

Luke 11:1-2

            Prayer Changes things.

I grew up with this saying.  Many of you probably did as well.  In my smart alecky moments I sometimes ask, “What things does prayer change?  How does prayer change things?” Robert Webb says, “Prayer is one of our greatest weapons for change.”  Again, I’m led to ask, “Change what?  Change how?”

            So many people have written so much about prayer that it is a daunting task to find something new and meaningful to say.  Recently I have found stimulation for my own thinking in other people’s words.  Perhaps some of these words will help here.

            Ruth Bell Graham, the wife and lifetime companion (and, I’m sure, influence) of Billy Graham once said, “God has not always answered my prayers.  If He had, I would have married the wrong man—several times.”

            All too often, when we go to God in prayer, we already know what we want.  We’re so sure that what we think is best for us is so obvious that God must see it too.  “Surely God is perceptive enough to see things my way!” we’re likely to say.  Any right-thinking god would have to agree with us in every detail of our request. This attitude is akin to making God in our image. 

            Often it’s only when looking at our lives in the rearview mirror that we understand how disastrous things would have turned out if God had given us what we wanted.  “How could we have been so stupid!” we ask ourselves—if we have the humility to admit our mistakes.  Thank God (and I use this phrase purposely) we didn’t get our way.

            It is easy to forget that God’s view is much longer and clearer than ours.  We walk through life with a flashlight, which allows us to see a few steps ahead, while God’s light illumines not only our path but all other paths as well, far into the future.  Our perspective is bound to be short-sighted.  God has the long view.

            A pastor once said to me, “Prayer doesn’t change God; prayer changes us.”  I think that’s as good a description of prayer as we are likely to find.  How does this work?  Someone has said,  “When we ask God to do something for us, He generally wants to do something in us.”  We want God to grant us our wish list, like a celestial Santa Claus, who will open his bag of goodies and fill the area under the biggest Christmas tree we can imagine.  Instead, God wants to work within us to help us see things from God’s perspective.  When we open ourselves to God in prayer we will be able to catch a glimpse of the long view—and our view will change.

            Trouble is, we misinterpret what prayer should be about, or as John Jones says, “Sometimes we’re so intent on praying that it becomes all talking and no listening.”  God wants to have a conversation with us, not hear our endless list of requests.  Many of us have been on the receiving end of one-sided conversations, and we know how boring they can be.  I’m not saying God is bored with our prayers, but I’m sure that, like us with our talk-dominating companions, God would like to get a word in now and then.

            We should listen to Bill Madison who says, “Meditation is slowing down enough to hear God.”  Meditation:  the act of being silent before God—or, as Isaiah says, “Be still and know that I am God.”  When prayer begins and ends with quiet time we not only set the mood for prayer, but we allow God time to speak with us—we get to know God; then God can really change something—us.