Unconscious Inhibitions to Caring

There is another item I want to touch on before leaving the topic of passion and persistence in prayer.

I believe that there is a particular reason why Christians pray without persistence and without passion. I believe it’s because of a flaw that exists in most Christian’s relationship with their Lord. I believe that this flaw is yet another thing that is unconsciously fostered by many Christian assemblies.

The flaw is this: Many Christian assemblies denigrate the lower reaches of Christian service by constantly comparing it with the upper reaches of service. And because of this the young people, and the adults they become, begin to unconsciously believe the exact opposite of what Christ once declared: "... the Son of man is not come to destroy men's lives, but to save them." (Luke 9:56, KJV)

What I am talking about is the tendency of Christian assemblies to exalt the lives of the most mature and hardy Christians (both past and present) and then use their example as a bludgeon to attempt to get a similar performance out of immature, weak, and even new Christians.

There are the many sermons and books about the great missionaries who went from having a normal life to experiencing a life of struggle, hardship, privation, and eventual martyrdom. There is the tendency to focus on the martyrs who have died particularly gristly and painful deaths And there is the tendency to exalt the servants of Christ who have brought millions and millions of hearts to our Lord, at the expense of giving nearly every once of their lives to Christ.

Now, I’m not saying that these things are not to be aspired to by those who have been prepared by Christ to receive them with thanksgiving. And certainly the word of exhortation is a spiritual gift of Christ to His assemblies. But what is going on here is that little acorns are being asked to compare themselves to mighty oaks and feel that more is being asked of them than their current level of growth will support.

What a mature and hardy Christian would see as something to thank God for, an immature Christian might unconsciously perceive as senseless self-destruction purely for self-destruction’s sake. The feeling is that one is being asked to become a sort of Christian suicide-bomber. The message is: "Throw your life away and Get Paid Above."

I’ll lay down my cards here. There is a particular incident in my own spiritual past that makes me address this topic with this level of vehemence.

My spiritual life began in my high school years when I "went forward" during an "alter call" in the particular church I was attending at the time. There I was, a brand new born-again young Christian in a typical fundamental church. My walk in Christ had just begun. My understanding of the Bible was spotty. I understood very little of theological issues. I understood very little of myself. I did not know how to pray properly. And my "testimony" - my personal little "advertisement" for Christianity - was virtually non-existent because I was new to the life of faith.

So what did the pastor of my church do? He took me and some other young Christians like me out on door to door canvassing campaigns to draw people within a certain radius of the church into coming in to the meeting. We little lambs in Christ were then witness to "the power of God unto salvation" in form of a thousand doors being slammed in our faces. And we were later exhorted vigorously to do futilities like that on our own "at home, at school, at play." It was our "reasonable service" as "living sacrifices." (Romans 12:1). This was all without regard to what our growth in Christ was capable of bearing, and without regard to any real training or understanding of what prayer really was.

Later on I came to realize that the real goal of the pastor (even if only unconsciously) was to get more tithers into his church, and more people sitting in his pews, so he could consider himself a spiritual success. I also came to see that there was a compulsive element in his ministry that made his public prayers adjuncts of his unconscious drives rather than real communications with God.

Young believers are so immature that they do not yet have the spiritual eyes to truly see loss in this world as gain in Christ. If they are forced to make sacrifices for which they have no spiritual eyes for (i.e. unreasonable sacrifices) , they will begin to pick up the unconscious habit of being afraid to be completely open and honest with God in prayer on a continuing basis. They begin to unconsciously disbelieve Christ’s words about the fundamental basis of prayer:

Luke 11:11-13
11 If a son shall ask bread of any of you that is a father, will he give him a stone? or if he ask a fish, will he for a fish give him a serpent?
12 Or if he shall ask an egg, will he offer him a scorpion?
13 If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children: how much more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask him?
(KJV)
This unconscious habit continues with new believers for the rest of their lives and it inhibits their spiritual growth to a remarkable degree.
It has to be remembered that Christianity is very much about growth. And it is only out of growth that service to Christ of any lasting worth can come.

But I will leave this topic now so that I can address it in the chapter on corporate prayer. For now I just want to mention this widespread unconscious mental habit so that it can be brought out into the open and prayed about.