LIVING, LEARNING & LOVING during LENT
Lenten devotionals for March and April. We will focus on a different concept each day of the week: Sundays: Resting/Taking Sabbath Mondays: Fasting Tuesdays: Giving Wednesdays: Serving Thursdays: Praying Fridays: Studying/Learning Saturdays: Celebrating/Playing.
- Scripture: Matthew 21:22 – Whatever you ask for in prayer with faith, you will receive.
- Reflection: The text above can be misread and misused. Sometimes we are taught the fallacy that we will receive exactly what we request, if we believe hard enough, or pray in the proper way, or pray with sufficient righteousness. This teaches us that there’s a divine test we must pass, or a divinely-induced trial we must endure. This concept presumes we are being measured for our worthiness. It also suggests that we can earn or acquire the desired response of God to our prayer. It suggests that we can merit or purchase fulfillment of our requests.
In some forms, this concept becomes a version of the all-too-human Prosperity Gospel, that teaches this idea: we will be rewarded according to the measure of our faith. It plants the idea that we can buy the results of heaven. It promises that if we give enough, we will get it back again, in the forms we most desire.
The devastating correlation to being rewarded becomes that if we don’t get what we ask for, then we have somehow failed in the transaction with God. We have failed. Because God doesn’t fail. So we must have done something wrong, fallen short of God’s expectations, or not offered enough. We didn’t try hard enough, believe hard enough, pray hard enough, or do enough. We fell short, and didn’t earn a reward. Such an idea, that we are guilty of failing and falling short, and thus do not deserve God’s response, has been used to abuse and manipulate many vulnerable people.
We recommend understanding God’s attention to your prayers in this way, instead. We cannot earn God’s gracious response. We cannot jump through enough hoops, or demonstrate deep enough faith, or pass enough tests to win God’s approval and compliance to our desires, or invest enough funds, to earn God’s reply.
Rather, God listens to us, and responds to us, in spite of our messy human condition. Regardless of our faults and failings.
Rev. Nadia Bolz-Weber writes, “We might do well to ask what exactly, is an answered prayer? Do we think an answered prayer means getting what we ask for? Because it sure doesn’t feel like praying hard enough or righteously enough gets me what I want. We know better because even in the midst of prayer we have seen cancer be defeated and we have seen cancer win. Even in the midst of prayer we’ve seen the powerful exploit the weak and we’ve seen the weak rise up. Even in the midst of prayer we’ve seen teenagers who flourish and we’ve seen the sullen reality of addiction steal the joy of youth.We in recovery are told that we should pray to align our will with God’s not God’s will with ours. So maybe prayer isn’t the way in which we manipulate God. Maybe prayer is simply the posture in which we finally become worn down by God’s persistence.”
God’s mercy cannot be purchased, or earned, or bartered for. Though truthfully, we surely do try to make a deal with heaven, don’t we? We’ve all prayed prayers where we promise to be good, do better, or do more, if only God will give us one much-needed outcome …
We negotiate. That’s a human trait, and it’s okay. God isn’t surprised by this. God also isn’t swayed by such bargains.
Truly, God listens always. And responds always.
Yet the answer to our prayers may come in unexpected ways. Sometimes the response is not what we wanted, or were looking for. At other times, we can see the fingerprints of God’s presence when we look at events, and realize that some fulfillment of our prayer request has come to pass.
Always, God receives and responds to our prayers. The enduring promise of God’s love is simply that God will accompany us through every experience and moment of our lives. God will be present with us.
This does not mean we shouldn’t be specific in our prayer requests, It is entirely correct and worthwhile to name precisely what we want and need. It is okay to communicate honestly and vulnerably to Godself. Prayer is a conversation, a dialogue.
Finally, we are guided to hand over to God our requests and then ask that God’s will be done. Even Christ prayed in this way, and modeled it for us. “Thy will be done” is part of the Lord’s Prayer. - Spiritual Practice Prompt: Set aside time to enter into an honest prayer that includes asking God for what you may need at this time. Practice concluding the prayer with the phrase, “Thy will be done.”
Song:
- I Pray by Amanda Perez: https://youtu.be/J8rtDrDb4oo
- Pray for Me by Kendrick Lamar and The Weekend: https://youtu.be/K5xERXE7pxI
- Heart of Worship by Matt Redman: https://youtu.be/OD4tB1o6YLw?si=C08wKlncE_Ef3IX0
Prayer is a conversation with God, and we must listen as wel. – Mother Teresa.
Maybe prayer is connecting ourselves to the persistent longing of God. … In this world we live in – a world of Western individualism and alienation, I think prayer is radically about connection – but not just connection to God.
To pray for each other is to live not unaffected by what is happening in the blessed and broken and beautiful world in which God has placed us.
So throughout scripture when we are told to pray … maybe rather than that being another thing for me to feel bad about not being able to do well, maybe the truth is that the only way to pray without ceasing is by having others pray for you, with you. … It’s what we do for each other, and it’s what we do for the world. When we pray we hold ourselves and our loved ones and the world up to God and then we pass it off for the next person to do the same.
So I started to think that maybe prayer is less how we get what we want and more how God gets what God wants.
Because as well-worn and understandable as the “thoughts and prayers” trope is, prayer is not what we do instead of taking action, prayer is an action we take so our egos can quiet down long enough to know what is ours to do. — Nadia Bolz-Weber