Ship of Fools: Personal prayer: how does it 'work'?

Thread: Personal prayer: how does it 'work'? Board: Oblivion / Ship of Fools.

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Posted by Galloping Granny (# 13814) on :

Someone I know referred to the ‘holier-than-thou’ who pray only for themselves.
I don’t know that I’ve met anyone that might fit into that category, but it made me think about my personal prayers.
A friend facing a difficult situation, maybe surgery, would like to be supported in prayer.
Her concept of God my be totally different from mine: my God does not step in and cure someone because I ask.
I pray for her, for ageing friends, or those I haven’t spoken to for some time; I cannot ask for specifics because I do not know their needs. In each case, I pray that they will know that God is with them, that this will give them confidence, comfort and peace. I believe that they find comfort in knowing that they are prayed for.
.What of the person some distance away who I know has many issues, of whose faith I know nothing, who doesn’t know of my prayers – what use are my prayers?
Or of the unknown people in troubled parts of the world – how do my prayers help them? I can pray only that they, abused and abusers, may feel the peace, compassion and understanding from the spirit who is surely there.
I hardly pray for myself. I surround myself with the unfailing presence of the God whom Jesus knew, and put my trust in that God.

GG

Posted by mousethief (# 953) on :

Sounds like you're doing a good job to me. Would that my prayer life were as faithful.

Posted by Belle Ringer (# 13379) on :

I usually ask some variation of "help them know you are real and present, and help them want to know you more."

I often do not pray for the specific thing they ask prayer for because even though I believe in healing response to prayer (and have seen far more instant or unnaturally fast healings than I can count anymore, as well as seeming non responses to prayer), I also believe God's purposes *for each of us* are much bigger than our comfort in this brief lifetime.

One can hope having things "go our way" is consistent with God working on God's goals for us, but if God wants you to lose that job so you'll move into one that grows your skills and awareness in important ways, we'd pray for that instead of for the job security you asked prayer for, if we understood better.

Posted by BabyWombat (# 18552) on :

Belle Ringer - I so agre!

I will admit to some challenge with intercessory prayer. It so often feels to me like bargaining with God rather than trusting that God has it all in order and invites us to join the party. So when asked to pray for someone while in their presence I suspect I make it more of a mini-sermon to the individual in the guise of a prayer.

I always pray that the individual know God’s presence in their life, and grow in loving relationship with God. If the request is for something specific (e.g. this particular job, or that particular outcome) I pray that God send them what they need, and for that particular outcome if that be best for them. This mirrors (I think!) my prayer for myself and my spouse: that God give me/us what is good in his eyes, and best for us, and the faith to live into that reality.

When seeing someone seriously ill I again pray that they know God’s presence and along the lines “that every cell, tendon, ligament and tissue align with God’s good will” -- again leaving it up to God to do the sorting out about return to health or moving to death.

I have a parishioner dealing with a return of cancer. I know she is frightened. I also know she is alcoholic, living with some long standing self esteem issues, and is lonely and alone, perhaps as a result of those. She asked for laying on of hands, and I simply prayed that she know God’s presence and that it bring her “deep, deep healing.” I meant of “all of it.” She said a vibrant “Amen!” - perhaps thinking of only parts, but, I hope, accepting it all.

Posted by no prophet's flag is set so... (# 15560) on :

You provided hope. Improved morale. Lessened fear. Tried to reflect an understanding of something transcendent. Thus it is good. Anytime we can help with suffering we are (in the words of an annoying but correct young man of my aquaintance) "doing the Jesus").

Posted by Gramps49 (# 16378) on :

Just a personal experience. As I have already shared, I had back surgery this week. I know when I was admitted to pre op my wife and I were pretty rattled, not knowing what to expect. The outcomes were unknown. The nurse asked if I wanted to see a chaplain. I said yes. A few minutes later the chaplain came in. As it turned out we knew each other. She said a quick word of prayer--she probably says the same prayer for everyone she sees. It had a calming effect for both my wife and I. Surgery went well, recovery is going good.

Posted by Lyda*Rose (# 4544) on :

Praise God! [Votive]

Posted by Galloping Granny (# 13814) on :

Responses above agree with my feelings and understandings. Thank you for commenting.
I still wonder what I might achieve by praying for people of no faith, and who do not know of my concern; or for, say, members of ISIS and their victims.
I have some thoughts but wonder how others react to such situations.

GG

Gramps49 – good to hear of current promising outcomes. [Votive]

Posted by Doone (# 18470) on :

There are glimpses of the powers of good and evil battling in the 'heavenlies' in the bible. May be prayers for countries, situations and people that we don't know might be part of this? I can't pretend I understand how it all works though [Frown]

[ 23. July 2016, 10:04: Message edited by: Doone ]

Posted by mark_in_manchester (# 15978) on :

quote:
I still wonder what I might achieve by praying for people of no faith, and who do not know of my concern; or for, say, members of ISIS and their victims.

I often find myself changed by my prayers for others in these kinds of situations.

Sometimes I have picked up the message in church that 'God can't live in you alongside feelings of hatred, lust <insert your favourite sins here...I have the set>'. Instead of jumping to the interpretation that 'I ought to do better in fighting my sin so that God might live in me' my experience of prayer (even in those instances which GG mentions above) is that it binds me to God, for a while, and somehow the space in me is (for a while) occupied where sin might grow. So God does not live in me alongside my sin - in prayer, if I let him, he displaces it. For a while.

Intercessory prayer is perhaps good for this as it avoids ego; so even pride is perhaps pushed aside in its practice. And of course if our sin is displaced, we are made more able to act as God's hands.

GG, I really like your examples of things to say in prayer.

Posted by Galloping Granny (# 13814) on :

Of course, leading intercessions in church one has to put some of one's hopes into words. Somewhere, in the midst of devastation, someone will reach out to comfort another's fear or pain.
Who knows, maybe as Isis member will have a moment of compassion and turn around.

GG

Posted by Zappa (# 8433) on :

I tend to speak and write these days of the butterfly wing beat of prayer. Does prayer "achieve"? I don't think there's a direct cause and effect result of either personal or public prayer ... yet, as the archbishop of York noted, the coincidences happen.

As for prayer for global issues ... Daesh, Syria, Trump ... I guess the Hebrew Scriptures warn these things will happen. But without the butterfly wing beat of our prayer, how much worse?

Posted by Galloping Granny (# 13814) on :

Thanks, Zappa. I like that.

GG

Posted by Nenya (# 16427) on :

I like that too, Zappa.

I find myself just lifting situations to God in my mind with far fewer words than I used to use. Just, "Oh, God, be with..." "Oh, God, give peace..." is often all I manage. Or, "Pleasepleasepleasepleaseplease..." It may not be much but it feels kind of...honest...

Nen - for whom prayer as well as a lot of other stuff looks rather different to how it used to.

[ 27. July 2016, 17:26: Message edited by: Nenya ]

Posted by Trickydicky (# 16550) on :

A friend's daughter was taking her driving test. He didn't pray for her to pass, he prayed that she'd do herself justice. Which she did, and her next test is in 2 weeks time.
I don't know how prayer works. I do believe that it is an expression of love. And, since Jesus told us to love our neighbour as ourselves, we are allowed to pray for ourselves (though not in a 'Lord, won't you give me a Mercedes Benz' kind of way).

Posted by Baptist Trainfan (# 15128) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Nenya:
I find myself just lifting situations to God in my mind with far fewer words than I used to use. Just, "Oh, God, be with..." "Oh, God, give peace..." is often all I manage. Or, "Pleasepleasepleasepleaseplease..." It may not be much but it feels kind of...honest...

That makes a great deal of sense to me, too. After all, we don't have to tell God what he already knows, we are simply identifying with (and adding our human weight to) that knowledge.

Of course, that's not what I do when leading the congregation in prayer; then I have to articulate thoughts on their behalf. But even there I wouldn't say, "Lord, you know all about Mrs. Brown's leg and the way it's been hurting her since she tripped over the kerb last Thursday when she was doing her shopping and got distracted by a low-flying pigeon ...". At least I hope I wouldn't!

[ 04. August 2016, 10:35: Message edited by: Baptist Trainfan ]

Posted by Baptist Trainfan (# 15128) on :

[I got interrupted by a phone call].

I was also going to add that we don't have to browbeat God into answering our prayers with the volume of our voice, the number of repetitions or the intensity of our speech. I used to think that (as it showed God my earnestness), but now I tend to think that it falls into the category of "vain babblings". Of course, there may be times when I do pray intensely; it is at such times that words may be replaced by incoherent (but comprehensible to God) groans, or the mentally dissociative but helpful gift of tongues.

[ 04. August 2016, 10:41: Message edited by: Baptist Trainfan ]

Posted by Baptist Trainfan (# 15128) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Trickydicky:
A friend's daughter was taking her driving test. He didn't pray for her to pass, he prayed that she'd do herself justice. Which she did, and her next test is in 2 weeks time.

Posted by Lyda*Rose (# 4544) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Baptist Trainfan:
[I got interrupted by a phone call].

I was also going to add that we don't have to browbeat God into answering our prayers with the volume of our voice, the number of repetitions or the intensity of our speech. I used to think that (as it showed God my earnestness), but now I tend to think that it falls into the category of "vain babblings". Of course, there may be times when I do pray intensely; it is at such times that words may be replaced by incoherent (but comprehensible to God) groans, or the mentally dissociative but helpful gift of tongues.

I don't know. There are several parables and stories about people needing some persistence to get their requests met from the God figure. There was the widow who pestered the judge in Luke for the justice she expected, and the guy who kept pounding on his neighbor's door to get some bread to feed his late arrivals also in Luke. Then Jesus himself took some persuasion to heal the Canaanite woman's daughter. My impression from these stories is that persistence in prayer is a virtue.

Posted by Lamb Chopped (# 5528) on :

IMHO persistence is different from babbling. You persist because the issue is unresolved and it still matters to you AND you are still of the opinion that God can and may do something about it (which shows trust in him as a person who cares about you and whatever you're praying about).

Babbling on the other hand is treating God like an inanimate object--pull this lever 80,000 times and something might happen. "If it didn't work, I must have done something wrong" rather than "If what I asked for is not happening, God is probably saying either 'no' or 'not yet'". Babbling has the idea of somehow being able to force or manipulate God into what we want, if we could only find the magical key. Persistent prayer is more like a child asking, even nagging his parents--which in human life can be a real pain in the ass, but which also demonstrates that the child has trust in you (because he thinks you will hear him and eventually respond in an unmistakable way, all WITHOUT walloping him over the head for annoyingness).

To put it a different way, I never nagged my parents. With alcoholism etc. in the mix, nagging was a very dangerous behavior, and I couldn't trust my parents to respond gently if I annoyed them. So I asked once (if that) and gave up.

That's a real loss in relationship, and I'm glad I can trust God to deal with me in kindness no matter how annoying I get, with no more than a bit of divine eye rolling. And I try to model this with my own son, who nags me plenty and gets no worse for it than eye rolling or an instruction to stand down before I email him to Vietnam.

Posted by simontoad (# 18096) on :

My prayer life is pretty selfish, or self-centered. I usually pray for forgiveness and for help to stop doing things I know I should stop, or damaging behaviors.

I do venture into intercessory prayer, but that's usually prompted by world events that shock me or group prayer in Church.

When I remember that its neither about me or the world particularly, I do like to just sit. That is my favorite form of prayer.

Posted by Jude (# 3033) on :

A while ago I started a topic "What is the point of prayer?" I don't know if it's still around.

It seems to me that often when praying our intercessions in church, the person leading the prayers seems to be trying to twist God's arm, so to speak. Surely God knows what is best?

Sometimes people pray as if God needs to be reminded of humanity's problems. But, since he is supposed to know all about us, is this really necessary?

God sees the big picture, whereas we do not. I think the story of Lazarus is pertinent here. When Jesus heard that his friend was dead, he wept, even though he knew that he could resurrect him. I think this was because he realised what this meant for the women who were left without support, who were his friends. It was a terrible situation. Fortunately, he could do something about it.

A wise priest I know says "let go and let God".

Posted by no prophet's flag is set so... (# 15560) on :

I have, these last few years, hoped only for comfort via prayer and that perhaps I might conform myself to a version of my flawed understanding of a good life. Being incapable of being a good person. Which has nothing to do with suffering, recovering from an illness, being saved from anything. Just that we might bear it all in good humour and less anxiety.

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