Is it like making a wish?
August 18, 2009 (Tuesday)
Alladin’s lamp was a surefire way to get something you want. Just rub the lamp and a Genie appears, ready to grant your wishes. Some people seem to think prayer is like Alladin’s lamp, and God is like a Genie, ready to grant wishes.
I rather think prayer is more like the encounters with God experienced by Joan of Arcadia, in a short-lived television show by that name a few years back. God appeared to Joan, a high school student, in varied human forms, sometimes an old lady, sometimes a very young man with many piercings on his person, occasionally as a little girl, and old man or one of many other manifestations. Joan was always willing to do whatever God asked her to do, even if it seemed weird and strange, but not without protest. She and God had some interesting conversations, at times sounding like arguments. She was open and honest with God, bearing her soul and telling him when she thought he was being unreasonable. God always had a reason for whatever he asked her to do, but he never told her what it was. To me, prayer is more like that than like rubbing a lamp and getting an all-powerful being to do your bidding.
Whenever Joan obeyed God and performed duties he had assigned her, friends and strangers alike thought she was behaving strangely, and, in truth, she did not understand her projects herself. In the end, whatever she did at God’s request turned out to be necessary for someone else as God accomplished his purposes in their lives. Somehow I think that’s nearer the truth (albeit a television fantasy) than a view which places God at our disposal, as he awaits our next request. Our relationship with the Lord is dynamic, ever active, always alive. We are learning as we go through life. We are learning about God, his will, his purpose, his love, and his ways, which are always higher than ours.
When we pray, we come humbly, yet boldly, to his throne, laying our request before him, then leaving the matter in his capable hands.