"Your thoughts grow wider and higher. Your selfishness melts away. You become Christlike. You bless mankind." Laubach
Clarice Bowman and George Harper: What happens when we pray? What results can be expected?
- If we are praying as we should, such questions are not our worry. "The issue is in the hands of God."
Results of prayer cannot be measured: kinetically, as in power reaction; or quantitatively, as in a test tube. Many years (or, by contrast, a matter of seconds) may elapse before the results of a single prayer are realized.
Looking feverishly for results betrays lack of trust. St. Monica prayed for years for her wayward son Augustine. The day came when he gave himself completely to the will and way of God, and his Confessions (334-430 A.D.) help point the way for others. What if Monica had grown impatient for results and stopped praying?
Some expect dramatic, even fantastic, results from prayer. Some will make astonishing claims as to benefits they have derived from prayer. Others, hearing, may seek those same results; but failing to receive them in identical fashion, may develop doubts about prayer.
Prayer is powerful. Yet its power is not so much that of the sledgehammer, crushing with one blow, as that of the young plant nurtured by sunlight and moisture and soil, pushing its way upward through concrete.
There are three avenues down which we may look for results from prayer:
1. Growing fellowship with God
2. Growing transformation of ourselves
3. Growing Godlike concern for others and willingness to serve
1. Growing fellowship with God
Prayer centers in God. Its major result should be to help us to grow in our knowledge of Him, and in our consciousness of fellowship with Him.
"Revelations" of the nature of God come to us through prayer. We learn better how to interpret His ways of working through His physical universe, and through people.
God does not step out of the physical and moral order He has created, to answer prayer. He does not act upon whims. He does not show favoritism, nor upsets the dependability of those laws which furnish security for all who live. Yet on the other hand, in the words of Dr. Radcliffe, "He is not a prisoner entangled in his own universe."
"There are undoubtedly times when man's cooperation with God in prayer fulfills the moral and spiritual conditions for the release of His emergent purpose." Radcliffe
Laubach tries to imagine God's response to the soul seeking communion with Him:
"I have been waiting for this moment all your life, waiting until you opened the channel, so that I could speak. I have wonderful plans for you which cannot be realized until you listen as you are listening now." Laubach
The direct consciousness of divine response is not always experienced in every prayer; and not experienced in any two people in identical ways; and not experienced the same way twice in the experience of any one person. An endless variety of adventurers awaits the pray-er!
2. Growing transformation of ourselves
"Lord, what a change within us one short hour spent in Thy presence will avail to make."
Our selves are the instruments through which prayer takes place. Certain drives have been placed within us - drives common to all persons, whatever their race, color, creed, or nation. Much of our waking time and effort is spent in satisfying these drives, whether consciously or unconsciously.
First, there are our organic needs. Within us is the urge for self-preservation that causes us to seek food, shelter, warmth, sleep. Some make physical security the goal of their lives. Prayer helps to overcome slavery to physical appetites. The human body is a marvelous servant, but a tyrannical master. Paul advanced through prayer until he could say, "I keep my body under and bring it into subjection." (1 Cor. 9:27)
A second major drive is that for response and recognition from other persons. Man does not live alone. We crave response from others. We are social to the core of our natures. This need finds high expression in the union of man and woman. The kind of response some seek from others is in terms of what others can do for them. Some of us are still Pharisees doing good works to be seen of men. Wherever people make persons a means to their ends, human values are being sacrificed. Reform from slavery, from terrible prison conditions, from economic servitude, from prejudice, from wars, will come only when people learn, through hearts made sensitive in prayer, to respect others' personalities as sacred in the sight of God. "Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself" is a moral law written into human relationships.
Prayer helps our sympathies to grow, almost without our willing it. Persons count more with us. We become like highly sensitized film. We take more of a God's eye view. Headlines stating in bold generalizations, "10,000 estimated killed" will stab us with fierce agony. As self-interest fades, we become a channel through which God's love flows, less hindered than before. Imaginations are kindled. Thoughts come as to new ways into other lives, that we may lead them into His love.
Third is the major drive for a sense of achievement. Man longs to express himself - from the grunts and gestures of primitive man, to our complicated network of printing, radio, and television. Sue bakes a cake. Jim plays a saxophone. Both have confidence for they have mastered a piece of their world.
Prayer helps us rethink what goals we are seeking to achieve. When goals have been selected that appear in harmony with God's will, prayer nerves us with new confidence for action.
Prayer helps to heal the spiritual "diseases" that may sap our strength, endanger our mental health, and make us difficult persons to live with. Any failure to rise to our God-selves - physically, mentally, socially, spiritually - may be called, in the language of psychology, "diseases"; or in the language of religion, "sins."
Guilt-sense is such a disease. Everyone makes mistakes. Some are most embarrassing. Through prayer, we experience God's forgiveness and loving strength so that we can move forward, although the fact of the mistake is not erased nor its consequences waived.
Tension is another such disease. Sin splits personality apart. All of us are at times the victims of contradictory impulses. The judgment wars with the emotions. Through prayer, impulses become fused around a dominant purpose and Personality. We need not strain any longer. Relaxed, we can let God work in and through us. "It is no longer I that live, but Christ liveth in me" (Gal. 2:20). We are not merely a reservoir with only so much to give before draining dry; we are channels attached to unlimited resources!
Needless to observe, all life is quickened to higher powers when such calmness and strength are realized. Among the results are flashes of insight which surprise us.
These drives, God-implanted as they are, are the "raw materials" for Christian character development. With them, God has given us the power of choice. Personality, once it finds its natural heritage in God through prayer, has almost limitless possibilities!
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3. Growing Godlike concern for others and willingness to serve
Prayer takes God's concern for others and lays it on our hearts. It is but human to respond to those whose sufferings we can see or whose cries we can hear; it is divine to respond to those too far away to see or hear, except through the eyes and ears of the heart.
We can train ourselves through prayer to "recognize" without hesitation others as brothers of God. Such recognition saves us from degrading reactions of enmity or blame or ill-will.
Kagawa states in striking language where he thinks men will find God:
"God dwells among the lowliest of men. He sits on the dust heap among the prison convicts. With the juvenile delinquents he stands at the door begging bread. He throngs with the beggars at the place of alms. He is among the sick. He stands in line with the unemployed ..." Kagawa
Are we willing to dedicate mind, imagination, will, energy to "following-through," so as to prove the workability of God's way of love?
The early Christians had three qualities: they believed in God; they believed in prayer; and they believed in a new era to come. No wonder their gladness was so convincing. They took each step as if accompanied by an Invisible Companion.
Praying people can be the peace-makers and the pace-makers. Going forth with conviction that they are men and women of destiny, they will find ways every hour that God can use them!
"... a keen sense of social responsibility has not kept pace with scientific development. In this interdependent world a single act of ours may affect the lives and destinies of multitudes of people unknown to us ... church people owning stock in munitions factories ... sale of distillery stock ... business men accepting enormous dividends immediately after crushing reduction in the wages of workers... The content of social application must be put into the teaching concerning individual regeneration." Geer
Often the test comes in a simple way. God does answer our prayer. His spirit begins to lead our thinking, that has been turned over to Him. God opens the door of our minds - not with a clap of thunder, but with the name of a person that keeps coming into our thoughts, or with the remembrance of a letter that ought to be written, or with a concern that keeps bidding us investigate and act. We think these little thoughts that keep bothering us while we pray are distractions, of which we must be rid, before we can hear the still small voice. Sometimes they are; but we must look at them carefully. They may be the keys with which God opens the door to service.
A simple problem or concern may gnaw at our hearts. Answering that, we may be led to a larger one next time. God puts upon us a few central tasks. We cannot die on every cross every day - nor are we expected to. There are differences of talent and skill among His children. He matches the expectation with the person. But He expects us not to drain off the great challenge into a lot of non-essentials. There are high moments when the soul is bade to
"Attempt great things for God!" - "Expect great things from God."
First test each impulse for action by what you know of the life and teachings of Jesus. If at any point, the impulse is not in line, then you may doubt that you are being guided.
Being born again through prayer
What was Jesus' way of seeking for the Kingdom of God? Where did He look? He looked within. He climbed the mountain, not to look for far routes to travel, or even for places of need that called Him, but to be alone with God. He knew that the Father who drew the plans for His life would prove to be the most willing counselor to help Him work out those plans. He knew that it was useless to organize and plan and work, until He was absolutely sure within Himself of what God had planned for Him.
When a man awakens to that life plan, it is like being born again [or "begotten again", if you prefer]. The second birth is more important than the first. Without it no meaningful membership in the family of God is entered. It is useless to talk of the "brotherhood of man" and the "Fatherhood of God" without this second birth; for physical kinship is too weak a tie to bind a universe of personalities together into a family. In seeking God's plan, we are not taking on a strange new life, so much as we are being restored to the life God planned for us to begin with. We are prodigals coming home.
The world being born again through lives of prayer
The world about us is born again through the simple acts of everyday life. We rise from our knees to go about doing ordinary necessary things in the routines of the day. We meet friends upon the street, sit around the family table and talk about the news of the day. Yet in the simple walks of everyday life, the world can be made new. "One loving soul sets another on fire." How often do we make a light thing of friendship, when in reality true friendship is infinite? Family love is the most sacred thing on earth, yet we make it a farce in thousands of homes today - and in our love affairs in high school and college.
We begin to see what prayer for a Christian world order involves. It means first that we will try to abolish all hatred, anger, fear, intolerance, selfishness, and all the things wars are made of, from our own lives. In their places, we will put unselfish love for all men whatever their color or condition in life.
When I have made my personal life consistent with my prayer for a Christian world order, then I am ready to take the second step. Some plead that society must be cured of its ills before the individual can live a Christian life. What they say is true; but they may defeat their purpose by separating society from the individuals who make it up. On the other hand, there are religious people who think that salvation has no relation to the world and that unless the individual is changed the kingdom cannot come. What they say is true, too; but they may defeat their purpose by failing to see that what a man does and the kind of society he is content with helps determine what he is.
I must match my belief with action. I must study hard to learn what is the best type of political order. I must do my best to see that the men who work for that way get my vote and confidence. I will not ask God for a new world order, and then leave my part of the politics and business of the world up to someone who does not share the same desire.
Not only as individuals must we live out our prayers, but as large groups - youth fellowships across nations and across the world, church and churches banded together. Are we guilty of having felt that the issues at stake were too big to be changed? Have we knocked without expecting that doors would be opened unto us? Have we voiced our convictions in a manner that has been more voice than conviction?
"The speaking on the part of those who do it is sometimes considered the end of the process; and those who have traditionally opposed the speaking, after a while tend to consider it a necessary safety outlet for the enthusiasm of youth, knowing full well that it will end there and nothing dangerous will happen. Something dangerous ought to happen. The Christian faith is a revolutionary faith. It grows out of the life of a man who did what He professed and acted as He spoke. We must learn, as youth fellowships, to act as we speak; and sometimes to refrain from speaking until we have acted and tested our thought in the actual experience of a life situation." Bremer
Did Jesus mean that if we wanted to see Christian ideas inserted into governmental plans, we ought to knock at the door of the treaty-rooms and UNO and other meeting rooms until they are opened to us? But what if we knock and are refused admittance? Then knock again and again. The world is not run on whim and fancy, but ultimately on the laws of God; and what is in harmony with those laws will not be forced outside forever. It takes courage to knock and knock again. Almost anyone can muster courage to knock or call once. But it takes a dogged, determined courage to keep knocking, even with no prospect in sight of the door's opening. How many times have we knocked on the door of race relations? How often do we rap on the door labeled "social morality?" Race prejudice is so deeply ingrained in American life that it can move even church members to commit terrible crimes. Social immorality is very profitable for industries like the liquor industry that runs into billions of dollars every year. But as long as these and other doors are locked to Christ and His way of life, Christian persons ought to knock and keep knocking. For every single knock helps to increase the vibration that shall one day bring the house of sin crashing down, and the world's doors shall be opened. "Ask, and ye shall receive. Seek, and ye shall find. Knock, and it shall be opened unto you." (Matt. 7:7)
God's call to a life of service
Remembering that only intelligent, persistent, whole-hearted prayer brings results in life, we seek guidance in the spirit of Gethsemane, "Nevertheless ... not my will but Thine ..." (Luke 22:42). Instead of instructing God in our prayers as to the task we prefer to be called to, we place ourselves willingly at His disposal for use where He sees fit, and at whatever task He wills.
We must be careful lest we miss that call. Sometimes our minds are so made up as to the lifework we prefer that it is impossible for us to hear His call. While it is true that God uses our own preferences and bents to call us to a task, there are other ways He calls us as well.
Another danger is constantly with us, too: that of expecting God's will to come in some certain pattern or way. We must be alert to all of life, for His call may come through any aspect of our awareness. God may call a man to a life of scientific research by letting him watch an apple fall. Or he may call a man to paint a great portrait of Christ through the appeal of paintings in his own home as a boy. Or he may call a man to the ministry through the suggestion of another man. God may call you in a way you wouldn't dream, to do a job that you alone can do.
However the call may come, three steps of preparation are always in keeping:
(a) Wait in prayer before the Lord, in a manner that is as patient as it is earnest. Ask Him to show you a door through which you may pass to your largest service. Do not expect a sudden sureness; perhaps conviction will grow gradually as the dawn.
(b) Study diligently the life and teachings of Jesus; and the record of God's ways with men, in the Bible. See how others have followed.
(c) Do not allow yourself to become complacent in the face of the needs in society. The very mass of suffering in the world may cause us to grow immune.
Make a list of the things that need doing, the conditions that need to be remedied, within your own realm of experience. Form the habit of looking squarely at the needs around you. Remember that the deepest needs are sometimes spiritual ones that may not be associated with poor housing or inadequate food. The list will be long, even if you live in the "best" part of town, or if the people involved are largely church members!
Our prayer for a call to the task is not ended when the call comes. It has only begun! Our prayer becomes our life - if we yield our all to the call - and God's Kingdom is one person nearer.
Closer to God, our Father - more like Christ our Brother ...
Introduction to Power
Chapter One. Prayer and my Life
Chapter Two. Preparing to Grow in our Prayer Life
Chapter Three. Discovering what Prayer Means
Chapter Four. A Rainbow of Moods in Prayer
Chapter Five. Overcoming Difficulties
Chapter Six. Aids in Achieving "Disciples' Disciplines"
Chapter Seven. Prayer Changes Things and Persons
Chapter Eight. Toward a Fellowship of Power
By Clarice Bowman and George Harper, Source, Nashville, 1947
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