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TO PRAY OR NOT TO PRAY

Homeless, hot and tired, Eduardo Sierra wandered through the concrete jungle of the inner city. It was his daily occupation. His wanderings led him to the refuge of an open church. In front of the altar was a lone coffin, lying in state. Knowing well that he could be the one in the box, Eduardo prayed. He must have prayed for the deceased and surely he prayed for himself. Soon he left. His name was the only one written in the condolence book. Eduardo later learned the deceased was Svens Jensen, a Swedish real estate broker. Mr. Jensen left a most unusual and extraordinarily simple will. Whoever prays for my soul gets all of my belongings. Eduardo Sierra, a homeless vagrant, inherited an estate valued at just over one million dollars.

Call it a lucky break. Call it the power of prayer. Decadent estates aside, one thing is certain. The extravagant riches of the Triune God will only be inherited by those who pray. 

To pray or not to pray. It is the most pivotal issue facing seminarians preparing for ministry. To pray or not to pray. It is the difference between managing a religious enterprise and advancing the kingdom of God. Everyone gives credence to prayer, but in the end only those who pray carry the torch of Jesus. Finding a posture, mapping a theology, learning a language, and shaping a practice, this essay will paint in broad-brush strokes an agenda of preparation for a life of prayer.
 

Developing a Posture for Prayer
It was the first day of evangelism class. The professor took a long slow gaze back and forth at the class of incoming seminarians. His first words, “Most of you are smart enough and attractive enough and gifted enough that you are going to do just fine in the ministry without Jesus.” The words stunned and stung and sobered the eager and naive students, piercing them with the astonishing authority of Jesus himself. “On judgment day many will tell me, ‘Lord, Lord, we prophesied in your name and cast out demons in your name and performed many miracles in your name.’ But I will reply, ‘I never knew you. Go away; the things you did were unauthorized’” (NLT Matt 7:22-23).

Prayer is the posturing place where all true kingdom work is authorized. Prayer is fundamentally about posture. And fundamentally, prayer is the posture of poverty. Kneeling, lying prostrate, arms extended, hands lifted: “God blesses those who realize their need for him, for the Kingdom of Heaven is given to them” (NLT Matt 5:3). Richard Foster, in his magnificent text, Prayer: Finding the Heart’s True Home (Harper Collins, 1992), examines prayer in three essential movements: Inward—seeking the transformation we need, Upward—seeking the intimacy we need, and Outward—seeking the ministry we need. Foster is careful to point out the journey of prayer begins in utter simplicity, with the epiphanic embrace of one’s own weakness and neediness. “Incline your ear, O Lord, and answer me, for I am poor and needy” (NRSV Ps 86:1).

Prayer is being awakened in the middle of the night with the starving need of a friend and realizing the cupboard is bare; academic degrees are not edible. Only the awareness of poverty; the realization we have “nothing to offer them,” will lead us to the humble posture of asking, seeking, and knocking prayer. “Yes, I am the vine; you are the branches. Those who remain in me, and I in them, will produce much fruit. For apart from me you can do nothing" (NLT John 15:5).

Educational institutions aim for the bars of academic proficiency and intellectual competence. Seminaries must struggle to distinguish themselves. In the midst of shaping biblical scholars, articulate Jesus ambassadors, and proficient ministers of grace, seminaries must foster in students an ethic of incompetent humility. In the pragmatic milieu of the science of church growth and leadership development, seminarians must model the unattractive standard of needy dependence. Prayer is a servant postured humbly before his master, a child postured gratefully in the presence of her Father. Prayer is the posturing place where all true kingdom work is authorized.

Mapping a Theology of Prayer
PRAYER WON'T CURE AIDS. RESEARCH WILL! A pointed slogan, appearing on placards hanging in the windows of 19 American cities’ transit systems, speaks volumes about a theology of prayer. Does prayer work or is it merely a therapeutic exercise? Is prayer about moving the hand of God or changing the heart and mind of the one praying? Is prayer real currency in the sovereign economy of God or is it Monopoly money? Ultimately, one’s belief about prayer determines her prayer life.

In preparing to plot and navigate a course for a life of prayer one needs a working theological map of the landscape. But be reminded, the best of maps is only a representation. While we are not dealing with an enchanted forest, prayer is mysterious terrain. Any map is destined to be rough and potentially flawed. We look to the Scriptures and the Spirit and the Saints to guide our work.

Has prayer been laced with contingent power? Abraham prayerfully bargains with God over the lost city of Sodom. At the place of prayer, Moses negotiates the future course of a new nation, refusing to go forward without God. Jacob culminates his all-night wrestling match by praying for blessing and refusing to let go. Elijah’s prayers seem to wield meteorological power.

Contingencies abound in the world of prayer. God invokes the “if” word with Solomon. “If my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land” (NIV 2 Chron 7:14). Jesus dittos: “I also tell you this: If two of you agree down here on earth concerning anything you ask, my Father in heaven will do it for you” (NLT Matt 18:19). Beckoning disciples to ask and seek and knock, he paints prayer pictures. A pitiful widow badgers a powerful judge for justice. A friend intercedes for a friend in the middle of the night. Paul is no different, constantly praying and pleading for prayer as though it were the door opening key to their mission. In light of these ponderous contingencies, one might ask, “What if there are some things God either will not or cannot do until and unless his people pray?”

Map-making inquiries abound. Why are some prayers answered and others seemingly not? What lies at the crossroads of praying people and a sovereign God? Are there navigable pathways between prayer and healing? What does prayer have to do with fasting? Can prayer stem the tide of evil? Does prayer invoke the activity of angels? If two or more is good, must a thousand or more be better?

For thousands of years theological topographers have worked to map the country of prayer. John Bunyan once said, “You can do more than pray after you have prayed, but you will never do more than pray until you have prayed.” John Wesley once said, “God does nothing except in answer to prayer.” E.M. Bounds once said, “Only God can move mountains, but faith and prayer move God.” Mother Teresa once said, “If you don’t pray, your presence will have no power, your words will have no power. Prayer enlarges the heart until it is capable of containing God’s gift of himself.”

The late H. Nouwen, contemporary mystic and prayer theologian, offers this defining word: “The word ‘prayer’ stands for a radical interruption of the vicious chain of interlocking dependencies leading to violence and war and for an entering into a totally new dwelling place. It points to a new way of speaking, a new way of breathing, a new way of being together, a new way of knowing, yes, a whole new way of living” (cf. Greer, The Only Necessary Thing: Living a Prayerful Life [Crossroad/Herder&Herder, 1999] 25).

Learning the Language of Prayer
The seminary is a primary place for developing fluency in the language of prayer. Grammar and syntax abound in the simple petitions of the Lord’s Prayer. A veritable vocabulary is unearthed in the Psalms, the prayer book of the ages. John Calvin called them an anatomy of all parts of the soul. They are seasoned with prayers longing to be freshly conjugated for the present age, giving shape to a praying imagination.

Press the Scriptures into prayer, engaging Moses and Hannah, Jesus and Paul. Converse with the liturgies and litanies of the ages, taking ownership of the time-tested collects and confessions. Pray with the saints through the seasons of the soul. Enrolled in the school of Francis and Merton, á Kempis and Underhill, we learn to pray beyond the feeble formulations of our own egocentric realities. Be it contemplative, warfare, or intercessory, the ancient language of prayer calls us to be careful students and capable practitioners.

Practicing the Discipline and Art of Prayer
To pray or not to pray. As academic demands pile atop ministry duties, the seminary uncannily becomes Martha’s vineyard, a palm-pilot world where preparation for ministry takes on the shape of distracted busy-ness. Prayer calls for the subversive devotion of Mary, a disciplined attentiveness to the only necessary thing.

Learning to pray is like learning to play a musical instrument. A beginning student spends countless hours with an instructor in a tiny closet playing scales and rudimentary musical scores. What begins as arduous disciplined practice issues forth in melodious artistry. Private practice gives way to symphonic excellence.

Lord, teach us to pray. Go into a back room. Close the door. Learn the instrument and music. Become intimately attuned to the conductor. Find a praying rhythm and routine. Take prayer walks. Schedule regular twenty-four-hour prayer retreats. Visit a monastery. Seek out a prayer mentor. Keep a prayer journal. Get involved with a small prayer group. Allow the rigid demarcations of a narrowly defined prayer life to give way to a spacious life of prayer. Transform the obligatory quiet time into a daily springboard for unceasing prayer.

To Pray or Not to Pray
Thy Kingdom come. Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Nothing is more central to kingdom work than taking on the adventuresome mantle of prayer. After all, it was a prayer meeting, not an advertising campaign, preceding Pentecost. J. Cymbala, pastor of the Brooklyn Tabernacle, a thriving church literally built on a prayer meeting, wryly observes: “The Apostles prayed ten days, preached ten minutes and 3,000 came to know the Lord. Today we pray ten minutes, preach ten days and we may see 30 converts.” C.H. Spurgeon chides, “If God be near a church it must pray. And if he be not there, one of the first tokens of his absence will be a slothfulness in prayer.” Only prayer precipitates the rain of workers that bring in the harvest (Matt 9:38).

The greatest asset anyone takes into ministry is a heart and mind fashioned to pray. Prepare now. Develop the posture. Map the terrain. Learn the language, and practice the discipline until it becomes art. John Wesley admonished his preachers, “Whether you like it or no, read and pray daily. It is for your life; there is no other way; else you will be a trifler all your days.” Determine now to pray, before years are wasted in unauthorized and unproductive ministry trifling. Pastors, teachers, musicians, missionaries, and preachers will come and go. Some will build. Others will maintain. Many will be applauded. Still others will falter and fail. To pray or not to pray. In the final analysis, only those who resolve to pray will make kingdom history.

By John David Walt, Jr.