Reluctant God

It felt like the most exciting event of my life was just ahead. In the mid-1960s, my dad had just purchased two horses to replace the one horse that we had recently sold. This was just too amazing: my brother and I could ride together, instead of taking turns. I couldn’t even focus at school, I was so pumped!

But I faced a huge fear. The two new horses would not be ours for another week, or so. Would God really let it happen? At our church, the overriding theme in the 1960s was the coming apocalypse, the rule of the antichrist, and the flight of all real Christians. This concerned me immensely. What if all this happened before we got to enjoy the new horses?

I wasn’t sure that God would care about my excitement, but I prayed about it. It felt really weird to try to convince God to change his eternal timetable because of some horses, but I didn’t know what else to do. Maybe I could persuade him to allow us at least a few days with the new horses before the end of all things.

Imagine my relief when the day arrived, the new animals were in our barn, and our lives were still normal.

Everyone seems to know something about praying. It’s a common idea that humans pray for things, and especially for help. It’s also common for us to secretly assume that God is probably going to change our plans, or deny our desires.

I’ve listened to people pray for 67 years. I’ve prayed for 64 years, give or take. I have concluded that we are programmed to pray to a Reluctant God. The teachings, the practices, the books written seem evidence to me that we see prayer as the skill of influence—a discipline that, if we Get It Right, will convince a Reluctant God to pay attention.

This perspective on praying to God is basically the same for the wide variety of Christian perspectives on miracles, or on God’s level of interest in the details of our lives: most everyone seems to have the idea that prayer is the exercise of stirring a Reluctant God into action.

Got the picture? God generally sits with his back to us, preoccupied with some really important crises in this broken world. What can I do to get him to turn around and face me? What will motivate him to consider that I have needs, too?

We just have to learn how to Get It Right. That’s the key, isn’t it?

Imagine with me The Heavenly Command Centre: angels are poised for action, one with a medical bag, another with a safety net, and another with the cash box. A new prayer flashes onto the screen monitor. If it’s got a flaw God hits the big red button, and a loud buzzer pierces the air while a big red X flashes on the screen. All the angels settle back into their seats and wait for a worthy prayer to come by.

People have to Get It Right, because otherwise God probably won’t “show up.” So how can I improve my chances of attracting God’s attention? How can I get him to “show up”?

In case you’ve not seen the latest statistics on effective prayer, here’s some data—just out from Baloney Research:

• Kneeling increases effectiveness by 20%
• Face on the floor, expect 60%
• After one hour of praise, 48%
• Faith Meter needle in the green arc, 77%
• A 2016, or better, prayer vocabulary, 13%
• Above 70 decibels, 17%

Seriously, each of those points may be a very meaningful part of my praying: not to stir God into action, but rather to shape my own inner posture.

We speak of the Power of Prayer: How much of that power depends on me?

I’ve had this crazy dream, more than once. For real. I’d be hunting moose on foot, and would finally get close enough to shoot at one. But when I pulled the trigger, I could see the bullet just lobbing out a short distance from the end of the gun barrel and falling into the snow. I’d try again. The harder I pulled the trigger, the faster the bullet would fly. And in the dreams, I seemed unable to pull it hard enough to reach my target.

Is that the “Power of Prayer”? Is the trajectory dependent on the strength of my prayers? What does it take to Get It Right?

Prayer is not a skill that, with improvement, will catch God’s attention more often.

Prayer can be:

• An expression of Trust. First and Last.
• Conversation, and a more-accurate understanding of reality.
• Partnership with Jesus: I keep adjusting until I’m moving at the same pace and in the same direction as Jesus.

The conflicting beliefs inside us:

• God is good; but he might not act because I used a negative word yesterday. God: “So Sorry! I’d love to heal you, but you didn’t use the right words in your prayer. So I sentence you to just live with it.”
• God is gracious; but if I still struggle with any doubt, he is obligated to withhold what I’m desperate for
• God does what he will; but if the results aren’t what I prayed for, someone must be to blame
• God can do anything; but it’s better to pray for easy stuff, and with success my faith will get stronger

Solid concepts about praying to the God of the Bible:

• Everything God does is motivated by his love for the world. Everything.
• I’m not at the center of his world; He is to be at the center of mine.
• He never ignores me. What feels like inaction is as much an expression of his love as the most astounding miracle I can imagine.
• Paradox is real life: sometimes two things that seem to be opposed to one another are both true, e.g., God cares for my situation more than I can possibly know; and he’s not doing anything about it that I can see.
• Prayer is my humble conversation with a God who intensely loves his creatures—even when they have doubts
• Prayer can be my life posture, not merely one of my disciplines; it is not primarily an important part of my daily exercises
• Prayer is life in Jesus Christ, a lifestyle of deepening partnership—in contrast to trying to stir a distant God into action through my pleadings

And when I don’t know how to pray? Not to worry: Romans 8:26-27 assures us that the Holy Spirit fills in the gaps—making our weak or incomplete prayers what they could be. Instead of “buzzing” our faulty prayers, the Holy Spirit perfects them.

Isn’t that amazing? My skills in prayer and my understanding of what motivates God to act are not the critical factors. My posture of complete trust in His Love and Goodness is the key idea.

I encourage you to practice prayer as a conversation with a Partner—in whose presence you are—rather than as a means of managing the power of a busy, distracted, and Reluctant God.