"Prayer changes not God but him who prays."
-SK
Prayer, methinks, must be one of the most mysterious and difficult to understand concept in Christianity. I think I could much more easily intellectually discuss predestination, the God-man, trinity, and to a degree, even free will than prayer. And the most bothersome part of that is the fact that prayer is much more a daily practice issue than anything else I could think about in Christianity.
Intellectually, it comes down to this: What is the point of prayer? It seems to me an incredibly odd thing to pray to God, especially intercessory prayer. I guess it just comes down to the oddity/purpose of talking to someone who already knows everything. Why bother praying? God knows what you will pray anyway. What difference does it make? Does intercession really matter? Can God be changed? The bible says God is immutable, yet it seems to give examples of intercessory prayer changing fates of people (i.e. Abraham and Moses), did God pull their legs?
Haha, anyway. If the questions above bother you, you could message me at ivan.fyodorovich.karamazov@gmail.com and we'll talk actual theology. But really, I think it's difficult and I don't really have a satisfactory answer, but I do have some thoughts. But really...this is a thesis for PhD in Theology material. (which, perhaps, I shall tackle one day).
Practically, it comes down to this: What is the point of prayer? At the core of it, most people who pray (including non-Christians) tend to think that God is some sort of a cosmic vending machine, and prayer is the coin. I tend to suffer on the other side of the line, in that I rarely ever ask for anything in specific. I would like to think that it is because I am surrendered to God's will as to the outcome, but really, if I'm honest with myself, it is most likely because I am too afraid of the prayer being unanswered (or the answer being no). After all, I can't be disappointed if I didn't ask for anything and thus have no expectations, right? Then my faith is more stable because I won't have to struggle with my disappointments with God, because that is just not acceptable.
Recently, I've been having bouts of doubt. I sometimes wonder if we just give credit to God when by chance good outcomes happen, and blame ourselves or our bad prayers if by chance bad outcomes happen. I pray pray pray pray and pray some more and then torture myself with the question whether I'm praying with only my mouth and not my heart. I've seen people desperately and earnestly pray for things just to be denied, and I've seen people pray for what I think are the dumbest things ever and still be answered. It just all seems so RANDOM.
So...it comes back to the question, why do I pray? I really want to conduct some experiment, to see whether prayer actually has a bearing on reality. I have a hundred intellectual answers why prayer turns out to be the way it does, but it's always hard to swallow emotionally.
Supposedly, prayer changes not God but you who pray. I guess that makes sense in a sort of paradoxical way. I think prayer is a mystery. Prayer is just as much a mystery and contradiction as the concept of Jesus' divinity or finding true life in sharing his death. And as much, I think prayer is, each and every time, a test of faith, and a mirror by which it reveals the content of our hearts.
What do I mean? I think that the purest, simplest, and the truest answer to why we pray is because we are commanded to do so by God. God tells us to pray, and tells us that it matters, somehow. We do not understand how or why, and therefore now we're at a fork in the road with a sign that is in itself a contradiction. Each time we're on our knees (and yes I'm old-fashioned like that) we each have a choice. It is as if Christ asks us each time, "Will thou believe that I hear thy supplications though thou may not understand nor feel heard?" We can take this command in contradiction as an empty gesture, lose heart and doubt. We can take this command in paradox as a tool and misrepresent and misuse it. Or we can choose to take each occasion as a sign of our faith in God whose mystery is greater than our comprehension. And as we continually and unceasingly choose to take the step of faith and lay down our will and self to God, it reveals, nay, rather it shapes the content of our heart to His will. I imagine this is how prayer changes us.
I would like to close this odd blog post with a reminder, my reader, that the Kingdom of Heaven advances on its knees.
