1. Prayer’s primary purpose is communion with God.

Prayer isn’t just a means to get our needs met. It’s not a heavenly drive-through where we shout our requests at a crackling speaker. Prayer is talking and listening to God. It is the communication conduit with Him. It’s the way we get to know Him. It’s all about relationship.
Imagine talking to your friend or spouse the way we talk to God in prayer sometimes: “Honey, my wonderful wife, thank you for your blessings. Please cook spaghetti tonight for dinner. Help me with our taxes, and show our children the need to clean their room. Amen.” Of course, it is fine and right to share our needs and desires with God, but the real point is contact and presence with Him. He is the object of our love, not His gifts.

2. Prayer isn’t magic, therefore, it isn’t formulaic.

Messages on “The Secrets of Prayer,” or “How to Get Your Prayers Answered,” or “Prevailing with God,” often talk about prayer like a magic spell. If you can just learn the secret formula then you can become an effective prayer warrior. The problem is that this treats prayer and God mechanistically. Many of these messages were popular during the Industrial Revolution and reflected the mechanistic view of life at the time. Civilization was inspired by the advances of the machine and the tendency was to try to explain all of life through this paradigm, including prayer.

The Biblical paradigm, however, is relationship. Jesus taught us to pray, “Our Father.” All of the principles that govern relationships apply: respect, freedom, trust, honesty, and humility. Once we begin to try to use a formula we move from communion to manipulation. Manipulation, by its very definition, is anti-personal and anti-relational. God is not a thing to be handled and managed. He is a person, the most wonderful Person in the universe. Prayer is spending time in fellowship with this Person.

3. Authenticity is what matters, not zeal, passion, persistence, or “great faith.”

Crump does a good job dissecting those biblical passages that on the surface seem to teach that long-term repetition + sufficient fervency = positive result. It’s not that zeal, passion, or persistency are irrelevant, but they aren’t tools or good works to obtain answers in prayer. Remember, everything has to be seen through a relationship paradigm. Right relationships require that we be real and sincere. It’s a matter of motive. If my real agenda is to get something, not know and love the other person, then I am treating them as an object, a living vending machine.

Zeal, passion, and persistency make sense when, in the natural course of life, they express who we are as persons facing the situations we face. They can’t be mustered up and used as magic tokens to get our needs and desires met by God. When people face real problems that have potentially serious consequences they feel passion and have urgent focus. Prayer born out of these kind of experiences is going to reflect that passion and focus. It is simply natural, human, and authentic.

A word on faith: Crump points out that James defines, “asking in faith,” as the opposite of doubt or double-mindedness. He says, “Doubt is not weakness in faith but the attempt to maintain faith in two different things at once – hence, to be double minded.” So, there aren’t levels of faith in prayer, with the idea that the greater the faith the more likely you will be answered. Rather, doubt simply means you are not authentically trusting in God’s character and therefore are not being sincere in your relationship with Him. It’s binary, not analog (sorry my geekness is coming out). The key here is to resolve this conflict in your relationship with God through repentance.

Prayer is an important part of community. In my next post I’ll share other insights I’ve been getting from reading this wonderful book.

One of the main points I’ve been taking away from my reading is the idea that prayer isn’t a “petition machine.” Crump dispels the idea that prayer is formulaic and can be mastered in order to guarantee results. Rather, prayer is the avenue of communion with our loving God. In other words, prayer must be seen in a relational context.

How would it feel if your friend approached you only to make requests, and would employ methods of earnestness and persistence to gain his desire? You would feel manipulated, wouldn’t you? In the same way, prayer can be egocentric and devoid of communion.

Crump writes:

“Prayer, regardless of its specific content, creates an open channel of two-way communication between heaven and earth. Not only is the Father the recipient of our messages, but prayer opens us simultaneously to his.”

Once again, everything goes back to relationship and communion. It’s all about imitating the Trinity in their loving union. God invites us into this fellowship of love, and prayer is the way to enter in.

I’ve never heard Dylan’s song, but I have knocked on heaven’s door many times.