Prayer Time VII - Power and Powerlessness.

Wednesday, May 27, 2009. When we talk about prayer we need to think a little bit about power and about powerlessness. When do you pray? Do you pray when you feel weak? Do you pray when you feel full of power and possibilities? How is our idea about power linked to our thoughts about prayer?

It is a typical line of thought about prayer that it is some kind of longer arm. In history people always have tried to influence what they could not control - by rites, by cult and by prayer. Prayer can even be seen as a kind of magic: if you pray in the right way with the right attitude, then things happen. Here, prayer becomes some particular tool of power. You find this in all cultures around the globe. Superstition has always been strong and it is still there with considerable influence today.

The biblical idea about prayer is different. Yes, we are asked to bring to God all we need. This is not different from any kind of prayer humans stutter. But the Christian prayer is not thought as a kind of longer arm to control things outside of our range of influence. All these things are controlled by God anyway. He is in control, he has all the power we can ever imaging. The idea of prayer is not to control, but to take refuge under his control. We do not try to sort out things ourselves, but to let him sort them out. Prayer is a time of dedication and attention. It is a time of giving away and putting in.

Prayer is a time of powerlessness. We do not have power and we do not need power. We can give up, we can give in. When you are at home you can relax. When you are at the goal all fights have come to an end. Prayer is where we reach this end, where all fights have been fought, all needs will be met, all dreams are absorbed into his great dream of home. We find joy in the powerlessness under his wings, find a new world here, a large plain, a garden full of wonderful flowers and fellow men and women of faith. We might not see his power right away. We are no longer in control. We start to reach the state which Jesus had from the very beginning: “the Son can do nothing on his own accord, but only what he sees the Father doing, What the Father does, the Son does likewise.” (John 5, 19) [R.W.E.P., jesusnetwork.eu]

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