I am a chaplain and people ask me a lot to pray for them. I do struggle with this concept of prayer. On one hand, God invites us to pray, and promises to listen to us and bless us when we turn to him. On the other hand, prayer sometimes lift up our expectations and then disappoint us. A lot of times prayer goes unanswered.

     As I meditate on prayer, I want to address two extremes. Some people make the statement that prayer does not change God but it changes the praying person. This statement feels to me that the person who says this statement is hedging. Its like saying, your prayer may not be answered, but you will be better for it (increase faith, patience, etc). The biblical data seem to suggest that God does change his plans as a result of the prayers of his people. King Hezekiah prayed to God to prolong his life after God has said that the king will die from his sickness. God prolonged Hezekiah's life as a response to his prayer. Therefore, it seems that God does change his plans. Some try to settle the incongruity of God being unchangeable with God changing his plan as a response to prayer by saying that God moved the heart of a person to pray and uses that prayer as part of his plan to answer that prayer. This poses a problem. Some are moved to pray but their prayers are not answered. God did not change his mind, but this leaves the problem of why pray when God has determined his answer already?

     On the other extreme are those who look at prayer as something magical. We are fascinated with worlds where witches, magicians, etc. can make things happen with just a wave of a wand, or with some magical words. There are some people who exploit this fascination by having people go through some payer techniques (imagine in detail what you want and have great faith that you will get it) to get what they want. Or some claim that others can be blessed by donating to their ministries in addition to praying. Then if prayer does not get answered, they may say to the prayng person that they just do not have enough faith. This crushes the spirit of the person who expects God to give him what he desies. How much faith or works is enough?

     As I meditate on the mystey of prayer, I though about my relationship with my daughter and the kids I work with. Even though I have love for them, I would not grant them everything they want. The reason is that I have an agenda for them. For example, I may not let a child watch TV not because TV is bad but I want them to learn to be structued, not just jumping from one activity to another. The child has an agenda and I respect that because of my love for them. However, that agenda must be brought in harmony with my agenda because I am the authority and am responsible for their development as persons.

     What does this have to do with prayer? You have an agenda and God has an agenda. Prayer is communicating your agenda to God, asking him if it could have a place in his agenda. Humility requires us to accept God's no. Remember though that God respects your needs and desires. God is not disintereted in your happiness, he cares about your happiness, but within his agenda for you. God may not allow you to get a certain job because he wants you to flourish and develop your person in your present job, not in another job. However, he did listen to you when you asked for that job and is taking into account why you cared about getting that job. This example is benign but the prayer may be about something more heart-rending, like the recovery of a loved one. Although it may be difficult to take, these things remain true.

1. God has an agenda for his world.

2. God cares about your concerns (said and unsaid0.

3. God may include your concern in his agenda or he may not.

4. If he does not, God remains concerned about you concerns.