Question 2: "Whose prayers does God listen to?"
Are there some people whose prayers God pays more attention to - like the Archbishop of Canterbury or the Pope? Do you need to pray to a saint, like St Christopher or Mary the mother of Jesus, or is it OK to talk to God directly? Are there some people that God won't listen to?
Actually, the Bible says (several times!) that God doesn't play favourites. He's ready to listen to anybody, provided they have three things going for them. Here they are.
(1) God listens to people who know they're not perfect.
People often assume that you need to have a pretty good record of moral, upright behaviour, if you're going to get God's respect. But the more points you have on your licence, the less he'll pay attention to you. So when they pray, they try to stress how good they are and how much they do for others.
Actually, the opposite is true! One of Jesus' best-known stories was about two men who went up to the temple to pray. One was a "religious" person who did everything right (or so he thought). The other was the opposite: a tax farmer with a shady, colourful past career and a car-crash of a life. All he could say when he got there was, "God, have mercy on me. Forgive me, a sinner."
And Jesus
commented,
“This tax man, not
the other, went home made right with God. If you walk around with your nose in
the air, you’re going to end up flat on your face, but if you’re content to be
simply yourself, you will become more than yourself.” |
What does this say to us? That when we come to God, we shouldn't cover over all the ways in which we fall short. He knows us through and through anyway. So if we're honest and real with him, he will listen. If we're arrogant and pretend there's nothing that we need to sort out - not a chance.
(2) God listens to people who want what's best, not just
what's desirable
Another common
mistake is to treat God like a heavenly ATM, who's there just to dispense
everything that everybody wants all the time. (He can't do that anyway.
Remember what happened in Bruce Almighty when Bruce decided just to give a blanket
"Yes" to every prayer that came in? Total chaos.)
God wants the best for us, so he isn't just going to approve every last selfish demand we approach him with. One of the New Testament writers, James, had some pretty straight advice for Christians who were basically after all they could get for themselves:
Where do you think all these appalling wars and quarrels come from? Do you think they just happen? Think again. They come about because you want your own way, and fight for it deep inside yourselves. You lust for what you don’t have and are willing to kill to get it. You want what isn’t yours and will risk violence to get your hands on it.
You wouldn’t think of just asking God for it, would you? And why not? Because you know you’d be asking for what you have no right to. You’re spoiled children, each wanting your own way.
You’re cheating on God. If all you want is your own way, flirting with the world every chance you get, you end up enemies of God and his way. |
Sometimes we think we know what's best for ourselves... but God may know different! Jesus knew this. On the night he was arrested, foreseeing the horrific events that were about to unfold, he asked his Father if he could somehow escape. He prayed:
"Father, remove this cup from me..."
But then he added this:
"But please, not what I want. What do you want?"
When we're prepared to accept that God knows best, and simply put our wishes and our future hopes into his hands... that's when God can answer us.
(3) God listens to people who are willing to be
different
There's a Psalm in the Bible which talks about how God answered somebody's prayer. It ends in an interesting way:
If I had been cozy with evil, the Lord would never have listened. But he most surely did listen, he came on the double when he heard my prayer. Blessed be God: he didn’t turn a deaf ear, he stayed with me, loyal in his love. |
To be "cozy
with evil" means to be complacent about it, to be aware that wrong things
are part of your lifestyle, but not being willing to do anything about it. (In
fact, maybe to enjoy it and not to want to let go of it.)
God can't do much for people who want him to give them their requests, but aren't prepared to allow his power to clean them up too.
Does that mean you have to be squeaky clean before God will even look at you? No, it doesn't. It isn't a matter of your achievements so far; it's just a matter of what direction you're heading in right now. God isn't interested in how well or how badly you've done in the past; what concerns him is where your heart is right now. So if you're willing for God to make you what he wants you to be, he's there for you.
- Learn a bit more about prayer by investigating another of the questions?
- Go off in another direction?
- Let us have your reaction to this?