Prayer 6: Types of Prayer

Prayer is both a journey and a destination.

• Intercessory prayer is prayer for someone else, though it can have a selfish secondary component.

• Petitionary Prayer is asking god for things one wants.

• Thanksgiving prayer is to express appreciation for something.

• Penitentiary prayer is to ask for forgiveness.

• Adorational prayer is to praise the glory of god.

The Lord’s Prayer has elements of all the above.

Prayer is important for two reasons: First, because Jesus himself prayed—it was important to him; and second, because it seems to be a basic human need. Throughout history and across all religions, people have prayed. In Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, it belongs at the bottom of the needs pyramid, alongside air and water.

But we’ve also learned from Romans 8 that we don’t have to pray—that the spirit will pray for us anyway. When the disciples asked Jesus how to pray, the question was less about the mechanics than about the outcome of prayer. If we have the wrong expectations with regard to the outcome of prayer, then as Michael said last week, we risk becoming disillusioned with god and our faith.

Prayer that is publicly spoken is community prayer. The Lord’s Prayer is a communal prayer. Personal prayer should be done in private.

God uses doubt to build our faith. Indeed, faith is only discovered in the crucible of doubt. God responds to our doubt with grace and compassion, as he did in the case of Gideon, who requested so many tests of god to remove his doubts about god.

We learned from the parable of the persistent widow that to be effective, prayer needs to be focused, persistent, single-minded, and sincere. We discussed also how prayer leads us into holy places and spaces and times, which is another primitive need of mankind.

One aspect of the outcome of prayer that we have not yet discussed can be found in Daniel 3:16-18 where Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego refuse to bow to King Nebuchadnezzar’s golden statue, saying:

O Nebuchadnezzar, we do not need to give you an answer concerning this matter. If it be so, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the furnace of blazing fire; and He will deliver us out of your hand, O king. But even if He does not, let it be known to you, O king, that we are not going to serve your gods or worship the golden image that you have set up.

So these three are acknowledging that god has the power to answer their prayer to be saved from the furnace, but asserting also that whether he answers or not will not affect their faith in god and his power. In other words, they have faith in god, but they have no expectations regarding the outcome of their prayer. In short, they are saying: “God’s will be done.”

What is always delivered when asked, what is always found when sought, what is always opened when knocked, is that all things will work together for good, for those who love god (Romans 8.) The problem we have is that we want to define what is good, as in the Garden of Eden, where Adam and Eve’s desire to be able to define good and evil was at the root of Original Sin. It takes nothing less than the perfection and the knowledge of god to do so reliably. The definition of good and evil is a matter for divinity, not for humanity. Our obligation is to trust the creator and not try to impose our own perspective of what is good or evil.

So prayer is all about faith and grace. Through prayer, grace finds us—we don’t have to look for it. Prayer leads us onto holy ground, as it did for Moses at the Burning Bush, where grace was manifestly displayed. The consuming fire of god is talked about in Deuteronomy and Hebrews. It is a fire that does not consume. It is a metaphor for grace. It gives light, but not heat.

Persistence and thanksgiving in prayer are messages of 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18: “Rejoice always; pray without ceasing; in everything give thanks; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.” That is a nicely wrapped bundle of the will of god.

Prayer is perhaps to the soul what the autonomic nervous system is to the body. The autonomic nervous system regulates the function of our internal organs without our consciously having to control them. We don’t need to tell our heart to beat, or to beat harder if we run up stairs. Usually, it maintains us in a relative state of rest, but in emergencies it releases adrenalin into our system, which tends to stimulate a fight or flight response to the emergency. Similarly, prayer is always working in the background, and can be invoked consciously by us or unconsciously by the spirit in a crisis (as Romans 8 says.) Prayer feeds and sustains that spirit, the inner light, the eternity that is set in every heart.

True prayer is automatic, spontaneous, perpetual, and soul-sustaining. Like a heartbeat, it can be raised to a higher level of output if needed, but it is always working to maintain the health of the soul. That is the one and only predefined product or function of prayer, just as the heart has only one product or function (blood flow.) Prayer can no more supply you with a new Mercedes or save your life or the life of a loved one than the heart can oxygenate your blood or digest your food. Such things are not its function.

So the scriptural reference to our not knowing how to pray, and the disciples’ request to be taught how to pray, have to do with the output, not the method, of prayer. We need to learn (or re-learn) that its function or product or output is the health of the soul. In that sense, prayer will move mountains, and bring prosperity, and it will always be answered, but only in terms of god’s intended output of prayer: That the inner light will never be extinguished, faith will never be unfulfilled, and grace will never be misappropriated. Such is the power and product of prayer.

Thus, the effects of prayer should be anticipated on the soul, not on the body. The soul and the body are a kind of unity, in the same way that the heart or the intestines form unities with the brain: If the heart or the intestines don’t work, then the brain is affected. But the effect is not precisely predictable and is not the proximate result of organ dysfunction. So with prayer: It can have secondary, collateral effects on physical and emotional health. Proper prayer lets us focus our prayer result on the notion of health for our soul, and in that way it can have the secondary effects on the body.

Is this analogy right? Is it helpful?

Alice: It certainly matches my experience. I do not expect any particular answer to my prayer, but I do expect an answer. And it comes.

Harry: A scientist who studies monks has found that more than two hours a day of prayer beneficially re-wires their brains and their thought processes in making them more sensitive and positive with people.

Ada: I was never taught to pray for material things. I was taught to praise god, to pray for my soul, to pray for others, and to pray for forgiveness.

Kiran: Can prayer change the will of god? It would seem so, if necessary for the health of the individual’s soul.

Michael: I like the analogy of prayer as an autonomous nervous system, with an unchangeable output over which we have no control. But the system and its output are unique to the individual, so does that imply that we can only pray for ourselves, not for others?

David: As a subscriber to the theory of “process theology,” whereby god is both a Being and a Becoming, it strikes me that there could be no more noble and no less selfish an object of prayer than god himself; i.e., we should pray for his Becoming. In a way, it seems to me that when the Lord’s Prayer says “Thy kingdom come” it becomes a prayer not just to god (the Being) for our benefit, but also for god (the Becoming), for his benefit.

Don: Perhaps god’s plan for us depends upon, and changes based upon, our behavior or our prayer.

Jonathan: First, passages in Jeremiah seem to confirm that how we respond to god’s word affects god’s treatment of us. Second, when Paul prayed to god to take away his pain, god replied “My grace is sufficient in your weakness.”  This led Paul to shift his paradigm of prayer from “Help me!” to “Thank you for helping me to see that your strength is in my weakness.”

Don: We’ll continue the discussion next week.