Part I - Airy-Fairy Prayer

"That man cannot possibly be called a Christian, who does not pray. By no possible pretext can he claim any right to the term, nor its implied significance. If he does not pray he is a sinner [ unbeliever ], pure and simple. For prayer is the only way in which the soul of man can enter in to fellowship and communion with the source of all Christ-like spirit and energy. Hence, if he prays not, he is not of the household of faith."

E.M. Bounds, The Complete Works of E.M. Bounds on Prayer (Baker Books).

I’m willing to bet that if you are like most people who pray infrequently, your prayers tend to be something like this (and please note that you do not have to be Catholic to pray like this):

"I knelt and started to pray and prayed for everybody I thought of, Brett and Mike and Bill and Robert Cohn and myself, and all the bull-fighters, and separately for the ones I liked, and lumping all the rest, then I prayed for myself again, and while I was praying for myself I found I was getting sleepy, so I prayed that the bull-fights would be good, and that it would be a fine fiesta, and that we would get some fishing. I wondered if there was anything else I might pray for, and I thought I would like to have some money, so I prayed that I would make a lot of money, and then I started to think how I would make it, and thinking of making money reminded me of the count, and I started wondering about where he was, and regretting I hadn’t seen him since that night in Montmarte, and about something funny Brett told me about him, and as all the time I was kneeling with my forehead on the wood in the front of me and was thinking of myself as praying, I was a little ashamed, and regretted that I was such a rotten Catholic, but realized there was nothing I could do about it, at least for a while, and maybe never, but that anyway it was a grand religion, and I only wished I felt religious, and maybe I would the next time ..."

Ernest Hemingway, The Sun Also Rises, (Charles Scribners Sons)

What do I think is wrong with this prayer? Everything. That is, it is about everything, so it ends up being about nothing. So many things are being prayed for that it will be very hard for this man to tell if any of his prayers were really answered by God or if anything that resulted was just something that would have happened naturally anyway. The person praying this prayer is obviously not paying attention to his prayers. He is certainly not writing them down to see if they do get answered. And because of that he will not be able to thank God for the answers to them later on.

It’s also pretty apparent that he has absolutely no belief that he will get any of the items requested because of prayer. All of the items he has prayed for are items that could be gotten through natural means. And it is likely that his unbelief is such as it is because he has never seen a prayer answered - or one of his prayers anyway. And that is likely because he does not really know the recipient of his prayers. He could just as well be addressing his prayers to the air, for all he cares. And this tells us that he is not used to praying and doesn’t do it very often.

Those prayers above are what I call "airy-fairy" prayers. They are so much about nothing and for nothing and expect nothing that they might just as well be air puffed into the wind. The person praying these prayers is really performing a superstitious act no different from tossing salt over his shoulder, or avoiding stepping on a crack in the pavement, or rubbing his lucky rabbit’s foot. He would be better off believing in fairies. His prayers are "airy-fairy" prayers. Why should God even answer prayers like those? They are essentially prayers born of unbelief.

This book is not about "airy-fairy" prayer. It is about concrete prayer. Prayer that reaches God’s ear and is answered in one way or another. It is the kind of prayer whose answers help you to come to know God intimately, and help you to see that that is the reason God answers concrete prayers in the first place. God would like you to begin to know Him as the God of answered prayer. Concrete prayer.

I’m going to thoroughly layout for you what’s wrong with "airy-fairy" prayers. You will need to know this so that you can spot when you are making a prayer like that while you are learning to pray in a more concrete fashion.

"Airy-fairy" prayers are characterized by:

1.) an unknown recipient,
2.) a lack of direction,
3.) a lack of belief,
4.) a lack of expectation and "book keeping,"
5.) a lack of persistence,
6.) a lack of thanksgiving.