The Tumult of Ineffective Prayer

Let’s face it – life these days, (I’ll be gentile in this even though we all have stronger expressions which better portray the issue) is pretty messed up. No matter where you look, the Church is cowering in a dank corner faced with the limp wristed expression of freedom granted but better not articulated. Many people who sought guidance from this hollowed, oops, hallowed, institution have been set adrift wondering where there is a mooring they can secure themselves to. In a word, life is tumultuous.

Unfortunately, if life is tumultuous, prayer, in most cases, is too. This probably doesn’t see possible, right? Afterall, when times get tough, people pray and their prayers are answered, right? This seem to be the custom. However, most customs, like deciding to put your pants on with the right leg first are only a human preference rather than a spiritual truth.

For a moment I need you to suspend everything you have been told about how prayer is supposed to be conducted. I recognize how this, for many of you, will be difficult to practically impossible, simply because you have been so indoctrinated into the formula of godly, effective prayer that to do anything of which I am about to suggest is…is…”heretical.” For all the toxic weight this term historically carries and implies, I trust that you can simply understand how it means to be different from the promoted doctrine of an order. If something isn’t working, it is “heretical” in religious terms, to change to something that might work.

Consider the following: For the past 6,000, of more years, mankind has been praying to a deity to protect, defend, rescue, prosper, heal, or any of a number of other concerns or demands which would promote the well-being of the person or group above the rest of those around them. Collectively, it might be determined through rigorous analysis how all this prayer activity did not produce the intended results each person or group expected or demanded. Who has time to look into that anyway? There really aren’t any records of the prayers which these people made that we could follow up on, right?

So, let’s take your prayers. They’re fresh in your memory, or at least in that journal you keep next your bed at night. How many of your prayers ask for God to come down (from who knows where) and invade your circumstance with His presence? How many of your prayers seek for the power of God to obliterate the foe which has risen against you? How many of your prayers have asked for the power of God to flow through you so that you may impact your milieu, your community, your nation, the world? How many of your prayers have been simply to inform God of what you have determine to be the unrighteous acts of those against you, of the things other have done to harm you, of the hurt you have experienced living a righteous life?

Buckle up buttercup, for while each of these might seem like worthy prayers, they are ineffectual. Be honest with yourself, in the tumult, how many of these prayers were answered – even like you wanted? Sure, you were fervent every time you prayed these things, but they never… The tragedy is how no one every told you why they never…until now.

The most foundational teachings of God’s nature are how he is omnipresent, omniscient, and omnipotent. Regrettably, these facets of his being are demoted rather than hailed as effectual in our lives simply because life is pressing too hard against our ability to comprehend quickly the fullness of truth we should be living in.

Have you recently, or ever considered, the nature of God’s omnipresence? Why would you ask Him to come down or show up if you understood the basic fact that He never has left? God is always around. He is unable to leave you: your situation, your drama, your pain, your nation, your political issue, your indifference, your inconsideration, your thanklessness, your pity, your scorn, your hopelessness; your guilt and shame; your hard-heartedness and lack of compassion; He is there through it all. The mess you’re going through right now, God is there closer than your breath.

Since God is always present (omnipresent), everywhere at all times, how could you possibly believe that He doesn’t know what is happening every moment in every situation (omniscience)? What compels you to be the informant to God; to tell him the things that only you have private knowledge of? Yes, you fervently pray, but telling God what you believe to be righteous through your fervency, will never change what HE already knows. While you know you, God knows you…and ALL around you too.

So, this brings you to the final key. Is there anything more powerful than God? Is God all powerful? Is sickness and disease more powerful than God? Is poverty and hunger more powerful than God? Are the acts of a carnal mind more powerful than God? Are the evil actions of mankind greater than the power of God? Seriously, stop and answer these questions. Your thoughts of a small god bring with it the thoughts of a power which can be defeated. Just how small is your god compared to the power coming against you?

IF you have made it this far, I am encouraged. Much of what I have presented in this piece takes a serious amount of time to meditate through deliberate contemplation about these truths. Affiliations, dogmas and creeds will be of no avail here. Herein lays your private spiritual journey: What constitutes an effectual prayer before a God who is omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent? Until this is resolved, all prayer will be tumultuous in its affect.