…Visitors to many of our churches might understandably conclude that God isn't very good at doing what we ask, that He is just there to perk up our health. Chronic illnesses gradually fill up our prayer lists, and deep down we know that every person in every pew will die sooner or later. Pastoral prayers, prayer meetings, and prayer lists can have the net effect of actually disheartening and distracting the faith of God's people. Prayer becomes either a dreary litany of familiar words, or a magical superstition verging on hysteria. This kind of prayer either dulls our expectations of God, or hypes up fantasy presumptions…
…If you just pray for better circumstances, then God becomes the errand boy (usually somewhat disappointing) who exists to give you your shopping list of desires and pleasures—no sanctifying purposes, no higher glory. Prayer becomes gimme, gimme, gimme. If you only pray for personal change, then it tends to reveal an obsession with moral self improvement, a self-absorbed spirituality detached from engaging with other people and the tasks of life. Where is the longing for Christ's kingdom to right all wrongs, not just to alleviate my sins so I don't feel bad about myself? Prayer pursues self-centered, morally-strenuous asceticism, with little evidence of real love, trust, or joy. If we only pray for the sweeping invasion of the kingdom, then prayers tend towards irrelevance and overgeneralization, failing to work out how the actual kingdom rights real wrongs, wipes away real tears, and removes real sins. Such prayers pursue a God who never touches ground until the last day…
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