In the mainstream view of the general public, prayer is sometimes reduced to being viewed as “a uni-directional monologue of us making intercessory requests to God when we need something.”
If our human relationships were limited to uni-directional monologues, that would make for very dry relationships (i.e., transactional rather than interactional) – we likely wouldn’t have many engaging connections with people. Likewise, prayer in its’ fullness is also more than a uni-directional monologue. A rich prayer life is relational and interactive: a two-way communication in which we relate with God (with us as the junior communicator), both offering and receiving wide-ranging communication – including our sense of God’s loving presence.
What about prayer and our questions about why God allows suffering in the world? Isn’t prayer about asking God to fix our problems?
God didn’t create the world to be a world in which we suffer. God made us in order to have us to love. Love, by its’ nature, is two-way and interactional. Further, love – by definition – can’t be forced. Since love can’t be forced, we were given the option of whether or not to love God in return. Further, we have the option of whether to live in right relationship with God. Adam and Eve chose to break this right relationship with God by eating of the forbidden fruit. Since then, we humans haven’t always lived in right relationship with God (I’ve heard it argued that the root of sin is selfishness and/or disobedience). Thus, we live in a troubled, broken world.
Gerald May (a physician, psychiatrist, and writer of faith books) looks at the fact of suffering from another perspective on page nine of his faith book Dark Night of the Soul (May’s book is a reflection on John of the Cross’s original book of the same name). His is a perspective that occurred to me in some fashion several years ago: “….suffering does not result from some divine purgation….Instead, suffering arises from the simple circumstances of life itself.” In their book Healing as a Parish Ministry, Leo Thomas and Jan Alkire state – along a similar lines – about faith healing typically not curing natural consequences of what happens in life – that faith healing is often more of about bringing us into the fullness of who God wants us to be (a very healing experience!)
Personally, I don’t view prayer as only being about us bringing our list of problems to “Santa in the sky” to be fixed. Rather, the first focus of prayer is about entering into an ongoing – and interactive – relationship with God. When we let God into our hearts – when we surrender to letting God live within us (“It is no longer I, but God who lives in me,” Galatians 2:20), God can – and does – transform us into the people that God intended us to be. Then, we become better and emotionally/mentally happier people (at best, we experience a “peace that passeth all understanding”), people who contribute good in the world.
What about praying for healing and praying when we feel so challenged in life that we need God regarding our challenges? What about when we are seriously ill?
There absolutely are times when we need God. Ill health, life challenges. Having an active prayer relationship with God all the time – makes an interactive relationship with God more accessible to us much of the time (there are sometimes dry prayer periods). Just as human parents want to hear from their grown kids throughout the year – not just in times of need – God wants to have an ongoing, interactive relationship with us on an ongoing basis.
Sometimes, miraculous healing does occur through prayer. Jesus performed miracles and healed people. We hear stories today of miraculous healing. Other times, we pray in times of illness and we don’t experience direct healing of specific illnesses.
Sometimes there are ‘healing in prayer’ situations in prayer. We hear of medical healings. There are also cases of emotional and mental healing in difficult times.
Yes, there is healing in prayer
God loves us, wants to have a relationship with us and wants to heal us.
In their Healing as a Parish Ministry book (above), Leo Thomas and Jan Alkire quote Verla A. Mooth’s “Forgiveness and Healing” publication when stating on stating on page 43 of their book: “….The miracle of redemption is that God should change us……This transforming love is poured out in our hearts through the Holy Spirit who is given to us. It can only be a giving and forgiving love.” As such, we become more vibrant and able to live more fully – and, in many ways – healthier lives.
As an example of healing found in prayer, I returned to church in 2016. I returned with a painful neuropathic condition in which a stress response is involved (Complex Regional Pain Syndrome includes hyper-stimulation of the sympathetic nervous system). Prayer very slowly had a calming and healing effect, calming my sympathetic nervous system. I now have periods of being symptom-free from Complex Regional Pain Syndrome.
For more recent reflections about the fullness of prayer, see my previous post here.
Kim Burkhardt blogs at A Parish Catechist and The Books of the Ages. If you are a new visitor, it would be great to have you follow this blog (thank you!). If you know someone who would like this blog post, please share it with them (thank you!).
