by Marti Fischer

Seeing me empty, you forsake

The Listener’s role, and through

My dead lips breathe and into utterance wake

The thoughts I never knew

–C. S. Lewis

I have no doubt that prayer does something; I am just not sure what it is, and I don’t fully understand how prayer works.

I have heard there are no atheists in foxholes, nor, I might venture, any other holes we dig for ourselves. When push comes to shove, I think we pray whether we understand prayer or not. It springs from us impulsively and instinctively in the face of necessity. We resort to prayer when we are afraid, when we cannot imagine going any farther, and when we find ourselves out from under our comfort zones. We almost involuntarily resort to prayer.

The following is a bit of whimsy that might help us understand involuntarily prayer.

“The proper way for a man to pray,”

Said Deacon Lemuel Keyes,

“And the only proper attitude,

Is down upon the knees.”

“No, I should say the way to pray,”

Said Reverend Doctor Wise

“Is standing straight with outstretched arms

And rapt and upturned eyes.”

“Oh, no, no, no,” said Elder Slow,

“Such posture is too proud.

A man should pray with eyes fast closed

And head contritely bowed.”

“It seems to me his hands should be

Austerely clasped in front,

With both thumbs pointin’ toward the ground,”

Said Reverend Doctor Blunt.

“Last year I fell in Hidgekin’s well

Headfirst,” said Cyrus Brown,

“With both my heels a-stickin’ up

And my head a-pointin’ down.

“And I prayed a prayer right then and there,

The best prayer I ever said.

The prayingest prayer I ever prayed,

A-standin’ on my head.”

In extremes, we pray.

“The natural thing,” George MacDonald said, “is straight to the Father’s knee.”

Yet the questions remain for me. How does prayer work? God is perfect wisdom. He doesn’t need me to tell Him what to do or prod Him into doing the right thing and I seriously doubt He needs my counsel. Is it possible I can ask in such a way that God will change some vast eternal plan or can I bend His ear and then bend His will to mine?

In spite of all of my questions with no answers about how prayer works, when I pray, prayer changes me, turning me from the things that break my heart to the things that break His heart.

Think about the story of Abraham and his intercession for the city of Sodom, beginning with God’s verdict on Sodom:

“Now the people of Sodom were wicked and were sinning greatly against the Lord” (Genesis 13:13)

Sodom was a city raising its fist and trumpeting its defiance of God.

Sodom, however, was a city of people — people Abraham knew and loved. He had family living in the city. There was no argument that Sodom was wicked, but it was no small thing for him to give up the people.

God knew Abraham’s aching heart and knew He must talk with his friend, so Jesus and two of His angels clothed themselves in muscle and skin and came to visit Abraham under the Oaks of Mamre. They came bearing a gift, as visitors sometimes do, the promise that Sarah would give birth to a long-awaited son. When the Lord and His angels got up to leave, Abraham, out of politeness walked them out.

Abraham, the Lord and the two angels trudged along for some distance in silence while the Lord considered whether He should let Abraham into His deepest counsel.

Shall I hide from Abraham what I am about to do? Abraham will surely become a great and powerful nation, and all nations on earth will be blessed through him. For I have chosen him, so that he will direct his children and his household after him to keep the way of the Lord by doing what is right and just, so that the Lord will bring about for Abraham what he has promised him (Genesis 18:17.19).

Was the Lord considering Abraham more of a confident than you or me? No, he was not. God lives to reveal His heart to you and me and everyone else He loves. He loves opening His heart to us, holding nothing back.

“I have called you friends,” Jesus said to his disciples, “for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you” (John 15:15).

So, when the angels turned away and went towards Sodom, “The Lord remained standing before Abraham” (Genesis 18:22). He patiently waited for Abraham to speak to Him. Just like Abraham, God stands continually before us, drawing us out, listening to our hearts as we speak to Him and waiting to reveal His own.

“Prayer is God’s idea,” Lloyd Ogilvie wrote, “The desire to pray is the result of His greater desire to talk with us. He has something to say when we feel the urge to pray.”

What follows is a conversation between Abraham and God, where Abraham pleaded Sodom’s case, begging the Lord spare Sodom for the sake of a few righteous souls. God agreed to spare all of the righteous souls, which turned out to be Abraham’s nephew Lot and his family, the only good man in town. Could Abraham have interceded for more of his friends? Of course he could. Abraham had no problem presenting his case to God. Rather, Abraham stopped praying because he saw the situation from God’s point of view. At every step God’s justice loomed larger; at every step more of God’s justice entered into Abraham. In the end Abraham was thinking more like God than he ever had before.

Abraham’s prayer for Sodom didn’t change anything except Abraham. God had determined to judge that brazen city because there was nothing in it worth saving. By prayer Abraham entered into God’s wisdom, understood His thinking and His heart, and by it became a little more like God.

Prayer, then, whatever else it may be, is not calling God’s attention to things He’s not aware of, nor is it urging Him to do his job. No, it’s rather a conversation in which we speak our mind and heart and God speaks His. We talk and we listen until we get into His mind and heart and He gets His mind and heart into us.

All of which means that when we get down to praying we don’t have to worry about what to say or how to say it. We can say whatever is in us. Though our prayers may spring from anxious fear or anger, ungodly thoughts of personal revenge and vengeance, God will take those prayers into His heart and turn them into something else, and in the process He will turn us into something else.

I think that’s what Paul meant when he wrote:

Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus”(Philippians 4:6-7).

What is guaranteed to change when we pray is our state of mind and heart. God’s tranquillity takes the place of our anxiety; His peace transcends our panic. Prayer, thus, wrings out our deepest needs, and turns them into something more profound. In our praying we are transformed.

Prayer, therefore is God at work in our lives.