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Post by Josh on Jan 29, 2007 16:54:49 GMT -8
Originally posted 10/30/06:
It's important for the Christian to note that Prayer is not magic.
Magic, in at least it's crassest pagan understanding (there are more sublime pagan and Christian understandings of the word magic, I believe) is:
A transaction with spritual powers in order to obtain a specific, tangible result.
On the surface, prayer may seem similar to 'magic', and it may be superficially, but in reality it is the diametric opposite. I think the following points are important to remember when thinking about prayer:
Prayer is fundamentally relational, not transactional.
It is about submission, not manipulation.
It is about honest communication, not dictation.
It is about asking, not demanding.
It is more about the condition of the heart than about specific words or actions.
It is about love and only secondarily about power.
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marc p
Intermediate Member
Psalm 63:1
Posts: 66 
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Post by marc p on Feb 5, 2007 16:31:33 GMT -8
Originally posted 11/13/06:
"honest communication, not dictation" really struck me. How often do we just "tell" God things, or "ask" but not actually wait for a response? Honest communication consists of more than speaking and then walking away. It involves active listening and response.
Man, that is good stuff. Thanks for stating all of that so concisely. I think I will share this with my home group that meets on Wednesday nights (if you don't mind).
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Post by Josh on Mar 16, 2007 12:09:26 GMT -8
Originally posted 11/13/06:
Don't mind at all...
Those are just some reflections I've had largely through studying/ teaching on ancient religions and the differences/ similarities between pagan beliefs and Judeo/ Christian doctrines. I wanted to try and sum up what I'd learned in some contrasting phrases.
I often find that when my students make a comment about prayer they are actually thinking about a magical transaction... and I realized that many Christians (including myself at times, especially as a left-over notion from childhood) have adopted, at least subconsciously, a similar view. It's probably a natural phase to go through from a childish understanding to a mature one, but definitely one we need to break out of as much as possible. Of course, as Lewis points out, God puts up with all sorts of our misunderstandings about Him and how He operates, but it's for our own benefit to dig deeper toward Christ-like prayer.
All that said, I am currently very interested (and perplexed) in ways about prayer. I just heard Yancey has a new book on the subject that I'm planning to read. Maybe it will inspire some new material on this thread and a good study for Aletheia or two.
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Post by Josh on Aug 1, 2008 23:30:18 GMT -8
Mo, perhaps some thoughts on the post above are helpful (or not  The reason we pray for others is not for guaranteed specific results. God invites us to pray for others as an act of love. God knows our every thought, yet He also invites us to pray to Him. Why? Because what prayer is about first and foremost is relationship. God asks us to pray for specific things rather than just "whatever his will is" because we are in a real relationship with Him, which has give and take, which involves two minds, not just one, two individuals, not just one. In prayer, we are to be ready to submit to his will in all things, but not at the expense of our own individuality in relationship to Him. Furthermore, God allows us to enter into what He's doing in the world through prayer. When we pray for others' needs we get to share their burdens, we get to speak to the Father about them like to our daddy. He listens and answers. Sometimes the answers aren't what we want to hear (at least at first), but we believe He knows more than we do-- and cares even more than we do. Sometimes he answers our prayers with a yes-- sometimes dramatically so. Anyway, it's not about determining an outcome like magic (see above), it's about love, relationship, trusting in God's power and goodness and wisdom, and being part of what God is doing in the world-- being part of his sometimes mysterious will. Of course prayer is some other things as well, but I think that's the heart of it. It would make much more sense to do a scientific study of the efficacy of voodoo practices than it would of christian prayer. I would highly recommend you read this short essay by C.S. Lewis on the "efficacy of prayer". In it he "predicted" such wrong-headed ideas such as the "prayer experiment" and argued why an experiment like that would be missing the point: CS Lewis: The Efficacy of Prayer |
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Post by moritz on Aug 8, 2008 1:31:54 GMT -8
Mo, perhaps some thoughts on the post above are helpful (or not The reason we pray for others is not for guaranteed specific results. God invites us to pray for others as an act of love. God knows our every thought, yet He also invites us to pray to Him. Why? Because what prayer is about first and foremost is relationship. God asks us to pray for specific things rather than just "whatever his will is" because we are in a real relationship with Him, which has give and take, which involves two minds, not just one, two individuals, not just one. In prayer, we are to be ready to submit to his will in all things, but not at the expense of our own individuality in relationship to Him. Furthermore, God allows us to enter into what He's doing in the world through prayer. When we pray for others' needs we get to share their burdens, we get to speak to the Father about them like to our daddy. He listens and answers. Sometimes the answers aren't what we want to hear (at least at first), but we believe He knows more than we do-- and cares even more than we do. Sometimes he answers our prayers with a yes-- sometimes dramatically so. Anyway, it's not about determining an outcome like magic (see above), it's about love, relationship, trusting in God's power and goodness and wisdom, and being part of what God is doing in the world-- being part of his sometimes mysterious will. Of course prayer is some other things as well, but I think that's the heart of it. It would make much more sense to do a scientific study of the efficacy of voodoo practices than it would of christian prayer. I would highly recommend you read this short essay by C.S. Lewis on the "efficacy of prayer". In it he "predicted" such wrong-headed ideas such as the "prayer experiment" and argued why an experiment like that would be missing the point: CS Lewis: The Efficacy of PrayerHow do you know it was God who answered your prayer? How do you know the succes of something was due to prayer and how do you know the failure of something was due to God's foresight. Do you think God is manipulating reality? You must think that, because you say that God answeres prayers. If you pray for someone to get a Job, God must manipulate a boss in order to answer this prayer with yes. That would be a manipulation of free will that totally contradicts the sanctum of free will. It would also imply that God would disadvantage somebody who didn't pray for that job but wanted it anyway. What do you think? |
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Post by Josh on Aug 12, 2008 15:40:31 GMT -8
Much of the time we don't know for certain, and even when we do, it's a very personal conviction. But there is also just a basic trust that says that God hears our prayers and either answers yes or no, and if He does allow something evil to come our way, that suffering can still be redeemed and He is with us even in the fiery trial.
Yes, the God of the Bible is often not a hands-off God.
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It needn't be "manipulation". He is a player in the game just like the rest of us. He may bring something to the attention of "the boss" that he might have missed. He may or may not force the matter. That God sometimes forces matters doesn't impinge on basic free will for humans. As long as God doesn't often or always impinge on our free will, we still retain it.
And where I think God is most apt to not impinge on our free will is precisely at the point where it involves a decision to love Him or not.
Again, prayer isn't magic. There is no one-to-one relationship between asking and getting a favorable, preferred result. The Bible says that God causes his "rain to fall on the evil and the good" (rough paraphrase)- in other words, good and bad things happen to everyone, whether they pray or not.
But the point of prayer isn't in the result, though we believe it can bring results. The point of prayer is relationship with God.
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