UNDERSTANDING THE SCRIPTURES (3)

                        Common Misconceptions Concerning Prayer

IMPOSING OUR WILL UPON GOD

God has given us the power through prayer to get what we want for ourselves, regardless of what He wants. Consequently, we speak of "power in prayer", and/or "a great force is unleashed in prayer!" These are two examples of Pelagian error. As Christians, we are not to try to impose our will upon God. The idea of "binding God" is blasphemous.

PRAYERS OF PAINLESS PIETY

Prayer of painless piety asks God to do something for us that costs the prayer nothing. It is praying for the hungry when the prayer, rather than God, is the one who should do the feeding.

I need to participate in the provision of food for the hungry, if I am going to pray for them. It is helping the missionary financially and in other ways, if I am going to pray for their success. It is perhaps going to Russia and endeavoring to convert Russia, or doing something that costs me if I am going to pray for Russians. A little son of a very wealthy man heard his father daily pray for the needs of a neighbor who had little. One day, after such a prayer, the little lad said, "Daddy, you could answer that prayer if you wanted to."

PRAYER IS A MAGICAL PROCESS

Prayer is a kind of magical process by which we manipulate God and get things. I remember my daughter when she was approximately seven or eight years of age wanting a bike that was being given away at a drawing in a local clothing store. She was going to put in an appearance at that store and be ready for the drawing to bring her name from the basket. Before she left, she wrote a little prayer pertaining to her getting the bike and put it in her pocket. She referred to it as magical. The magic didn't work, however, and her brother who couldn't have cared less won the bike. We need to remember that the statement "all things for which you pray and ask, believe" simply tells us that God is able to do all things. There is nothing we need to withhold asking for, thinking that He is not able.

PRAYER IS AUTOSUGGESTION

Prayer is merely "autosuggestion" (believing that thinking about something will make it happen) and this explains how answers seem to come. This idea is ridiculous. Believing in autosuggestion is as much as to say that God does not answer prayer, or that He does not even exist. Only an atheist would suggest that there is not another person at the end of the line who hears and

responds.

STEREOTYPED IDEAS ABOUT ANSWERS

Answers to prayer come at once, or they don't come at all. This is simply not true. God may not answer all at once but in installments. After all, it is He Who knows our needs best. Only He can determine "how" and "when" needs need to be met.

Life Application

Begin to get your prayer life organized. Begin a prayer journal. Develop "prayer" pages for immediate and permanent prayer requests.

Read: Meditative Prayer by Richard Foster, InterVarsity Press, 1983 or How to Get Results Through Prayer by Jerry Bridges, NavPress, 1975.

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