On the Efficacy of Prayer
God seems to do nothing of himself which he can possibly delegate to His creatures. He commands us to do slowly and blunderingly what he could do perfectly and in the twinkling of an eye. He allows us to neglect what he would have us do, or to fail. Perhaps we do not fully realize the problem, so to call it, of enabling finite free wills to co-exist with Omnipotence. It seems to involve at every moment almost a sort of divine abdication. We are not mere recipients or spectators. We are either privileged to share in the game or compelled to collaborate in the work, “to wield our little tridents.” Is this amazing process simply Creation going on before our eyes? This is how (no light matter) God makes something—indeed, makes gods—out of nothing.
So at least it seems to me. But what I have offered can be, at the very best, only a mental model or symbol. All that we say on such subjects must be merely analogical and parabolic. The reality is doubtless not comprehensible by our faculties. But we can at any rate try to expel bad analogies and bad parables. Prayer is not a machine. It is not magic. It is not advice offered to God. Our act, when we pray, must not, any more than all our other acts, be separated from the continuous act of God himself, in which alone all finite causes operate.
It would be even worse to think of those who get what they pray for as a sort of court favorites, people who have influence with the throne. The refused prayer of Christ in Gethsemane is answer enough to that. And I dare not leave out the hard saying which I once heard from an experienced Christian: “I have seen many striking answers to prayer and more than one that I thought miraculous. But they usually come at the beginning: before conversion, or soon after it. As the Christian life proceeds, they tend to be rarer. The refusals, too, are not only more frequent; they become more unmistakable, more emphatic.”
Does God then forsake just those who serve Him best? Well, he who served Him best of all said, near His tortured death, “Why hast thou forsaken me?” When God becomes man, that Man, of all others, is least comforted by God, at His greatest need. There is a mystery here which, even if I had the power, I might not have the courage to explore. Meanwhile, little people like you and me, if our prayers are sometimes granted, beyond all hope and probability, had better not draw hasty conclusions to our own advantage. If we were stronger, we might be less tenderly treated. If we were braver, we might be sent, with far less help, to defend far more desperate posts in the great battle.
The above is excerpted from “The Efficacy of Prayer” by C. S. Lewis. I recommend reading it in its entirety if you are interested in the topic.
That said, I think the essay is only a response to the question of prayer’s efficacy (as the title would imply). It doesn’t necessarily address prayer in a more general way. (You’ll have to read a lot more of Lewis to get his take on that.)
Frankly, measuring the “efficacy” of my communication with God is as absurd to me as attempting to quantify my communication with my mother, father, friend, or spouse. It just doesn’t make any sense if I start to think about it like that. If I have a conversation with my best friend, he is under no obligation to listen to me, but he does because he loves me. Because we all have free will, we need to remember that people will do whatever they want to do one hundred percent of the time. Not eighty percent. Not ninety. Not even ninety-nine point nine nine nine nine nine…
One of my favorite illustrations about communicating with God is one that Donald Miller relayed in a talk he gave. He was over at a friend’s house and his friend’s wife had made macaroni and cheese for dinner. Upon discovering this, their little daughter Cassie began to throw a fit. She did not want macaroni and cheese. She wanted chicken nuggets and demanded a change to the menu.
She became so upset by the dinner options (or lack thereof) that she ended up going down on the floor kicking and screaming. She cried out, “How could you do this to me?!”
At this point, as any parent knows, her father had a couple choices. He could capitulate to her demands and say, “Oh, of course, sweetie! I’m so sorry. If only we would have known that you wanted chicken nuggets. We will fix this immediately.” Turning to his wife: “Dear, please run to the store and get chicken nuggets for Cassie. She really needs chicken nuggets right now.”
These are the children that grow up to become third world dictators.
The other, more sensible option is what her father chose. He said to her, “Cassie, we’re not having chicken nuggets right now. Your mother made macaroni and cheese. We’d really love for you to join us for dinner, but if you don’t want to eat macaroni and cheese you don’t have to. That’s what we are having, though, so you’ll need to calm down if you want to eat with the rest of us. We can talk about having chicken nuggets some other night.”
In doing this, he was teaching Cassie that crying and banging on the floor is not a way to get what you want — that there is no magic dance you can do to coax another into acting the way you you want them to. We can try — and, oh, how we try! — but ultimately all we can do is try. The final decision of another to say or do something is up to them in the end.
What this story reminds me is that the God I love and have a relationship with is a personal God with a will and desires of his own. Sometimes we may not talk for a while. Sometimes we may disagree when we do, but that doesn’t me we don’t love each other.
So whenever I am on the floor screaming, “How could you do this to me?!” about the adult-life equivalent of a simple menu option, I try to remember that God is fathering me. And he is the most loving, caring, and patient father that has ever existed.
Do be in touch.
