Expecting the Unexpected (Praying Church Series)
Today I want to dive right back into our ongoing occasional blog series: The Praying Church, and to explore with us what we are really expecting to happen when we pray...
- VIP Toilet Visits?
I remember a few years ago being out in town with the kids, and having one of them announce unexpectedly: "Daddy, I need the loo!" and so I asked what every good parent does in such circumstances: "Can you hold it in?" The look of intense panic in their eyes told me everything I needed to know and so we began the mad rush looking for a toilet. After eventually concluding there was no available public convenience available anywhere in the entire city I turned in desperation to a bookshop. Realising that this was a long shot I stood there, child positioned in front of me (because who can say no to a child right?) and, shaking my head apologetically, I blurted out something like: "I know you're not a public loo, and you're probably not allowed to let us, but please can my child just use your toilet?" I was ready to offer to buy a book if it would help when, to my amazement (and my child's relief!) the book shop owner smiled and agreed to let us through to the back to use the toilet.
There are times in our lives when we're aware that what we're asking for is a "big ask", and highly unlikely to get approval:
- A raise in pay/added benefits at work
- A last minute holiday request
- A late babysitting request
- An overbudget birthday present
- Permission to slip away from family events to watch the snooker (or is that last one just me?)
But whatever it is we tend to go in extremely tentatively... explaining, in our most humble and grateful tones, that we fully understand that we are being unreasonable and that it really unlikely that they will be able to help, but we know them to be an extremely kind and compassionate person - if they could find it somewhere in their hearts, etc. etc. etc.
You know the script. You've used it yourself, and you've most likely heard it too, many times.
I sometimes wonder if our prayers can often find a similar tone:
- "Lord, if it be Your will..."
- "Father, I know I've asked You for a lot recently, but..."
- "I know I don't deserve it, but..."
- "If you could just do this for me, I promise I'll..."
How much of our time spent in prayer involves us almost apologising for being there, and then finally bringing our needs before God with very little expectation that much, if anything, is really about to change.
- Jail Shaking Prayers
One of my favourite examples of this comes in the Book of Acts.
It's a time of intense persecution. James (John's brother) is arrested and then executed. Seeing that this gains him public approval, King Herod then seizes Peter and throws him into a maximum security prison to await the same fate.
Dark times for the church.
And so the church do what they instinctively know is most urgent:
So Peter was kept in prison, but the church was earnestly praying to God for him.
ACTS 12.5
They pray.
Earnestly.
They pray and pray and pray.
This goes on for days, until eventually Peter's trial date is announced.
It is now the night before his trial.
Time has all but run out.
Hope is all but lost.
But at the midnight hour, God had a different plan...
The night before Herod was to bring him to trial, Peter was sleeping between two soldiers, bound with two chains, and sentries stood guard at the entrance.
Suddenly an angel of the Lord appeared and a light shone in the cell.
He struck Peter on the side and woke him up.
“Quick, get up!” he said, and the chains fell off Peter’s wrists.
ACTS 12.6-7
The angel quickly tells Peter to get dressed and proceeds to lead him over the sleeping guards, past the sentries, and out through the gates of the prison! You might have thought this daring prison break was a thrilling experience, but the Bible tells us:
Peter followed him out of the prison, but he had no idea that what the angel was doing was really happening; he thought he was seeing a vision.
ACTS 12.9
Not even
Peter (the escapee himself!) believed it was happening! God had just turned him into some sort of a spiritual Harry Houdini but it all seemed too good to be true, and so he believes it's a vision!
On and on they go through locked gates that miraculously open by themselves, until Peter has fully escaped - out in the open - finally free! And it's then, and the end of
"the length of one street", and after the angel leaves him, that Peter realises that he is (in fact) fully awake, and that all this has actually
really happened!
Then Peter came to himself and said, “Now I know without a doubt that the Lord has sent his angel and rescued me from Herod’s clutches and from everything the Jewish people were hoping would happen.”
ACTS 12.11
But this story is not over yet...
Peter then goes running to the Mary's house, where the church are still holding a late night prayer meeting. He hammers on the door, and a Rhoda (a servant girl) answers. When she hears his voice, she is so excited she forgets to let him in(!) and goes tearing back inside to interrupt the prayer meeting with the news that their prayers have been answered, but they think she's made a mistake:
“You’re out of your mind,” they told her.
When she kept insisting that it was so, they said, “It must be his angel.”
ACTS 12.15
Meanwhile Peter, a wanted fugitive, is left outside trying to knock loud enough to be let in, but not so loud to attract any more attention. Eventually they go and see for themselves:
But Peter kept on knocking, and when they opened the door and saw him,
they were astonished.
ACTS 12.16
Astonished.
Have you ever brought something before God in prayer... and when He has supplied it, you found yourself filled with surprise?
When we ask God for something, and He actually does it, and we're
astonished by that... that's got to tell us something about what we were expecting from God right? And yet our expectation levels can have a huge impact on the effectiveness of our prayer lives. Jesus tells us:
Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours.
MARK 11.24
Wow! There's a challenge...
It's so easy to dismiss this as overly simplistic, or immature, but Jesus tells us that level of expectation is the kind of approach we should take to prayer rather than being blown away when what we pray for actually happens!
- The Forgotten Martyr
Some of you may already be wondering - but what about poor James? He was arrested too, and the church must have prayed for his release... when his trial date was announced, the church must have been praying and hoping for the best... but then - no angel at midnight, no miraculous escape; his chains are not broken, his life is not spared. As much as we must marvel at the ultimate sacrifice James makes for his faith, we also have to acknowledge the deep pain of unanswered prayer. What must that have done to their faith? What must that have done to their expectation?
It's a question many have wrestled with.
How can I believe I have already received an answer to prayer, when it patently obvious that my own faith is covered with the scars of answered prayer? How can I solve the mystery of why some prayers are answered while others are not, and still pray with any sense of confidence and expectation?
Massive question - but I'd like to turn to the author C.S. Lewis here, who has much to say on the topic.
Firstly in his fictional book: The Screwtape Letters, an imaginary demon is giving advice to a younger demon on how best to disrupt the prayer life of a young Christian:
"you can worry him with the haunting suspicion that the practice is absurd and can have no objective result. Don't forget to use the 'heads I win, tails you lose' argument. If the thing he prays for doesn't happen, then that is one more proof that petitionary prayers don't work; if it does happen, he will, of course, be able to see some of the physical causes which led up to it, and 'therefore it would have happened anyway', and thus a granted prayer becomes just as good a proof as a denied one that prayers are ineffective."
C.S. LEWIS (THE SCREWTAPE LETTERS)
In the cold light of day the reality is we would never tell anyone to think about prayer in this way, but in the moment the reality is we often fall for this kind of deception in our private thoughts. When it comes to prayer perhaps "proof" is not the right thing to be looking for...
C.S. Lewis later dives back into this mystery in another of his books; a nonfiction one called Miracles. I think the point he makes here is brilliant and it's importance cannot be overstated:
"This impossibility of empirical proof is a spiritual necessity. A man who knew empirically that an event had been caused by his prayer would feel like a magician. His head would turn and his heart would be corrupted.
The Christian is not to ask whether this or that event happened because of a prayer. He is to believe that all events without exception are answers to prayer in the sense that whether they are grantings or refusals the prayers of all concerned has been taken into account.
All prayers are heard, though not all prayers are granted...
Only faith vouches for the connection, no empirical proof can establish it."
C.S. LEWIS (MIRACLES)
- The Prayer of Doubt?
In the book of James we read:
Is anyone among you in trouble? Let them pray. Is anyone happy? Let them sing songs of praise.
Is anyone among you sick? Let them call the elders of the church to pray over them and anoint them with oil in the name of the Lord.
And the prayer offered in faith will make the sick person well; the Lord will raise them up. If they have sinned, they will be forgiven.
Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective.
JAMES 5.13-16
The prayer... offered in faith...
I wonder how much faith my prayers take.
Over time, especially after seasons of unanswered prayer, it's tempting to dial down of expectation levels a few notches and end up praying prayers that require very little faith at all. Just asking God to "be with" someone, or to "touch" them... and suddenly the language becomes far more general as we learn to ask God for things that might seem a little more manageable and a lot less miraculous.
And yet Jesus taught us to pray: "Your kingdom come, Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven!" - hardly a small, safe or sanitised prayer: it literally doesn't get any bigger than that!
The writer of Hebrews invites us to:
approach God’s throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.
HEBREWS 4.16
It's often occurred to me that the fact that my prayers aren't like magic spells means I can be more free and honest in my prayer life. It might sound like a paradox, but knowing that I won't always get what I want means I can be even bolder in approaching God with my needs and desires. I bring my requests before God, in the full and certain knowledge that He both knows and wants only what is the very best for me and for my life. If prayer worked like a cosmic slot machine each and every time, we would have to learn to be very careful about what we wish for - but the fact that is an intimate and deepening relationship with Father God invites us into a more dynamic and personal journey of discovery with Him!
Can I encourage you to pray big... and expect big today - because we know that we serve a great big God:
Now to Him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to His power that is at work within us, to Him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen.
EPHESIANS 3.20-21