Why Is Prayer So Frustrating?

"Why Is Prayer So Frustrating?"
Luke 18:1-8

       According to repetitive Newsweek polls, somewhere between 80-90% of us pray at least weekly.  According to those same polls, 85% of us who pray say their prayers are unanswered.  And 13% of that 85% have stated that they have lost faith because of unanswered prayers.  Even though they have lost faith, I wonder if the 13% still make ventures into praying every now and then, just in case.  The rest of us keep on praying.  Even in the face of God’s silence, inactivity, or apparent avoidance.

        The great Christian, C.S. Lewis, once wrote that when his mother died, he lamented that his prayers had failed.  His grief had taken him to a dark night of the soul.  He wrote, “My praying didn’t work, but I was used to things not working, and I thought no more about it.”

        So why do we do it?  Why do we keep on praying?  Is it like playing the roulette wheel?  Our number’s bound to come up some time?  Or is it like the slot machines?  The one arm bandits, as they are called, are fixed so that you win just enough times to keep playing.  Psychologically, we don’t like games where we win too much (they seem too easy and not enough of a challenge).  Or we don’t like games we lose all the time (it seems pointless to play something you never win).  So, knowing that, casino owners have the odds set on the slot machines so that you win, but not very much.  Then it will seem like enough of a challenge for you to keep putting your quarters in, or dollars, (or in Rex's case, the offering plate money) or whatever.  Is that what prayer is like?  Is God like the casino owners, letting us have something we pray for once in a while to keep us playing the praying game?

        That’s where the rub is for many who pray and keep praying.  Many, including myself, have frustrations with prayer, and it doesn’t have anything to do with prayer itself.  It has to do with our free God who chooses to act or not act on our prayers.

        If it were about praying itself, then we would keep going, and when one technique doesn’t work we try another.  Maybe instead of praying on your knees, you could pray laying face down; or standing up with arms extended looking heavenward.  If one position isn’t working, try another.  Or maybe we aren’t saying the right words.  Some try praying scripted prayers like the Serenity Prayer, or the Lord’s Prayer.  Or, they try silent meditation with no words--just sitting quietly trying to rid your mind of all words so that God will somehow magically enter an empty mind.  As I mentioned a couple of weeks ago, though, that is putting technique above substance.

        So, what if the lack of response by God has nothing to do with all the different techniques we try?  What if it has to do with God and how God freely chooses to respond or not?  Certainly, if God is free to be God however God wishes, then God is free to answer our prayers.  Or not answer them.

        A God with that kind of freedom bugs us.  Come on.  It does, doesn’t it?  We make these huge assumptions about how God is supposed to be.  God is supposed to be attentive.  Answering.  At our beck and call.  Caring.  Responsive.  Intimately involved with our concerns.  A father who is ready to take care of the needs of we, God’s children.  That’s what we think, isn’t it?  That’s what we want to believe.  Because it is all about us, isn't it?  That's what we assume about God.  But if God is free to be God however God wishes, then God is free to choose to answer, or not answer our prayers.  We don’t like God to have that kind of freedom.  Especially as that freedom relates to our praying.

        And let's face it.  We also think we deserve to be listened to by God, responded to by God, don't we?  If there are no immediate answers forthcoming to our prayers, we get a little silently miffed at God, because we thought we deserved better treatment than that.  After all, we're good people.

        That’s what this parable of Jesus about the widow and the crass judge is all about.  In a rare turn about, Jesus tells the disciples (because it is told to them) what the parable is about before he even speaks the parable.

        Let’s look at what a few translations do with Jesus’ pre-parable explanation:

                “...pray consistently and never quit.”  EHP
                “...they ought always to pray and not lose heart.”  RSV, NEB
                “...should always pray and never become discouraged.”  TEV
                “...always pray and not give up.”  NIV
                “...always to pray, and not faint.”  KJV

        No matter which of these you choose, all of them assume, by their statements in the negative, that prayer can be greatly frustrating.  All these statements assume that when you pray you will be tempted to quit, lose heart, become discouraged, give up, or faint.  And remember this is Jesus talking.  Jesus realizes that there is the temptation--because prayer seems sometimes like talking with a brick wall--the temptation is to just stop praying.

        Remember, as I mentioned a moment ago, this parable is told to the disciples.  What would the significance of that be?  When we look back at Luke 11, the disciples asked Jesus to teach them to pray, “...just as John taught his disciples.”  The disciples are clearly interested in and fascinated by Jesus’ praying habits.

        So is Jesus’ parable here, for the disciples, an expression of what Jesus himself experienced in prayer:  that sometimes it takes God a long time to attend to our prayers, even if you’re the Savior?    Like when Jesus was on the cross and prayed, "My God, My God, why have you abandoned me?" (Mark 15)

        Prayer is basically talking with God.  The question then is, “Why does talking with God create the temptation to stop talking with God?”  What is it about talking with God that makes the praying person want to quit/lose heart/become discouraged/give up/faint?

        It may baffle us to wonder why Jesus, God’s Son, is telling the disciples that this loving, caring, Father God is hard to talk to.  So hard, that you will be tempted to hang up and walk away from your connection with God.  Why talk to someone--especially God--if you get a recorded message or are put on hold for a long, long time.  Imagine calling the Crisis Hot Line and being put on hold.  Or you keep calling God and it rings and rings--you know God is there--but your call isn’t picked up?

        In the cartoon Beetle Bailey, the General has just set his mess tray down on the table, looks at it, and says grace:  “Oh, Lord, for what we are about to receive, make us truly thankful.  Amen.”
        He looks again at the tray and then looks up to heaven and says, “I guess I’m not getting through, am I?”

        That’s what we wonder, isn’t it?  Am I getting through?  When we feel we aren’t (which is apparently about 85% of the time) why do we keep at it?  Am I asking too many questions?  Sounding too much like a skeptic?  Making you feel a little uncomfortable?

        Let’s look more closely at the parable.  First, there is the widow.  A widow, in middle eastern culture is a woman with no rights.  The only rights she has are those she gains through her husband.  Since her husband has died, she is powerless.  Unless her deceased husband had a brother, then he's supposed to take care of her.  Since she is still a widow, her husband evidently didn't have any brothers.  A widow is the symbol of all those dispossessed people who need to be defended.

        Thus her plea to the judge:  “My rights are being violated.  Protect me!”  Women, particularly widows, were easy prey for being taken advantage of.  Her opponent was probably a family member, a male, who was trying to rob her of all her possessions that she gained from her late husband.

        And then there is the judge.  He’s definitely not a people person.  He’s definitely not a religious person.  He has independently decided that he could hear whatever cases he wanted, which goes against the social norms for a judge.  What’s ironic is that even though the judge shows no respect for people or God, he certainly shows a healthy respect for the widow’s anger and persistence.  His phrase about being accosted by the widow is literally, “She will beat me under the eye.”

        So the powerless widow is pitted against the crass and powerful judge in this parable.  She comes at the judge time after time after time after time.  It has gotten to the point where the widow has given up on a feminine, deferential tactic.  Now she is in all out annoyance mode.  One might be tempted to even use the “b” word in describing her attack mode on the insensitive and unjust judge.  That’s what she’s been reduced to, in order to get this judge’s attention.

        Remember, this is a parable about prayer.  And Jesus contrasts God to the judge.  In contrast to the judge, Jesus says God listens and is attentive to the injustice being pressed upon people.  But how long do the people have to pray before God finally responds?  Jesus says that God, in contrast to the judge, will not drag his feet.

        In Exodus 2, God says he has heard the cries of his people under the oppression of the Egyptians.  The cities and the monuments being built at the time the Hebrew people were slaves, took about 80 years.  How many of those 80 years did the Hebrew people cry out under their oppressive conditions?

        In Genesis 17-21, Abraham and Sarah prayed their whole married life for a child.  Having a child was part of God’s initial promise to Abraham that his descendants would be like the stars in the sky and the sands on the shore.  But it wasn’t until Abraham was 100 years old that that promised son was finally born, and their prayers were answered.

        In 1 Samuel 1, there is the story of the birth of Samuel who would eventually become a prophet.  Elkanah and his wife Hannah were unable to have children.  They prayed for years to have a child.  Finally, in a tearful prayer in the temple, God pays attention to Elkanah’s tearful depression, and answers her prayer.

        In the Psalms (69:3; 73:11-14; 83:1-2; 40:1) waiting on God seems to be a common theme.  Many psalmists question the whereabouts of God who seems, “out to lunch,” not listening, distant, and distracted.  Still they pray on.

        In the final book of the Bible, Revelation, the martyrs, who are under the altar of God, are wondering out loud how long God would wait before their murders were avenged (Revelation 6:10).

        These don’t sound like speedy resolutions to people’s prayers.  If our frustrations with prayer really don’t have to do with prayer itself, but with God, then we need to get a clear picture of God from the parable and the other scripture stories I’ve highlighted.

        First, it is apparent that God does care very much for people.  Notice, in the parable and in the other stories, the nice mix between individuals and groups of people that God is attentive too.  God is paying attention.

        The different human circumstances that God responds to are also all over the map in these stories and in this parable.  God understands what we have to deal with in life, whether it be personal matters, or larger issues of justice.  God is moved by a wide range of human conditions and does respond.

        And God seems to honor those who cry out for help consistently and continually.  At a time in my own life, I cried out to God for four years out of a heart of need and direction.  My prayers have run the gamut of human emotion from tears, to depression, to anger, to anxiety, to hopefulness, to depression again; even to the point of nearly giving up on praying and giving up on God.  It appeared that those who were making my life difficult were stronger and more powerful than God.  There have been others who prayed for me and with me, especially when I was at my lowest point of despair.  For four years.

        Then everything shifted.  Quickly and substantially.  People of power took up my plight.  Hearts that were stubbornly set against me were suddenly warmed and forgiving.  Prayers were answered, and God acted.

        That brings us to what the parable teaches about the person who prays.  God chooses to listen to those who don’t quit praying.  No matter what.  The question is, “Don’t quit what?”  Don’t quit making your request?  Or, don’t quit trying to connect with God?  Either, or both, I think is the answer to the question.

        And, the other thing the praying person needs is patience.  God seems to honor long-standing patience.  I once saw a sign in a restaurant that read, “No matter how long our service takes, it’s fast.”  That’s the kind of patience God responds to--a person who prays and prays and is willing to let God be God, no matter how long God takes to answer the prayer.

        At the end of the parable in Jesus’ explanation, he makes a summary comment:  “But how much of that kind of persistent faith will the Son of Man find on the earth when he returns?”  Faith is really what the parable and prayer are all about.  And faith is defined as something that happens as people persist for God.  Do we have persistent faith in God, or not?  That’s the main point of the parable.

        George Buttrick, the great Bible commentator, once wrote, “Home is dearer when the journey is long.”  That’s what faith, persistent, praying faith, is all about, according to Jesus in this parable.  We all want to get home.  We all want our prayers to be attended to.  We all want to know that we’ve connected with God.  Sometimes the journey is long.  There are no guarantees about how long it will take.  But when we get home, when we connect, when our prayers are attended to and answered, that home is so much dearer.

        So keep praying.  Don’t stop.  Even when prayer and God seem to be frustrating.