“Thoughts and prayers.”
You want to “tick” someone off who’s going through some kind of horrible situation? Tell them your thoughts and prayers are with them. Maybe they’ve lost a child in a school shooting, or maybe they’ve been looking for work, and the time is up - the mortgage payment is due and they’re looking at actual homelessness.
And you offer prayers? Please.
It seems like the cheapest, most ineffective thing you could possibly offer in lieu of actual assistance. And you know what? It is the most useless thing as it’s offered by most people.
(That may seem like the most judgmental thing I could say, but…I’m pretty much out of energy to care these days.)
Look at the way it’s often said: “I’m sending prayers your way.” “My prayers are with you.” The sentiment is sincere, but the expression is, shall we say, not so authentic. You don’t “send prayers” to people. And is there anything more meaningless than “giving” someone some quiet, internal, words (if that) that you utter in solitude?
No.
It’s no wonder people hate “thoughts and prayers” after their children have been slaughtered in a public school. I don’t blame them a bit.
And this is, more or less, how I’ve regarded prayer my whole life. Just a sample of “unanswered prayers:”
Please tell me what I should do in college - and with my life…
Help me out of XYZ situation I got myself into…
Help me save my business…
Help heal my marriage…
Help me find a job…
And tomorrow, a big one: help us with a legal situation that will determine whether life becomes immeasurably harder, or if we get a brief reprieve from the financial struggle.
I was talking to my “exile hosts” yesterday about this. I have prayed for these things and many more for years. The answer to all of it seems to be “no.”
And yet, almost every morning I get up and “pray a rope.” It’s an Orthodox/Eastern Catholic practice similar to a rosary. It’s simple, because simple is all I can manage these days:
“Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, the sinner.”
Why do I do this?
For a couple of reasons:
Wise men have told me that the purpose of prayer isn’t to “get stuff,” but to get closer to God. And despite my habitual cynicism, I have to say that it works.
I’ve run out of alternative options. Hah.
Second point first: It shouldn’t have to come to that. Ideally, anyway, it shouldn’t. The wise (and prudent, humble, hopeful) man should, ideally, receive wisdom, internalize it, act on it, and otherwise make it part of his core. However, 99% of us aren’t like that. We’re impulsive, prideful, reckless and let me say it again: prideful. We want to do it our own way. Heck - the whole American experiment is based on the notion of pulling yourself up by your own bootstraps. So, more often than not, we start praying right about the time where the speeding car is heading over the edge of the cliff. Or when the timer on the bomb has three seconds on it…
We try everything else. It’s only after it’s all blown up in our faces that we think, “You know, maybe it’s time for some prayer…”
But even then we’re setting ourselves up for disappointment and more bitterness, because now we’re looking to get some of that good God stuff. To me, it seems like the majority of American Evangelicalism/Protestantism is oriented around that very thing - God’s favor and love is demonstrated by his provision, his “blessings.”
This is definitely the path I took. I asked for the stuff, and moving closer to Christ was a second or third desire - if at all. It’s only now, at the end of everything, it seems, that I get it. I’ve been stripped bare, and the most I actually hope for is the strength and wisdom to endure, which only comes from proximity to Christ.
In my mind’s eye, I see myself on my hands and knees before Him, my clothes are scorched, tattered rags, and I’m bleeding from a dozen places.
Not ideal, but pretty common.
***
Since I started composing this yesterday, we had another major setback. It’s a doozy. A house sale we were counting on isn’t going to go through for nearly as much as we thought, so we’re now going to have to scramble even harder to make ends meet. Given our marital situation, it’s precisely the last thing we need right now. It’s particularly challenging because we had a lot of people praying for us, and the answer is evidently “No.”
And yet I persist. I wish I could say it’s because I’m so “full of grace,” and grace undoubtedly plays a part here, but it’s not that. It’s far less noble: I simply don’t have anything else to try. I mean, we’re going to come up with survival strategies and tactics, but it would be entirely understandable to abandon prayer and God altogether in this situation. Nobody would blame me - not even my church friends. Those who know us would say it’s a shame, but “I understand.”
More than these reasons, though, is that all this prayer is doing exactly what the wise guys in my life say it should do: It’s bringing me closer to God. It’s a terrifying experience, because the presence of God is where lies go to die. (That’s probably what’s going to make judgement so awful, at least at first.) All of the immovable boulders (excuses), all of the jungle overgrowth (sin), falls away. What’s left is something like, or something growing into, trust.
The highs and lows are more intense, but I don’t stay in either. I just see…reality. Or at least I hope so. This may all be a big coping delusion. But it’s different than any of the forced positive vibes affirmations I’ve uttered in the past. This is battle, man. This is the very front line. Turns out this is a good place to be - fighting for the Good with nothing left to lose…
I’m not saying we shouldn’t pray for the “God stuff,” but if we do, we need to remember that what we think we want may have nothing to do with what we need. If you can dig deep enough, or drop enough baggage, or forgive enough, you might just find that prayer “works.” It might not get you that Lambo or even fix that horrific marriage problem, but it’ll make you strong because you’re close to the One.
Just some thoughts…