“Too often, our prayer is self-centered rather than God-centered.”
Copyright © 1994 by Paramount Pictures. All Rights Reserved
The Purpose of Prayer
Do we know how to pray properly? Do we even realize the effectiveness of our prayer?
Thanks to several big budget movies the name CS Lewis is much more familiar to us. He was the author of the widely read children’s books, The Narnia Chronicles. But not many people realize that he wrote much more than that, fiction and nonfiction for adults that deal with issues surrounding the Christian faith. The 1993 movie, Shadowlands tells Lewis’ story, focusing in particular on his relationship with his wife, Joy Gresham.
Gresham and Lewis meet while Lewis is a don at Oxford University. It is after Joy Gresham is diagnosed with cancer that the couple marry. The movie bears witness to their love, their pain, their grief, their struggles with faith and God. Eventually Joy dies.
At one point in the story a friend says to Lewis, “Christopher can scoff, Jack, but I know how hard you’ve been praying; and now God is answering your prayers.”
Lewis replies “That’s not why I pray, Harry. I pray because I can’t help myself. I pray because I’m helpless. I pray because the need flows out of me all the time, waking and sleeping. It doesn’t change God, it changes me.”
Do we pray hoping that God will change our lives? Do we pray asking for things we have no right to? God is immutable, He does not change, that is what makes Him God.
Imagine you are in a small boat coming up to the shore. You use a boat hook to catch the shore and pull. Do you pull the shore towards you or do you pull the boat to the shore?
Prayer is not pulling God to our will. It is the aligning of our will to the will of God. This is why we pray, it is a surrender to the will of God and a cooperation with that will.
But too often we expect miracles in response to our prayer.
Unanswered Prayer
Among his writings C.S. Lewis wrote an essay on prayer. In it he suggested that God treats new Christians, that is those newly received into the Church, with a special care, the way a parent might show special care to a newborn over their older children.
In the essay Lewis quotes an older Christian: "I have seen many striking answers to prayer and more than one that I thought miraculous. But they usually come at the beginning before conversion, or soon after it. As the Christian life proceeds, they tend to be rarer. The refusals, too, are not only more frequent; they become more unmistakable, more emphatic."
This seems to contradict the way we think things should be. Is it not the older Christians that have lived their lives with faith that should be rewarded with miracles and answered prayers? Should not our faith and belief become easier as we grow older rather than harder?
But Lewis continues by pointing out two examples in the New Testament of unanswered prayers, prayers from those you would think would be rewarded for their faith.
The first is Jesus Himself. Three times Jesus begs God to “take this cup from me,” only to finally surrender to the Father.
The second example is St. Paul. Paul spoke of a “thorn in my flesh,” a difficulty or infirmity of some kind, and begged God to remove it.
Lewis asks, "Does God then forsake just those who serve Him best? Well, He who served Him best of all said, near His tortured death, 'Why hast thou forsaken me?' When God becomes man, that Man, of all others, is least comforted by God, at His greatest need. There is a mystery here which, even if I had the power, I might not have the courage to explore. Meanwhile, little people like you and me, if our prayers are sometimes granted, beyond all hope and probability, had better not draw hasty conclusions to our own advantage. If we were stronger, we might be less tenderly treated. If we were braver, we might be sent, with far less help, to defend far more desperate posts in the great battle."
Too often, our prayer is self-centered rather than God-centered. It becomes all about us, our needs, our wants and our desires, rather than what God wants of us. This is not how we were taught to pray. Saint Paul reminds us that our prayer should not be a litany of our desires but instead should include thanksgiving to God for all that He has done for us, and supplication, a lifting to God of the needs of all. Traditionally our prayer should include four things, adoration, contrition, thanksgiving and supplication (ACTS).
If we truly have the peace of God in our hearts then there is no cause for worry or anxiety. We take all of our problems and give them to the Lord in prayer. We trade our stress and worry for peace of mind.
Paul instead tells us to focus on the positive things of the world; whatever is true, honorable, just, pure, pleasing, commendable, excellent, and worthy of praise. This is the conduct of a person of prayer. It does us no good to dwell upon our faults and failings or the problems of the world, that just leads us back to worry and anxiety.
Finally Saint Paul calls us to action, do what we have learned, and received, and heard, and seen in him. A person of prayer is a person of action and the key to finding peace in a world of stress and distress is not worry but prayer, thinking positively, and doing what is right.
Pax Vobiscum
27th Sunday in Ordinary Time
The Maid of Orleans, © Lawrence Klimecki
Pontifex University is an online university offering a Master’s Degree in Sacred Arts. For more information visit the website at www.pontifex.university
Lawrence Klimecki, MSA, is a deacon in the Diocese of Sacramento. He is a public speaker, writer, and artist, reflecting on the intersection of art and faith and the spiritual “hero’s journey” that is part of every person’s life. He maintains a blog at www.DeaconLawrence.org and can be reached at Lawrence@deaconlawrence.com
Lawrence draws on ancient Christian tradition to create new contemporary visions of sacred art. For more information on original art, prints and commissions, Please visit www.DeaconLawrence.org
Purchase fine art prints of Deacon Lawrence’s work here.
