What Prayer Gets Us

 

What Prayer Gets Us

October 26, 2021

 

The Scripture quotations contained herein are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright © 1989 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the U.S.A. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

 

No matter how much I live with and study the Bible, no matter how much I teach and write about it, there are still passages that I can’t help but think are just wrong. There are others that are functionally wrong because people so grossly misinterpret them. Here’s one of them that’s just wrong at least as it is interpreted by a great many unsophisticated people of faith. The speaker here is of course Jesus:

 

‘So I say to you; Ask, and it will be given you, search, and you will find, knock, and the door will be opened for you. For everyone who asks receives, and everyone who searches finds, and for everyone who knocks, the door will be opened. Is there anyone among you who, if your child asks for a fish, will give a snake instead of a fish? Or if the child asks for an egg, will give a scorpion? If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to you children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him! Luke 11:9-13.

 

Here’s the problem I have with this text. Many people of faith draw the conclusion from it that if you want anything at all just ask God for it, and you’ll get it. Here’s an extreme example of that conviction that I’ve written about before. I heard once of a woman who said that every time she prayed that she would find on street parking in the downtown area of a big city where you nearly never can find such a valuable thing, she’s find it. Sounds silly, doesn’t it? But our text from Luke after all has Jesus say “seek, and you will find.” This woman seeks downtown on street parking, prays to God that she will find it, and Voila! She finds it! And she thinks, “Of course I find it. Jesus says, ‘For everyone who asks receives.’ I ask, and I receive what I asked for. It’s perfectly biblical, so why do you think what I say is silly?” Well, I think its silly for two powerful reasons. What she says is really bad theology, and it isn’t even what the text she cites says. First, it’s bad theology.

For reasons I guess I can understand but can never accept, it seems that an awful lot of people of faith cling tenaciously to old, bad theology. I’ll skip giving examples of such bad theology here (the classical theory of atonement, hint, hint). My point here is that whatever else they may do it to, they do it with this passage from Luke (and the identical passage at Matthew 7:7-11). A great many people take what seems to them to be the meaning of this passage literally. They really do think that God answers their prayers by giving them anything they have asked God for. Maybe they’ve had experiences where they’ve gotten something they prayed for, so they conclude that God gave it to them. Here’s the truth though: That theology has perhaps destroyed more faith in more people than has any other theological thesis.

The way this theology destroys faith begins with the expectations it creates. If you really believe that to get anything you want all you have to do is ask God for it you will come to expect God to do exactly what you want God to do in response to your request. That expectation may not be too harmful when applied to trivial matters like finding a parking place on a downtown street. People who believe this way, however,  do not limit what they ask God for to trivial things. People often pray to God for very weighty things. They pray, for example for a spouse’s recovery from grave illness or an end to conflict within a family or between nations. Sometimes events unfold in a way that allows the one who prayed for something to believe that God has intervened in worldly events and granted just what the person prayed for. More often than not, though, especially with regard to very serious things, events do not unfold that way at all. Say a husband fervently prays that God will cure his wife’s cancer, but his wife dies of that cancer anyway. Because he believed the bad theology in question here he had expected that God would save his wife’s life because that is what he asked God to do. The man may well cry out in his grief and his pain, “Why did God do this to her!?” Or, “Why didn’t God answer my prayer!?” Because to his way of thinking God indeed did not answer his prayer, he may give up on God altogether. His bad theology set an expectation that was not met. So he, like so many others have done, rather than reform his bad theology may abandon faith in God completely. That’s what bad theology does to people again and again.

There are other ways in which the notion that we’ll get whatever we ask God for is bad theology too. That theology says that all you have to do to get whatever you want is to ask God for it. Whether or not you get that thing comes to be up to God not to you beyond the fact that you asked for it. This bad theology can and indeed must produce a lack of motivation, energy, and action by the person making the request. Say a woman wants a better job. So she prays to God for a better job. Now, if she had the initiative and energy to engage in the difficult work of actually finding a better job she might very well find one. But she reasons: 1. I want a better job. 2. I have asked God for a better job. 3. God will give me anything I ask for. After all, the Bible says “Ask, and you will receive.” 4. Therefore I don’t have to prepare an effective resume, or go to interview after interview, or scrounge for leads that might help me find a better job. No, all I have to do is sit and wait for my better job to fall from heaven into my lap. So she does none of the things that constitute an effective job search. She does nothing other perhaps than to repeat her prayer for a better job, and the better job never comes. This woman’s bad theology has defeated her desire for that better job and pretty much ordained that she’ll never get it.

Here’s another way that the idea that all you have to do to get whatever you want is to ask God for it is bad theology. It amounts to a belief that we can manipulate God. We can get God to do what we want not what God wants. We think we can get God to do something by praying for it that God would not otherwise do. Yet of course God knows what we want probably even before we’ve figured it out ourselves. God is God. We’re not. God does not need us to tell God what to do. The theology of the book of Deuteronomy teaches that we can manipulate God in a similar way. It says obey all of God’s laws, and God will see that you prosper in this life. Disobey them, and God will see that you suffer in this life. So to prosper in this life all you have to do is manipulate God into doing what you want by your actions and thoughts that comply with what you think God’s laws are. That was bad theology when Deuteronomy was written in the late seventh century BCE. It’s bad theology today to believe that you can manipulate God in a similar way through prayer.

Second: The passage from Luke from which our hypothetical people draw their bad theology doesn’t actually say what they think it says. To understand what this text does and doesn’t say let’s start by looking at the examples Jesus gives of how human parents respond to requests from their children. He says who among you would give a child who asks for a fish a snake? Who among you would give a child who asks for an egg a scorpion? These examples are less about a parent giving a child what the child asked for than they are about a parent not giving the child something harmful instead of the beneficial thing the child asked for. The examples don’t say the parent necessarily gives the child the fish or the egg. The conclusion we should draw is not that God will give us whatever we ask for but at most that when we ask for something good God will not give us something harmful.

Even more significantly, you get the bad theology we’re talking about here only if you ignore the way the passage ends. Yes, it has the famous lines that most of know in rather archaic language: “Ask and ye shall receive” and “seek and ye shall find.” It has the line that says if you need a door opened knock, and God will open the door for you. It says those things, but it doesn’t end with them. Here’s a reminder of how it ends. After those examples about parents and children Jesus says, “How much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!” Jesus doesn’t say “How much more will the heavenly Father give you whatever you ask for.” No, what God gives us in answer to our prayers isn’t necessarily what we have asked for at all. It is the Holy Spirit. That’s the response God will always give to our prayer requests. God says in effect, “Thanks for calling. Here, have the Holy Spirit!”

I imagine that many people find the gift of the Holy Spirit to be an utterly unacceptable response to a prayer that has asked for something else. In my hypothetical example above of the man with a terminally ill wife, he doesn’t pray for the Holy Spirit. He prays that his wife recover from her cancer. In my hypothetical example of the woman who wants a better job, she doesn’t pray for the Holy Spirit either. She prays for a better job. Because our two people are expecting and looking for something else, they may well not even accept the Holy Spirit that God offers them.

A great many people don’t like it that God’s answer to prayer may be the gift of the Holy Spirit rather than what they had asked God for, but stop and think about that for a minute. God giving us the Holy Spirit is absolutely the best thing God could ever do for us. What after all is the Holy Spirit? It is God Godself present with us in the world. Having God present with in the world is the best thing that could ever happen for us. Why? Because having God with us in the world gives us whatever we need to get through whatever we face in life. With God we find consolation in the face of death, the patience to endure what we must endure, the courage to do what we must do, and hope in a seemingly hopeless world. Yes, it would be nice if God found us that better job or kept our loved one from dying. That however is a merely human way of looking at prayer. It is not God’s way. God works not by changing things on earth but by standing in unshakable solidarity with us in whatever happens on earth. That’s how God answers prayer.

So ask God for anything, and God will give you the Holy Spirit. Seek whatever you need, and God will give you the Holy Spirit. Knock on any door you need opened, and God will give you the Holy Spirit. You would have it otherwise? All I can say to you is stop thinking like a limited mortal and strive to comprehend the transcendent ways of God. We’ll never fully comprehend them of course. God after all is limitless, and we aren’t. We learn as much as we are capable of knowing about God from Jesus Christ. In our passage from Luke Jesus tells us how God handles prayer. Ask God for anything you need or want. God will give you the Holy Spirit. It’s easy to block the Holy Spirit of course. We do it all the time. But if you will open yourself to what God offers you, you will find a reward beyond measure. May it be so.