The Use and Abuse of Prayer

The first problem any writer on prayer has is to convince people that prayer actually does accomplish things. The second problem is that, having convinced people that prayer does indeed accomplish things, people then have to be taught not to abuse it. This consideration brings us to the topic of what we should pray for and what we should not pray for.


This not a small consideration. Many people are not aware of just how wrong one can go in prayer. Consider these verses of scripture:


Prov 30:24-28
24 There be four things which are little upon the earth, but they are exceeding wise:
25 The ants are a people not strong, yet they prepare their meat in the summer;
26 The conies [ rock badgers ] are but a feeble folk, yet make they their houses in the rocks;
27 The locusts have no king, yet go they forth all of them by bands;
28 The spider taketh hold with her hands, and is in kings' palaces.
(KJV)

Isa 1:3
3 The ox knoweth his owner, and the ass his master's crib: but Israel doth not know, my people doth not consider.
(KJV)


All you have to know to know that God knows what He is doing, is to imagine the earth never having had human beings populating it. Think of all the beauties of nature, pristine and undiminished by human depredation and waste. All you have to know to know that human beings do not know what they are doing is to just look at what they have made of the earth by making it uglier and uglier year by year.

In the natural realm created by God, all His creatures engage in a network of emergent behavior that preserves nature and keeps it in balance. The ox knows his owner, and the ass his master’s crib. And the wild things know their places on the earth.

But with the coming of Man and his descent into alienation from God (“the Flesh”), human beings engage in a network of emergent behavior (“the World”) that is destructive not only of nature, but of themselves as well. This process is readily apparent to anyone with eyes, and needs only a small degree of help from the Devil to keep it moving along.

Yes, we Christians are redeemed by Christ’s death and resurrection into a new creation.

2 Cor 5:17
17 Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.
(KJV)


But, while we have mortal bodies on earth, that new creation continues to share space in us with the old fleshly nature.


Gal 5:16-25
16 This I say then, Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh.
17 For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh: and these are contrary the one to the other: so that ye cannot do the things that ye would.
18 But if ye be led of the Spirit, ye are not under the law.
19 Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these; Adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness,
20 Idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies,
21 Envyings, murders, drunkenness, revellings, and such like: of the which I tell you before, as I have also told you in time past, that they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God.
22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith,
23 Meekness, temperance: against such there is no law.
24 And they that are Christ's have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts.
25 If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit.
(KJV)


It is only when our bodies are as redeemed as our spirits that we will fully enter into Sonship to God by adoption:


Rom 8:14-15
14 For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God.
15 For ye have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear; but ye have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father.
(KJV)

Rom 8:22-23
22 For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now.
23 And not only they, but ourselves also, which have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body.
(KJV)


This has consequences for our prayer life, and it is James who names what these consequences are:


James 4:1-3
1 From whence come wars and fightings among you? come they not hence, even of your lusts that war in your members?
2 Ye lust, and have not: ye kill, and desire to have, and cannot obtain: ye fight and war, yet ye have not, because ye ask not.
3 Ye ask, and receive not, because ye ask amiss, that ye may consume it upon your lusts.
(KJV)


As Christians, we come before God in prayer, and yet in the back of our minds there may be conscious or unconscious desires that may bleed themselves into the kind of praying we do.

There is, for example, Joseph the son of Jacob who had many vicissitudes on his way to becoming the prime minister of ancient Egypt (Genesis 37 to 50). In his long career, there was little he did wrong. But towards the end of his father’s life, he brought his two sons to his father to have them blessed. He presumed that his father would place each of his hands straight out to touch each son. So he positioned each of his sons so that the one he preferred would get the better blessing. Instead, his father, led of the Spirit of God, crossed one hand over the other and gave more blessing to the less preferred son. Joseph was upset with this, but Jacob confirmed to him that it was indeed God’s will. Sometimes God’s will thwarts our own will.


Another example is the rich young ruler who asked Christ what he could do to obtain eternal life. Christ told him to sell all he had and follow Him. The young man balked at this and thus revealed that he wanted eternal life, not so much so that he could enjoy the presence of God forever, but so that he could go on being the rich young ruler forever and ever and ever.


A lot of times we pray for things when we really have no idea what it is that will really make us happy.

I once read a book by a man who worked his way up from a modest income into wealth. This man wrote that once he had worked himself into wealth, he spend a year or two living in style with a big expensive house, with a housekeeping staff and a chauffeur- driven limo, night-time parties, and etc., etc. But he said that in the third year of his wealth, he got tired of all the hoopla, fuss, and aggravation his wealthy lifestyle gave him. He then down shifted into relative anonymity and a basically middle class lifestyle, and was much happier. And this of course called into question why he thought it was so necessary to be that wealthy in the first place.

And then there is the ungodly kind of importunacy that can bring a praying person to the borderlands of witchcraft and occult phenomena. Here is an example from Kurt Koch’s Christian Counseling and Occultism (Kregel Publications, 1972):

“About ten years ago, a group of eighteen missionaries drawn from various missionary societies decided to hold a week of prayer together at the town of Toyama in Japan. Their aim, an aim I could have subscribed to myself, was to be re-equipped by the Holy Spirit for the tasks He had given them to do.
“As the week progressed, however, a certain tendency towards extremism started to creep into their prayers. Basing their requests on the verse, ‘The Kingdom of Heaven suffers violence, and men of violence take it by force,’ the missionaries began to demand that God should bless them. Instead of submitting themselves to the power of the Holy Spirit they wanted the Holy Spirit within their own power.
“... After a few days the missionaries suddenly found themselves speaking in ‘new tongues.’ They were overjoyed. This was the renewal they had been seeking.”
“... Cutting a long and tragic story short, 15 of the missionaries later not only lost their experience but also forsook their missionary calling and returned to secular occupations. Another of the men, the missionary from whom I had first heard the story, died within the next two years, while the remaining two missionaries were only able to continue with their work after they had renounced their Toyama experience.”

The above story demonstrates just how important it was for the disciples to be taught to say “Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done, in earth, as it is in heaven.” Of late, I’ve come to the rather shocking conclusion that the only difference there is between prayer and witchcraft is whose will one wants to see done on earth.

One of the pillars of modern occultism is a man named Aleister Crowley (1875-1947). He is famous for reviving the ancient practice of summoning up demons to execute the will of men. He called this practice “magick” in order to distinguish it from non-supernatural stage conjuring. And he called the practice “the science and art of causing change [in one’s perceived reality ] in conformity with will.” And whose will did he have in mind? Well, his famous dictum was “DO WHAT THOU WILT SHALL BE THE WHOLE OF THE LAW.” It is one’s own will that Crowley saw as primary to the practice of magick. And in this, the prophet Samuel concurred when he rebuked King Saul for substituting his own initiative for what the LORD God of Israel had explicitly commanded Saul to do:

1 Sam 15:22-23
22 And Samuel said, Hath the LORD as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of the LORD? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat of rams.
23 For rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft, and stubbornness is as iniquity and idolatry. Because thou hast rejected the word of the LORD, he hath also rejected thee from being king.
(KJV)

The interesting thing about Crowley’s practice of magick is that he warned his disciples about the law of unintended consequences. He said that when magick is performed to get result “X”, it might instead show up as half an “X,” or double “X,” or minus “X.” I.e. if magick is performed in order to receive $5,000, the result might instead show up as check for $2,500, or a bill for $5,000, or a gift worth $10,000, or an accident that costs $2,500. The present author has read of an occultist who suffered the loss of a child through murder. That occultist had earlier in life performed a magick ceremony to place a “shield of protection” around another child. Such is magick.

But it is also a little bit like prayer that becomes too importunate. When the present author was a young man, he heard a story about a woman who was getting close to menopause without having had a child. The story is that she kept on praying and praying and praying to have a child the older she got. Eventually, she did have a child, but it turned out to be a Down’s syndrome child.

But unlike magick, there was no a cruelty in this. It turns out that Down’s syndrome children are - for all the care they require - the sweetest kind of children there are to have. They are loving and happy. And they do not outgrow giving their parents hugs and kisses. The LORD God knew that there must needs be a certain number Down’s syndrome children born into this world, and He apparently took this woman’s importunacy as a signal to give her one of these precious children.