Why is prayer defined as a genie who grants selective pleas?

 

With some edits, originally published in 2012 at StandardBlogs

Why do so many church lessons about the power of prayer always have to follow this format: Either the man upstairs magisterially — like a genie — grants your frantic plea for personal safety or personal betterment, or he prompts you, with a warm fuzzy feeling, to check on somebody or something, or pull over on the highway, etc., thereby sparing you or a loved one(s) an unfortunate accident or death.

Why can’t the power of prayer be defined as a tool that allows you to offer to God your gratitude for just being on earth, and having prayer as a component — along with Scripture study and following the Golden Rule, etc. — that helps make you a better person? Why does its power have to be attached with “believe-it-or-not” testimonials that would sound cheesy even on a late-night infomercial?

I’m not making this stuff up. I recall a mostly useful church lesson on the power of prayer. Prayer is a device, that if you value it, can get you through the night, or a life, if needed. But it’s not a “get-out-of jail-free card.” I concede that two “real-life” examples of prayer’s power may not be intended to show that God plays favorites, but I can see how the countless unfortunates who didn’t get a miraculous hand from God may feel otherwise.

The first involved a young man who went to swim beyond the breakers in the Southern California. Not surprisingly, the foolish swimmer, presumably alone, was carried away by high waves. About to drown, he prayed furiously to God that he could clutch the barnacle-encrusted pier pillar he was moving toward. Despite cutting himself, he hung on to the log pillar and was able to pray himself to shallow water. Prayer saved him is the moral of the story.

Or it could be that God looks after fools. I was a lifeguard a long time ago, and I do know that anyone who goes into deep water with waves alone is a fool. Did prayer save that man? I don’t believe so. My God respects natural law. Only a person who has never carried in — too late — a drowning victim to shore would believe such Pabulum that was pitched in a an ecclesiastical manual. Millions of unfortunates — foolish or otherwise — who have drowned no doubt furiously prayed for deliverance until incoming water silenced their pleas.

The second example of prayer’s power involved the story of a father who suddenly felt inspired to pray for his young toddler son. Later, dad learned that junior had fallen into the river. Just before the youngster was to be permanently thrust under water and slashed and brutalized by stones and rocks, a wave, presto, erupted out of thin air, lifting the lucky toddler out of the water and onto the shore. Prayer saves the lucky one again!

But what of the prayers from fathers, mothers, family members and friends when an unfortunate, baby, toddler, or older individual, falls into the water or slips under a raging river or stream? Or those carried by waves into the sea with loved ones within eyesight? These tragedies -- and other types -- happen every year. Were their prayers less favored, or important? Did Y survive a deadly disease instead of X when the prayers for both were equally fervent, and desperate?

The late Christopher Hitchens was no fan of prayer, I imagine, but he did understand gratitude. To survive the many obstacles that nature puts to us from the time we are conceived until birth is quite a gift, he wrote. To give thanks for every second of the gift of life is appropriate. To ask God to look after you, even protect you from harm, is appropriate. To ask God to give you the strength to survive adversity is even better. 

I recall a man cited prayer as a contributing factor to his finding the body of a toddler who drowned in 2012, thereby bringing peace to his grieving family. That I can believe.

I’m sure most of us, if in a desperate situation, will pray to God for deliverance. That is human nature. If we stop for a hamburger and miss being a participant in a tragic event because of that, we may foolishly think it was divine grace that led us to the burger.

But keep such boasting to yourself, and please omit it from religious lesson manuals.

-- Doug Gibson