GOD versus Powerful prayers and Confessions: who will be lifted up?

 

 

Powerful prayers

If you were to hear somebody talk about 'powerful prayers' what would you say that person is talking about exactly? What questions would cross your mind? And what would your expectations be?

 

I learnt from a dear man of God, an elderly pastor who came to our retreat last week, that there are 'powerful prayers'. These prayers apparently were either prayed by some missionaries sometime ago or written by one of them. They are calculated to produce the answers for which their pray-ors seek. The elderly gentleman assured us that they really do work- produce results that is. He then issued an invitation for whoever wants to have them send to him by email so that we can on with the task of missions. And as it can now be expected of me, I went into overdrive. Part of me wanted to give my name so that I too could receive this amazing package of results-producing prayers. The other part of me just revolted against the idea. But why would one want to not have results-producing prayers. What is the point of praying if it is not about getting results? Do I not believe that prayer changes things? Well, let me see if I can answer you on these.

 

The last question about prayer changing things encapsulates exactly the core of my revolt. The issue here concerns the subject of the action of changing things. Is it God or a thing in this case - prayer? Sometimes people loose sight of the import of a statement like "prayer changes things". A simple analysis of this statement will indicate that the sentence has three components to it, namely: subject (prayer) + verb (changes) + object (things). That the action (changes) happens to things and is done by prayer. Thus when things have changed, it follows that the doer of that action of changing things is entitled to be credited with the resulting change. What this says is that prayer begins to be lifted up and glorified as the agent of change. Included in the act of lifting up prayer is recommending it for any situation that needs changing- just pray, you will see that prayer really  works and wont disappoint you. But can somebody tell me what has become of God in this train of thought?.

Most of those who propound this type of view would rush to defend themselves by arguing that it is not true that they have exalted prayer to the status of [a] God. They could indicate that prayer is made to God. And I would agree that normally prayer is made and indeed should be made to God. But I would insist that most of their talk does not indicate that IT IS GOD to whom prayer is made, that IT IS GOD who answers prayer and that when prayer is answered (or has worked -to use their language) ONLY GOD DESERVES THE GLORY and not the means we (humans) used. Yes, my argument would be that considering the humanistic and technologically oriented culture we are part of, which values human effort, celebrates human ingenuity and parades his artifacts, that it is understandable and maybe even ok that prayer should be paraded as it is. However, true Christianity has no place for humanistic and techonological culture which shuns the true God and puts humans and their means at the centre of life and worships humanity and its artifacts.

Understandably again, human technological wizardry has brought a little more predictability to modern humans. The personal factor has been greatly reduced in the delivery of services because somehow it has been judged as unreliable. That is the reason factories machinized their processes all over the globe. You need few humans to man this machines for they are very reliable in producing the expected results. Does it suprise me then that the personhood of God is being jeopardized in some quarters of the christian faith by those probably tired of the unpredictability of God in delivering on human expectations? Come on! false piety does not help. A lot of Christians have the experience of disappointment where their expectations were not delivered upon. It is difficult to deal with a throughly personal God who retains the right to answer prayers we make. In his prerogative as God the person and not the automated machine others make him to be, he answers, holds answers for a while or totally disregards the prayers made. Explanations have been attempted in order to make sense of the reality of unanswered prayer. ANd others solved this problem by inventing a passive machine-like god who regurgitates answers in response to correct formula-like prayers and confessions. ANd frankly I do not think that sincerity bails one out of this. The elderly pastor however sincere has reduced God to an automaton, he has exalted the means (prayer) far above the Creator. He even called others to come and receive POWERFUL PRAYERS - prayers that work as if he is fedup with the unpredictability of GOD. He has discarded the need for faith in God as we pray by selling POWERFUL PRAYERS. So anyone who has concluded that our culture is right, we cannot hope to get anywhere with our dependence on persons (whether human or Divine is immaterial), for they are unreliable; contact me in order to recieve your batch of POWERFUL PRAYERS courtesy of one collegue who could not recall his work email and requested to use mine to receive his batch.