How much do you pray about your work? I suspect the answer is something like, “Not as much as I should.” And why is that the answer? Why is it a “should” rather than something that you want to do and do naturally? If God is all powerful and cares about your work, you would expect people to constantly pray about their work. It would be the primary thing they would do in every work circumstance. So if that is not the case, then why?
There are many reasons that people propose for the lack of prayer. We think we can handle it on our own and prefer to be self sufficient. We are busy and distracted. But really I think there is one main reason for a lack of prayer, and that is because people do not believe that prayer works. If they believed that prayer was effective, they would constantly be praying, especially about something as important to their daily lives as their work. So, even though people would say that they believe in the power of prayer, the fact that they are not praying “as much as they should” indicates that they do not really believe in the power of prayer.
Philip Yancey shares the thoughts of Joanne on prayer in his book Prayer: Does it Make Any Difference?
If you had asked me as a young Christian whether I believed in prayer, I would have quickly said yes. I would have told you about the time I spun out in the snow and didn’t get hurt, or the time I dropped a house key somewhere in my ’74 Dodge Dart and couldn’t find it for hours, until I prayed. Maybe God takes care of neophyte believers, I don’t know. He doesn’t seem to take care of old-timers, though. I could list probably a hundred prayers that haven’t been answered. I’m not speaking of selfish prayers, but important prayers:….
I’d guess maybe 20 percent of my prayers get anything like the answer I want. Over time, I give up. I pray for those things I believe will happen. Or I just don’t pray. I review my journal and see God doing less and less. I get mad. Like a child, I stop talking. I’m passive-aggressive with God. I put him off. Maybe later.
How do you react to Joanne’s thoughts? Are you disappointed in her… feel sorry for her? Do you know what you would say to help her with her struggle? Or do you resonate with what she is expressing? Do you think, “Someone needs to straighten her out”, or do you think, “It is sad but refreshing for someone to get real about how they experience prayer.”
The integration of faith and work will require a robust prayer life at and about your work. So this problem of a lack of belief in prayer and the consequent lack of desire needs to be resolved. But it cannot be resolved by pretending that prayer works or pretending that you believe in the power of prayer if that has not been your reality. Because in the world of your work, it has to be real. You cannot live in denial of prayers that are not answered as you desire in order to believe in prayer. You cannot make mountains out of molehills, exaggerating answered prayers in order to prop up a belief in the power of prayer. This might fly in your church world, but it is not going to fly at your work.
This will not get resolved with blog posts. This would be a journey that could be a part of pastoral coaching, seeking the Lord together for the path that is personal to you and your life experiences, with the Holy Spirit as the guide. I would like to blog about Jesus’ teachings on prayer, looking for guidance and insight from Him. So the next couple of post will be about that.
I would love to connect with you about these posts if they have stirred any thoughts or questions. Take a minute, shoot me an email at bo@leavenedlives.org, and let’s see where that takes us.