Emo Phillips (a US Comedian) once said “When I was young I used to pray for a bike. Then I realised that God doesn’t work like that and so I stole a bike and prayed for forgiveness.”
Emo wonders how God works and so do I. Why, I wonder, does God, who knows everything, (Omniscient) have to wait to hear my prayer before doing anything? He/She is, after all Omnipotent and so can do anything at any time and, because he is everywhere at the same time, (Omnipresent) there is nothing I can see that God doesn’t already know. So why pray? Some might scratch their heads and say, “Well you have to praise him for his goodness and greatness and all that”. That’s true, but I still think he must be fed up with hearing the same thing said over and over again.
If that reasoning is right, prayer becomes pretty well useless; or does it. What if prayer is not about telling God things he knows, but is more of a discipline for ourselves? After all, prayer could be less about talking and more about listening; Listening to what we ourselves are saying. Over the years I have heard thousands of prayers and most of them fall into the pattern above. But I have also heard a lot in which the person spoke words from the heart whilst, at the same time, exploring their own understanding of what they themselves were saying and doing. Many times, I too have mentally joined in that person’s prayer journey and have been surprised at the insights and conclusions that have come about within that person’s mind and my own.
I’ll give you an example of how prayer can change oneself rather than others: A couple of weeks after the Brexit vote I was asked to do the Intercessionary prayers at church. (Intercessionary prayers are those prayers on behalf of other people) After Brexit I was deeply offended by what liberal people said about folk like me who had voted out. They clearly stated that we were ‘uneducated, illiterate, racist, selfish and did not care about our grandchildren. In short; the people who voted to govern ourselves were being sneered at. Somehow the Remainers seemed determined to assert a belief that they were intellectually and morally superior to the rest of us.
As I thought about intercession, it became clear that Remainers had a problem I didn’t have and so, rather than “rubbish’ their outrage and frustration, I realised that because they feared that the world had been overturned and they had lost control they themselves might need help. Therefore, at Evensong I prayed that we would try to help them, and that we might do it by explaining the hope and challenge of the opportunities ahead, and of how, as an independent nation, Britain might be able better to shape a dynamic world that is much wider than Europe alone.
Of course, my words above do not do full justice to the subject of prayer, nonetheless, it was an eye opener to realise that prayer is not for God’s benefit but for our own. However this is probably already well known by those readers who tell us that, “Prayer or meditation is the time when we align ourselves alongside God’s purpose for us, rather than expecting him to become aligned to any purposes we have for him.”
To conclude September’s View; it is my experience that any prayer of the ‘listening variety’ could lead to unexpected outcomes. Talking of which reminds me of when I did a good deed for a local business.
Many years ago when the Birds of Prey Centre also had a small restaurant, a friend told me that they urgently needed magpie wings as lures for their flying demonstrations. Accordingly I put ten dead birds in a bag and delivered them to the yard. No one was there and so I tried several doors until eventually one opened to reveal a young chap in a white hat. I told him I had ten birds they urgently needed and handed him the bag.
He looked puzzled but said it was his first day at work and wasn’t expecting anything. However, on seeing the magpies he turned pale and said,
“I’m the new chef. What do I do with these?”
View from the Pew 