Don: We have noted that prayer has been ubiquitous throughout all cultures and all times, which hints rather strongly of its universality and its fundamental importance in life. In our six-month discussion of prayer to date, what has emerged as its most important aspect? What have we learned? What insights have helped us in our individual prayer lives? What still puzzles us most about prayer? What remains mysterious and unanswered?
Scripture tells us that we don’t know how to pray and that we had to ask Jesus to teach us how. So on the one hand, prayer is ubiquitous, fundamental, and important; but on the other, we did not know how to do it until Jesus taught us the Lord’s Prayer. We have noted that in its use of the plural personal pronouns, the Lord’s Prayer has a communal aspect to it and that community is therefore a central aspect or theme of prayer. The second key theme is that prayer needs to be in alignment with the will of god.
We have noted that we tend to approach prayer as a magic incantation that can miraculously get god to give us things we want, provided we pray in the “right” way. But we have also learned that god is not in our service; that it is the other way round. We have concluded that magic prayer is not true prayer.
We have noted from Isaiah 55 that God’s ways are not our ways, that his ways are light-years apart from ours. We noted, from Jonah’s prayer, that the cause and effect we observe in the natural world is not how god sees things. His ways are supernatural, not natural, yet it is the natural—not the supernatural—that tends to drive our prayer, particularly our petitional prayer.
We have seen that both god and scripture provide questions rather than answers. Whenever god shows up, the questions begin. His method of teaching is the Socratic method.
Our studies of the prayers of Job, Jonah, Gideon, Hannah, and Jesus have involved discussion of the relationship between prayer and free will. On the face of it, prayer is always an acknowledgment that our human will is not enough to meet our needs. In the Garden of Eden, the exercise of Man’s will led to his Fall, whereas in the Garden of Gethsemane, the relinquishment of it led to his redemption. It seems that the only righteous thing to do is to relinquish the exercise of our free will and accept the will of god.
We’ve discussed prayer as the medium of faith, as a lens through which people with great faith and richness of spirit are able to view things differently from others, to have insight others lack. Where others may see tragedy, loss, and destruction, the faithful see opportunity and God’s hand.
We’ve discussed prayer as the method of keeping alive and indeed of kindling the flickering flame of the inner light, the spirit of god, we all possess. Prayer is a way of communicating through that hard wiring, as it were, to reach the heart of god. Paul was persuaded that nothing could break that link with god.
What great insights, if any, have we all individually gained from our discussions on prayer? What are the remaining mysteries concerning prayer, that we have not yet discussed or understood?
Harry: I have never felt comfortable about praying, but I have concluded from our discussions that we should learn from the truly divine snippets of scripture, especially that god’s ways are not our ways, and accept that the spirit has to intercede for us with its groanings because we lack the vocabulary to talk to god, at face value. Instead, we opt for prayer that makes us feel comfortable. We almost make a religion out of prayer, but the questions we need to ask—the questions god answers—are divine, not religious questions. At the same time, I recognize that any prayer—even prayer that asks god to perform magic—is a good thing if it comforts people in their time of need.
Don: It is important to understand that because of who god is and because of our relationship with him as a friend, he is by no means unapproachable on any topic we care to raise. He will not be censorious. The conversational nature of prayer is such that man can say and express any feelings they may have. What needs more clarity and understanding perhaps is the expectation we have of the results of prayer. But I don’t want to give the impression that we shouldn’t pray until we have all our prayer ducks in a row—on the contrary, we should pray whenever and however we wish. When the disciples and Paul indicated that we don’t know how to pray, I think they meant we don’t understand what to expect from it.
Ada: The “Ask and thou shalt receive” passage in scripture remains very hard for me to understand. I still don’t understand what it is that we can ask for. If we ask for god ‘s favor, are we depriving someone else of it? It is really perplexing to me. What if one asks for something that is wrong?
Jay: That passage has certainly been central to our discussion, but it has led me away from the concept of prayer as “asking” and instead towards the concept of prayer as spiritual alignment with God’s will.
Kiran: Two things have struck me and given me comfort: First, I now understand that we should pray, we need to pray; second, I understand that we must relinquish our free will. I have applied this in my prayer recently: Instead of praying for success in my endeavors I pray that God’s will be done, and that has led me to feel at peace with myself instead of worrying about whether I am going to fail.
Pastor Ariel: When I recovered my faith following a lapse of many years, I stumbled across some verses from Psalm 37:3-6:
Trust in the Lord and do good;
Dwell in the land and cultivate faithfulness.
Delight yourself in the Lord;
And He will give you the desires of your heart.
Commit your way to the Lord,
Trust also in Him, and He will do it.
He will bring forth your righteousness as the light
And your judgment as the noonday.
The line: “Delight yourself in the Lord” changes one’s desires. Instead of selfishly asking for things I desire, this line tells me what I should desire. It raises us to a higher level of purpose in life. It gives us a sense of the greater worldview of a god “whose thoughts are not our thoughts” and this in turn affects our desires. There is an orders-of-magnitude difference between what I think will fulfill me and what god knows will fulfill me. It is indeed a matter of surrendering our will to god and trusting that god knows what is best for us.
Harry: People are generally fearful. If one can overcome the fear of death, of poverty, of failure, then one is invincible. As long as one is fearful, one cannot be said to be successful. People like Mother Theresa and the Dalai Lama were/are undaunted at the prospect of failure. Prayer will not prevent a hurricane, but fearlessness can help one handle it.
Michael: I have come to understand that prayer is about god’s will, and should be approached with humility and a willingness to listen rather than talk. On the other hand, I remain somewhat uncertain about exactly how to pray and how to know whether god has answered my prayer. Is there an algorithm for this?
David: Harry’s remarks about fear and Pastor Ariel’s remarks about desire put me in mind of Don’s reminder that God’s ways are not our ways; that we are natural creatures with natural, earthly fears and desires but he is a supernatural being. So to me the big idea from this discussion has been that prayer needs to transcend that gap between the natural and the supernatural. The question then is: “How?” We have begun to answer this question, first in our recognition of the need to abandon our natural, earthly will and fears and desires. So forget about praying for a Mercedes. If it comes, it will not have come from god. Transcendental prayer empties the mind of everything, including the will. As Harry has pointed out, this does not mean that “conventional” prayer is worthless: It brings comfort and it may change us for the better. But I don’t think god cares about conventional prayer and our petty earthly demands, in the sense that he will always, unfailingly, provide something of inestimably greater value: His grace. It won’t hurt to pray for God’s grace—it might be comforting and uplifting; but it’s not necessary, because you are assured of his grace no matter what.
Robin: Jesus told his disciples in the Garden of Gethsemane to pray that they might avoid temptation. What temptation? Perhaps it was the temptation to doubt and to fear. God does not need our prayers, but he wants them, because he wants a relationship with us and for any relationship to develop there must be communication. While god never tires of our prayers, however selfish they may be, we have to let go of our expectations that his will will alighn with our wants, and instead trust that his will will produce better results than any prayer of ours could produce. The Lord’s Prayer starts with exaltation of god and only after that talks about our human needs.
Jay: With regard to how to pray transcendentally: There seems to be no algorithm, no magic prayer. It’s different for different people, and it’s different for the same person at different times in life and spiritual development.
Harry: I agree. It’s intensely personal. It’s not necessarily an algorithm one can copy from someone else.
Ada: A feeling of alignment with god is the exhilarating sign of the achievement of transcendence.
Kiran: Whenever I truly relinquish my will and accept the consequences, that is enough to give me instantaneous transcendence. I have experienced it.
Robin: I find if I am still and quiet and wait, then peace and tranquility and reassurance will enter my mind. It takes time.
David: This gets directly to the question of how to pray transcendentally. To me, it is essential to make space—to allow time—for meditation. Don keeps reminding us that prayer is a universal, almost a genetic human trait. We don’t need any religion or dogma to establish the communication and the relationship Robin talks about; the ability pre-exists in us all. To invoke it simply requires us to acknowledge our “inner light” or “inner voice” and then wait quietly for it to speak to us, in its own way.
Don: We still have some discussion left. In a future class, Jay will introduce some educational science that may have some lessons for us in terms of how our prayer life mirrors our growth through Fowler’s “stages of faith.” We saw in Jonah’s prayer the prayer of a man in an early stage of faith, we saw in Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego men at a higher stage of faith, and of course in the prayers of Jesus we see faith at its highest.
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