Our Prayers, God's Prayers
Prayer is life with God and sometimes involves words
This is a follow-up post to “Imperfect Prayers,” which I posted in the spring (you should definitely read it). In that post, I reflected on George S. Stewart’s claim that “God does not need a perfect expression of the heart’s desire. It is God to whom we come and in whom we trust, not in the quality of our prayers and the steadiness of our minds.” In a “reiterated topic paragraph,” I said:
We trust that God will understand our prayers beyond the quality and capability of our words. We trust that God will understand the desires of our hearts, the desires below those desires, and the yet deeper desires underneath—the desires that emanate from the imago Dei, which we may not even be conscious of. It is as if God is speaking to God’s self through the vessel of our prayers and desires.
I have some more thoughts about this last sentence, which I want to explore in this post. My driving question is: What counts as a prayer?
Does prayer count only if it is intentional? Do I need to address God directly for my prayer to reach the right person? Does prayer stop the moment I say Amen? Must prayer involve words—the right words?
What about cries for help that do not invoke God? What about emotions / experiences that overwhelm one’s ability to speak? What about “sending thoughts and prayers”?
The standard definition of prayer may be: a verbal statement addressed to God. But the more you ask questions, the more you tentatively explore the possibilities, the less “solid” prayer seems to be. It can take many forms; it is fluid like water: nourishing, necessary, easily grasped and not easy to grasp.
Whose Prayer Is It Anyway?
In his book Prayer and Modern Man, Jacques Ellul argues that “the sole reason for praying which remains for modern man” is obedience to God’s command (102). In other words, God told us to pray, so we should pray.
So, whether we feel our faith to be fecund or fallow, we get ourselves psyched up to pray, gathering the energy needed to string together some words. We dial God’s number, we initiate the call. We force ourselves to pray. “Will it be a true prayer if it is forced?” (Ellul 100).
But Ellul reminds us that because God has commanded us to pray, God has actually initiated the “dialogue” between us. “The order is not of force in and of itself, but as a summons which puts me completely into relationship with the one who is calling me. … The command given me already starts me off in a certain direction” (104).
When I pray, I am not starting a conversation with God. I am not “leading off” with the first word. I am responding to the conversation God has already begun.
Now the decision I should make in full knowledge is the decision to pray to this Lord who is the Father. But that decision, taken on my own responsibility, responds to a word which indeed has already been addressed to me. It is because of this prior word that prayer is a dialogue with God. … Prayer, however fervent, spontaneous and new, is never other than a sequel, a consequence, a response, to the word of invitation first made known in Scripture (Ellul 123).
Ellul asks, “Will it be a true prayer if it is forced?” I think we could Mad-Lib this question: “Will it be a true prayer if ________?” This is the question driving my inquiry. What counts as prayer?
Ellul has already answered his question earlier in the book: “Prayer comes to us as a decision of God” (60). That is, God chooses what counts as prayer. Fair enough. But what does that mean for me trying to do this thing called prayer?
Prayer is not a discourse. It is a form of life, the life with God. That is why it is not confined to the moment of verbal statement. The latter can only be the secondary expression of the relationship with God, an overflow from the encounter between the living God and the living person (Ellul 60).
Here Ellul says that prayer is not confined to words alone. Verbal prayer is “an overflow” of life with God. That life with God is itself prayer, with or without words. Perhaps we could say that life with God is prayer, and sometimes words are involved.
Prayer is not just about application and utility;
it’s about living full-time with God at the center.
Sybil MacBeth, Praying in Color 140
In this section, Ellul is arguing that prayer cannot be defined or even described by an analysis of its verbal content. We can’t say, “Prayer has to include these three elements” or “Prayer must involve these words” or “Prayer has to be at least this long.” He says that “prayer comes to us as a decision of God.”
Prayer is not to be analyzed like a language. It has none of that form or content, for it receives its content, not from what I have to say, but from the One to whom it is spoken (Ellul 61).
Now we’re getting further from what I was taught about prayer growing up (i.e., prayer is my words to God). Ellul claims that what I say has no bearing on whether a prayer is true prayer or not. The content of true prayer comes from God.
It is from the Interlocutor that this speech receives its validity. That this prayer can be what it is meant to be—a prayer—depends on him and not on me, still less on my ability to speak the adequate language (Ellul 61).
So my prayer doesn’t depend on proper locution, precise phraseology, the “right words.” Prayer depends on God.
For of course I can always pronounce a discourse supposedly addressed to God. I can arrange the sentences, but it is neither the harmony of the form, nor the elevation of the content, nor the fullness of the information which turns it into a prayer. … It becomes prayer by the decision of God to whom it is addressed, but then its nature undergoes a change. … For henceforth it is known as a prayer of Christ or as a prayer of the Holy Spirit. … Only when the Holy Spirit intercedes [cf. Romans 8:26–27], and in a way which cannot be expressed, that is, which transcends all verbalizing, all language, then is the prayer prayer, and it is a relationship with God (Ellul 61–62).
So God initiates the prayer by commanding us to pray. We respond with our own words—or perhaps groans, or maybe just simple attention and silence—and Christ / Holy Spirit take it up and it becomes transformed into something mysterious, something beyond our comprehension, something beyond what our words can analyze. Only then can it be called “prayer.” “It becomes prayer by the decision of God.”
Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness;
for we do not know how to pray as we ought,
but that very Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words.
And God, who searches the heart,
knows what is the mind of the Spirit,
because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.
Romans 8:26–27
Christ always lives to make intercession
for those who approach God through him.
Hebrews 7:25
I have a slight modification to Ellul’s statement. He says “It becomes prayer by the decision of God to whom it is addressed.” But I wonder—and again, this is the driving question of this post—if there can be such a thing as unintentional prayers? Can God decide that certain utterances or non-verbal cries or actions—whether addressed to God or not—count as prayer? Can God transform allegedly non-prayers into prayers? To God nothing is impossible.
So here’s how I would respond to the Ellul+ question, “Is it true prayer if ______?”
It is God who chooses whether uttered words (or groans) will become prayer. A person may not intend prayer, or they may pray begrudgingly; God may choose to accept these as prayer (much to our surprise). It is not our intentions but God’s choice that determines what prayer is.
The wish to pray is a prayer in itself.
Georges Bernanos (quoted in Sarah Bessey, A Rhythm of Prayer)
It’s not that we offer what we have, hoping God will recognize it as prayer. We’re not initiating that relationship, waiting for God’s decision. God has already begun the conversation, and whatever we offer is a response to God. God is waiting for our reply.
But maybe that’s not quite it, either. Maybe God’s Spirit works with us and in us so that, in a way, prayer—even reluctant or unintended—is God’s own word returning to God through us, having worked its transformation in our souls, no matter how imperceptible.
Perhaps prayer is like the water cycle. All water eventually returns to the sea, after having done its work of nourishing the land and its inhabitants. Similarly, prayer can be thought of as God’s word precipitating over and through us, nourishing us on its way back to God.
For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven,
and do not return there until they have watered the earth,
making it bring forth and sprout,
giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater,
so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth;
it shall not return to me empty,
but it shall accomplish that which I purpose,
and succeed in the thing for which I sent it.
Isaiah 55:10–11
In the words of Ellul: “Prayer is a gift from God, and … its reality depends upon [God] alone” (62).
Prayer Unintended
I cannot judge the intentions of others, so I can only make conjectures about what is “unintended.” But here are some possible examples from Scripture:
After a long time the king of Egypt died.
The Israelites groaned under their slavery, and cried out.
Out of the slavery their cry for help rose up to God.
God heard their groaning,
and God remembered his covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
God looked upon the Israelites,
and God took notice of them.
Exodus 2:23–25
The Israelites are slaves in Egypt. They “groan” and “cry out for help.” The text does not say explicitly that they pray to God, so that question is left open. Perhaps they have not called upon God directly, but God nevertheless has heard their cry. God hears, then God remembers, then God looks, and then God notices.
The text implies that before the Israelites “cried out,” God did not notice their suffering. Could we say that the covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob is God’s prior word to God’s people? Here this word returns to God—through the cry of the Israelites—and helps God remember.
Regardless of who the Israelites may or may not have invoked, their cry has come before God, and God decides to transform this cry into a prayer—a prayer which prompts God to action. God finds Moses in the wilderness and speaks to him through a burning bush.
Then the Lord said, “I have observed the misery of my people who are in Egypt; I have heard their cry on account of their taskmasters. Indeed, I know their sufferings, and I have come down to deliver them from the Egyptians, and to bring them up out of that land to a good and broad land, a land flowing with milk and honey, to the country of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites. The cry of the Israelites has now come to me; I have also seen how the Egyptians oppress them. So come, I will send you to Pharaoh to bring my people, the Israelites, out of Egypt.”
- Exodus 3:7–10
God reiterates “I have seen, I have heard.” God answers the cry of the Israelites (answering their prayer (or at least answering what God has decided is prayer) with action.
Interesting that God says “I have come down to deliver them … to bring them up out of that land” but also says, “So come, I will send you … to bring my people out of Egypt.” God will deliver Israel, but it will be performed through human action. Sometimes answers to prayer arrive in the form of our own obedience and courage.
When Moses arrives in Egypt and greets the people, telling them about his encounter with God in the wilderness, “the people believed; and when they heard that the Lord had given heed to the Israelites and that he had seen their misery, they bowed down and worshiped” (Exodus 4:31). It is only after the Israelites learn the Lord has heard their cries that they seem to give a direction to their prayer / worship. It’s as if their groans and cries went up aimlessly out of their suffering, but now that they know who answered (this particular God YHWH), they direct their worship accordingly. Now the ongoing conversation of prayer can be more intentional.
The Prayer That Wasn’t
On the flip side, here is a very intentional prayer that was not received as such by God.
Jesus also told this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous and regarded others with contempt: “Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector.
The Pharisee, standing by himself, was praying thus, ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other people: thieves, rogues, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week; I give a tenth of all my income.’
But the tax collector, standing far off, would not even look up to heaven, but was beating his breast and saying, ‘God, be merciful to me, a sinner!’
I tell you, this man went down to his home justified rather than the other; for all who exalt themselves will be humbled, but all who humble themselves will be exalted.”
- Luke 18:9–14
It might be tempting to say, “Well, the Pharisee’s prayer isn’t really a prayer, it’s just boasting in the direction of God.” But if we look down on the Pharisee and thank God we’re not like him, have we not just joined the Pharisee in the same pitfall?
To be fair, the text doesn’t say God “didn’t hear the Pharisee’s prayer,” but it does offer a warning and a model: pray in humility, not from a place of pride. God has some ready-made answers to prideful prayers.
But there are other indications in Scripture that one’s intentions are not the sole criterion for prayer to become true prayer.
“Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’
will enter the kingdom of heaven,
but only the one who does the will of my Father in heaven.
On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord,
did we not prophesy in your name,
and cast out demons in your name,
and do many deeds of power in your name?’
Then I will declare to them,
‘I never knew you; go away from me, you evildoers.’
Matthew 7:21–23
Invoking the Lord’s name is not a guarantee you are doing the Lord’s work. It does not mean your prayers will be answered favorably. If I slap God’s or Jesus’s name onto something that harms another person, could that be a form of “taking the Lord’s name in vain?” We should be reluctant to say “God Bless America” when America’s history and present-day are filled with government-sanctioned violence and oppression. Is this not taking the Lord’s name in vain?
Lauren Winner, in her book The Dangers of Christian Practice, argues that several Christian practices that we may call “gifts from God” (prayer, Eucharist, baptism) are “damaged” gifts; that is, because we are damaged people, we cannot properly receive the gift, and so we are prone to misuse it. (Winner doesn’t just say that because we are sinful people, we use these gifts inappropriately; rather, she argues that the gifts themselves contain the potential for our misuse.)
In her chapter on prayer, she focuses on slave-owning women who prayed for their slaves regularly. These women prayed for their slaves’ obedience, submission, and industry. While obedience and industry might be understood as virtues, the context in which these prayers are uttered complicates the request. How would God hear and respond to such a prayer? Is this the kind of prayer that is “God’s own word returning to God through us”?
In the same sermon (on the mount), Jesus warns against certain forms of prayer.
“And whenever you pray, do not be like the hypocrites; for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, so that they may be seen by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward. But whenever you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you.
“When you are praying, do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do; for they think that they will be heard because of their many words. Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him.
- Matthew 6:5–8
Jesus says that those who offer their “performative prayers” have already received their reward. Their prayers are not about being transformed by God. They pray in order to stroke their ego, to gain attention. No matter the content of their prayer, they receive the ego-boosting attention they truly seek. God doesn’t need to “answer” their prayers; they already have their answer.
“Do not heap up empty phrases.” We could probably all accuse someone else of empty phrases. But Jesus isn’t issuing a call to judge others. He is warning us. Prayer isn’t about asking for what we want and judging God’s faithfulness (or our own faith) by whether we get it. God already knows what we need before we ask. If prayer is God’s own word returning to God through us, then prayer involves listening more than speaking, responding more than requesting. Jesus models this for us: “My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me; yet not what I want but what you want” (Matthew 26:39).
A List of What Might Possibly Be Considered Prayer (by God, though perhaps not by us)
Groans, grunts, moans, cries, shouts, screams. (See the above discussion on Exodus.)
Nature (creation) groaning. “We know that the whole creation has been groaning in labor pains until now; and not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly while we wait for adoption, the redemption of our bodies” (Romans 8:22–23).
“Thoughts and prayers.” Simone Weil says that “Attention, taken to its highest degree, is the same thing as prayer. It presupposes faith and love. Absolutely unmixed attention is prayer.” The message thoughts and prayers posted on a social media platform in response to a tragedy may seem trite. How many of those people are actually praying about this? It’s just like when we say to someone, “I’ll be praying for you.” Do we actually follow up? Well, you might. I don’t have a very good track record. But perhaps offering verbal prayers at a later date is not what matters to God. Perhaps, as Georges Bernanos says, “the wish to pray is a prayer in itself.” If we think about another person, if we intend to pray for them, perhaps that counts to God. Perhaps God attends to our attention, no matter how “mixed,” taking action in response to it. Jesus multiplied five loaves and two fish to feed the 5,000. Maybe God does the same thing with our distracted, platitudinous prayers.
Anytime anyone says “Oh my God.”
Anytime anyone says or thinks or feels, “Help.”
When someone swears after hurting themselves.
When someone feels convicted about the harm / wrong they’ve done and wants to change their ways and make things right.
When kindness is offered.
Wherever there is joy, genuine joy that is not self-seeking but delights in the flourishing of others.
Whenever we ask a question that will lead us down a road of transformation. (Think of the difference between the rich young ruler (Luke 18:18–30) and Nicodemus (John 3)).
Maybe we dial God’s number. Maybe we butt-dial God. Maybe God is tapping our phones, listening through the microphone. Perhaps God has sent out many words all over the world and is waiting to see how and when those words return “not empty” but full of our transformation (could this be a way to interpret the parable of the talents (Matthew 25:14–29)?). God created the heavens and the earth with words. God sustains the world by a word. It is not our words which constitute prayer, but God’s word working through us.
Perhaps we might say that God’s proleptic word is ushering in the new heavens and new earth, which includes our own transformed lives. When we pray in response to God, when we pray God’s word back to God, perhaps we are participating in bringing about that new creation. If prayer is life with God, and verbal prayers are only a part of our whole prayer life, then much of what we do—our actions, our thoughts, our postures toward others, our kindnesses—is prayer that also participates in God’s world-renewing word.
Go forth and pray intentionally and unintentionally, in word and deed, and listen for God’s word working in you, transforming you.
Appendix of Related Quotes
Pray so love flows where none flowed.
- Karen An-hwei Lee, “Sunday Is”
This piece really made me think, the concept of God speaking to God’s self through our deepest desires feels like a profound, almost self-organizing algorithm of conection.