Prayer is Asking

A little child who has no shyness or hesitation about asking his parents for what he needs is unselfconsciously revealing his helplessness—along with a normal, right relationship with his father and mother. In the same way, asking immediately puts us into a right relationship to God. It is acting out the fact that He is the Creator with the riches and resources we need; we are the creatures who need help. It’s a cap-in-hand stance which we resist because it diminishes us—a certain amount of pride and self has to go for us to ask for help—whether of God or of another human being.

Simple happenings uncover our pride and stubbornness about asking—like the motorist who loses his way. Often we will go miles off our route, waste time trying one road after another, rather than stop to ask for the help we need.

God insists that we ask, not because He needs to know our situation but because we need the spiritual discipline of asking. Similarly, making our requests specific forces us to take a step forward in faith. The reason many of us retreat into vague generalities when we pray is not because we think too highly of God, but because we think too little. If we pray for something definite and our request is not granted, we fear to lose the little faith we had. So we fall back on the safe route of highly “spiritual” prayers—the kind that Jesus brushed aside as not true prayer at all, just self-deceptive “talking to ourselves.” (Luke 18:9-14)

In commenting on such non-prayers in his famous book The Screwtape Letters, C.S. Lewis has the devil, Screwtape, give this advice to his understudy, Wormwood:

It is no doubt impossible to prevent his praying for his mother, but we have means of rendering the prayers innocuous. Make sure that they are very “spiritual,” that he is always concerned with the state of her soul and never with her rheumatism. (Lewis, The Screwtape Letters New York: The Macmillan co., 1943. Page 21)

Oddly, we who are afraid to ask that the pain of rheumatism be removed or a lost contact lens found, often do not hesitate to pray for world peace or the salvation of souls or a revival to change to face of our time. It never occurs to us that if God’s power is lacking for these everyday prayers, His power to handle big, all-inclusive petitions will be lacking too.

In order to make sure that we are not retreating from the tension of faith, it is helpful to ask ourselves as we pray, “Do I really expect anything to happen?” This will prevent us from going window-shopping in prayer. At times window-shopping can be enjoyable—but there it ends. It costs nothing. We are just looking, have no intention of buying anything; so we bring nothing home to show for the hours of browsing. Too many of our prayers—private and public—are just browsing amongst possible petitions, not down to cases at all. We expect nothing from our prayers except perhaps a euphoric feeling.

As for our losing faith in God if our request is not granted in the precise form we wish, can any of us possibly be as concerned about the state of our faith as God is? That we should trust Him is not only His will, but the passion of His Father-heart. Surely then, we can turn over to His keeping any worry about our losing faith.

Beyond that, are we afraid that a no answer will back us up against our own deficiencies, our failure to meet God’s conditions? And if so, again, are we not really questioning God’s ability to supply everything we lack—faith or perseverance or inner tensile strength to meet His conditions?

We decide to ask His help with some small immediate need. Our asking is like stepping into a tiny anteroom. Taking a hesitant step forward, we discover that the anteroom leads into the King’s spacious reception hall. To our astonishment, the King Himself comes forward to meet us, offering a gift so momentous as to be worthy only of the King: a lifetime gift of a friendship with the Lord of Glory.

“You asked Me for money for this month’s rent,” He smiles. “Sit here at My feet and we’ll talk about the rent, but also of other matters too. I have much to say to you. If you accept my friendship, you and I have years of joyous interchange ahead. I’ve so much to teach you. It’s going to take eternity to handle all of it.”

Our entering into a one-to-one relationship with Jesus enables Him to handle not only our immediate material and physical needs, but also deeper needs, the hidden ones involving right attitudes and healthy emotions, proper motivation, and how to solve our relationship problems.

Soon we discern that asking involves more than verbalization. Our lips do not always communicate accurately the heart’s true cry. In some instances, that’s because we are so out of touch with our own emotions that our prayers deal in unrealities. Sometimes we are divided within ourselves about what we actually want, so that we cannot ask wholeheartedly. Or perhaps we do not even know enough about our hopes and dreams to make our asking specific.

Then, we conclude, there must be different levels of asking. There’s so much I want to learn about that: “Lord, teach me to pray.”