At our baby dedication services, we ask parents to make a covenant commitment with our church to raise their children in light of the gospel. The commitment is huge– trusting God and seeking his help in  disciplining, teaching, and praying for our kids. Committing to all of that can sound really freaky for new parents. But most new parents we encounter were freaking out before we made it sound so formal. If you are reading this post, you probably don’t need to be told to be a good and godly parent.  Most of us assume this is our responsibility. But knowing it and living it out are two different things. So, this week, I’m writing about some lies we believe that keep us from being intentional in our most basic parenting responsibility—prayer. Here is the second of seven:

2. God is impersonal and distant. He isn’t close to me.  We may sometimes ask, “What’s the difference between praying and just hoping for things? Does God really care?”  Or we might say, “I’m afraid that God won’t answer, ­and if he doesn’t, I’m afraid that I won’t believe any more.” In some ways, these questions represent the obstacle that is behind all of the obstacles to prayer–doubt and unbelief. We struggle to believe that God is good, personal, and intimate. And if (when) we can’t believe these things, we won’t come to Him.

But the good news is that God has come to us in Jesus. The fact that God has sent His son Jesus Christ to earth, to live among us, and to die for us is a demonstration of God’s intimate, personal love. In the midst of the apostle Paul’s instructions to men in the church to “lift up holy hands” in prayer for the government (1 Timothy 2:1-6), we read a surprising summary of the gospel. Verses 5-6 say, “There is one God, and one mediator between God and mankind, the man Christ Jesus who gave himself as a ransom for all men” This is why we pray. This is how we can have faith that God is near. He has already drawn near to us in Jesus.

The response to doubting that God is near is believing we can pray with confidence in our Father’s intimate love, because he has demonstrated this love on the cross. 

A Psalm that is helpful to pray when we believe that God is impersonal is Psalm 139. It describes God’s intimate knowledge of us and love for us:

¹ You have searched me, LORD,
and you know me.
² You know when I sit and when I rise;
you perceive my thoughts from afar.
³ You discern my going out and my lying down;
you are familiar with all my ways.
⁴ Before a word is on my tongue
you, LORD, know it completely.
⁵ You hem me in behind and before,
and you lay your hand upon me.
⁶ Such knowledge is too wonderful for me,
too lofty for me to attain.

 ⁷ Where can I go from your Spirit?
Where can I flee from your presence?
⁸ If I go up to the heavens, you are there;
if I make my bed in the depths, you are there.
⁹ If I rise on the wings of the dawn,
if I settle on the far side of the sea,
¹⁰ even there your hand will guide me,
your right hand will hold me fast.

Psalm 139:1-10

The 7 lies are adapted from Megan’s notes for the First Steps for Baby Dedication class. The next baby dedication is on Sunday, April 22nd. If you would like to participate…

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Most of what I’m sharing here has been born out of intense personal experience. I’ve wrestled with these doubts.  And over and over again I find myself believing these lies about prayer.  I am not writing as one who has “figured out” prayer. Deitrich Bonhoeffer has said, “True teachers in prayer can only help by directing to the one who must Himself help us pray.” So, this is not going to be 12 secrets to a great prayer life, or a clever acronym to help you remember how to pray “the right way.” It is not about heaping guilt on ourselves in regards to how much we “should” pray.  It is not even about tricks to help us pray more, although I will share some tools that may be helpful. I just want to expose the lies of our hearts that keep us from communing with God, and hopefully point you to Jesus, who is the only one who can help us find the grace that is prayer. So, here is the first of seven obstacles to prayer.

1.  God is indifferent to my prayers. We may sometimes ask, ”Why should I pray since God already knows what he’s going to do? What difference does it make?” This is a temptation to be cynical about prayer. Some people say, “Prayer doesn’t change anything. It just changes you.” Have you heard this objection? Have you ever thought this? In Matthew 7:7­-11, Jesus teaches us that we should ask. If we as parents give our children good gifts, “how much more will our Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him!” Jesus doesn’t just command us to believe this truth, he gives us a logical argument for praying with faith.

In the section on prayer in his book Bible Doctrine (158-159), Wayne Grudem deals with the tension of knowing God is sovereign, and yet reading verses that indicate our prayers are effective. He concludes that while God does not need us to tell him what we need (Jesus says in Matthew 6:8 that he knows what we need before we ask), prayer does allow us as creatures to be involved in activities that are eternally important. Even though we can’t explain exactly how it works, it is clear that in prayer we participate in God’s sovereign will.

The way this works is a mystery.  Sometimes difficult to accept because we want to understand how it works!  Paul Miller describes the mysterious nature of prayer.  He says, “We try to figure out the mystery, it will elude us. Some things disappear when you try to capture or observe them-the most precious things in life can’t be proven or observed directly.” He goes on to describe this using the example of a child with autism.  Many of you may know that we have a daughter who is profoundly affected by autism.  One of the defining characteristics of autism is that children with autism often struggle to make eye contact with people.  Instead, they sometimes look at people out of the corners of their eyes.  The theory is that because of the way they process sensory input, it is too overwhelming for them to look directly at people.  Prayer is similar. Miller says, “It is too overwhelming for us to look at prayer directly. We must look at it sideways, out of the corners of our eyes.”

The response to our cynicism is believing that we can pray with expectation, even though we don’t fully understand how it all works. 

Psalm 34 speaks to this lie that God is indifferent to our prayers.  It describes how we can pray with the expectation that God will be responsive:

⁴ I sought the LORD, and he answered me;
he delivered me from all my fears.
⁵ Those who look to him are radiant;
their faces are never covered with shame.
⁶ This poor man called, and the LORD heard him;
he saved him out of all his troubles.
⁷ The angel of the LORD encamps around those who fear him,
and he delivers them.
⁸ Taste and see that the LORD is good;
blessed is the one who takes refuge in him.
⁹ Fear the LORD, you his holy people,
for those who fear him lack nothing.
¹⁰ The lions may grow weak and hungry,
but those who seek the LORD lack no good thing.
Psalm 34:4-10