We church folk love, love, LOVE to tell people we’ll pray for them.
It’s the quickest, conversation-closing, most religious sounding thing we know we can fire-off in difficult situations, and both give others some immediate comfort while making us feel spiritual in the process.
It’s also quite often, a white lie.
Sometimes we actually don’t pray for them.
That isn’t to say we didn’t intend not to. On many occasions, we mean to pray, but we get busy or distracted and a little time passes, and then whatever they asked us to pray for passes too, (the interview, the surgery, the conversation), and we figure at that point, well what’s the point?
Sometimes we don’t pray and things go well, and we think to ourselves, “Thanks for bailing me out, God.”
Other times we pray halfheartedly and things go badly, and we get a tinge of guilt for not praying harder.
So why am I sharing this disappointing confession with you?
Because I think we Christians pray too much, anyway.
At least, too much of what I call Substitutionary Prayer; that is, we love to ask God to do stuff that quite easily, (or with at a bit of work), we could do ourselves.
Prayer for far too many Christians, has become a way of “passing the buck” to God, and avoiding personal responsibility of any kind. It’s a spiritual buffer, that allows us to feel like we’re doing something religious, without getting our hands dirty.
We say we’ll pray for someone’s grieving process following a loved one’s death, but never lift the phone to call them.
We say we’ll pray for homeless kids in our inner-city, and never make the 20-minute drive to bring them something to eat.
We say we’ll pray for the friends whose marriage is imploding, and never think to ask them to dinner.
We say we’ll pray for the bullied teens in our schools, and never step foot into their hallways or bedrooms to encourage them.
We say we’ll pray for tornado ravaged towns in the Midwest, and never leave the comfort of our subdivisions.
Maybe it’s because we think we’re not qualified, or maybe it’s because we’re just plain lazy, but the result is the same: We keep our safe distance from suffering, and we wait for God to do what we refuse to.
There are lots of times when stuff is certainly far too big for us, and where prayer is the only recourse we have, yet in far more situations than we care to consider, we are positioned, prepared, and uniquely wired to do what we’re asking God to do for us.
Christian, prayer is a non-negotiable. Real God-seeking, soul-baring stuff is the life blood of faith. In ways we can’t ever really explain or understand, it connects us to our Maker and it allows us to intervene on behalf of hurting, suffering people, but it was never meant as a substitute for manifesting the character of Christ where our feet hit the planet.
The Biblical command to pray unceasingly, was never an excuse for praying only.
As you look around, as you watch your news feed, as you work and study and live every day, as you consider the massive need in your midst, prayer may certainly be what you’re compelled to do first, but maybe it’s not what you’re called to do, ultimately.
Christian, you’ve been given a wealth of riches by which to bless the world. You’ve been given relationships, and places, and moments to bring those gifts to bear on people’s lives.
Maybe it’s time that you got up off your knees, and off your rear end, and stepped into messy, inconvenient business of healing and helping.
So yes, pray.
Then, go be the answer to a prayer.
