Mobilized Weakness

I grew up with the notion of “saying my prayers” before bed. It was a ritual-- a way to end the day and ease the fears of the dark. In some religious traditions, there is a regular “prayer time.” Sometimes it involves repeating the Lord’s Prayer as a form of penance. For these and other reasons, Christians have ambivalence about prayer. We long to enter into it, but we also avoid it. We put off prayer until a more opportune time. This book is an attempt to break out of these notions and embark on an adventure-- the adventure of knowing the most important person in the universe and participating in the most important work in the universe.

Contrary to common notions, prayer is not a ritual or duty. If anything, prayer is the very antithesis, the very opposite of ritual. Ritual is an impersonal routine done under obligation. Paul classified this as another form of being under law rather than grace (Gal. 4:1-11). True prayer on the other hand is of the most personal (and often spontaneous) nature. Prayer is a response to God initiating conversation with us. Consider the thoughts of O. Hallesby:

To pray is to let Christ come into our hearts. It is not our prayer which moves Jesus, but Jesus who moves us to pray.…

Prayer is deeper than words. Prayer is a definite attitude of our hearts toward God. What attitude is it that God recognizes as prayer? I will mention two things. In the first place, helplessness... Prayer therefore consists simply in telling God day by day in what ways you feel you are helpless... Secondly, helplessness united with faith produces prayer. Without faith our helplessness would only be a vain cry of distress in the night. [1]

Hallesby’s thoughts correspond with Scripture. For example, Rom. 8:26 states "And in the same way the Spirit also helps our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we should, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words." At the same time, we who are weak and helpless pray to "Him who is able to do exceeding abundantly beyond all that we ask or think” (Eph. 3:20).

The term “helpless’ is often equated with “worthless.” It sounds pathetic. I have tended to view helplessness as my enemy rather than my best friend. I hate the feeling of being overwhelmed. If I can’t escape it, I’ll try to ignore it. The cost has been many barren periods of self-sufficiency where, because I’m not “abiding in the vine,” I do nothing of lasting spiritual import. Paul, the aggressive spiritual giant of the early church, welcomed weakness, declaring, “when I am weak, I am strong” (2 Cor. 12:10). He saw that it was his ally. He even welcomed a “thorn in the flesh” to keep him conscious of his helplessness. I will return to this theme again in later chapters.

Having acknowledged our helplessness, we need to couple it with trust in God’s power. However, it is important to have the right expectations in this area. What is God’s power? What is his typical way of displaying it? When we talk about faith in God's power, our minds need to be directed, not so much to displays of miraculous power, but to the cross of Jesus Christ. It was on that cross that the God of the universe displayed his greatest power over the forces of darkness. Yet the cross is the greatest example of the apparent absence of God.[2] No one could feel or see the power of God as they gazed at the crucified Jesus. All that the senses could perceive was the torment and agony of an innocent man who seemed utterly forsaken. To those watching the death of Christ, God must have seemed pushed out of the situation.

In those moments at which we are conscious of God's seeming absence we are being invited to direct our thoughts to that moment in history when God seemed most conspicuously absent. God was perceived to be absent from Calvary. Armies of angels did not come to the rescue. Jesus died and was buried, not rescued from death.. God later raised up Jesus Christ from the dead, but did not deliver him from death itself. Our faith must learn to exist among questioning, doubt, and shock. The pattern of the cross must undergird our notion of praying in faith.

Prayer, then, is “mobilized weakness.” In contrast to the resigned helplessness of despair, it is a passionate and active helplessness that doesn’t give up. It looks to God for the impossible and anticipates results. This mobilized weakness is how we express and live out our dependence on God. As Paul says, we are “perplexed, but not despairing” (2 Cor. 4:8).

Richard Foster wrote, "To pray is to change. Prayer is the central avenue God uses to transform us. If we are unwilling to change, we will abandon prayer as a noticeable characteristic of our lives.” I tend to forget that. I want circumstances to change, other people to change, even God to change (although I am glad he does not indulge me). Fortunately for us, God’s Spirit is in the process of reorienting our desires. May we come to the place where we can say, “not my will, but yours be done.”

To quote Foster again, “Prayer involves transformed passions. In prayer, real prayer, we begin to think God's thoughts after Him: to desire the things He desires, to love the things He loves, to will the things He wills."[3] Isn’t that so often the problem? I want the lesser things, and don’t want the greater things enough. In a later chapter, I will devote considerable space to the issue of desires and passions.

E. M. Bounds taught that "Prayer is not preparation for the battle; it is the battle." He was not saying there is nothing else involved in battle, but that it is foundational. It is the central nervous system of the church’s ministry. The following authors capture how prayer is also a means of working--a way of serving others:

Prayer is none other than the act of the believer working together with God. It is the union of the believer's thought with the will of God...Prayer is not the expressing of our wish for God to yield to our petition and fill up our selfish desire. Before God, the believer asks in prayer for the Lord's will to be done.[4]

What then is the nature of petitionary prayer? It is in essence rebellion--rebellion against the world in its fallenness, the absolute and undying refusal to accept as normal what is pervasively abnormal...Nothing destroys prayer like resignation. Jesus taught to pray at all times and to not lose heart, thereby acquiescing to what is (Luke 18:1)...To pray declares that God and this world are at cross purposes.[5]

Clearly, much more is happening in the act of prayer than the performance of a ritual. We are communicating with the God of the universe, who happens to be very interested in us! We also find that in our praying we are shaping history. We have the great privilege of working together with God to affect eternity!

Is our prayer life in a defeated state? Andrew Murray makes the case that a feeble prayer life is merely a symptom of a feeble spiritual life. It reveals our tendency to "live after the flesh" even in our ministry work. Until we confess that our lack of prayer is sin and inexcusable, we will not see the power of God unleashed through us. I an not suggesting that change here is easy or overnight. It has not been for me. I write as a novice in prayer, but I know from experience that vows and promises to "try harder" will result in further failure. In the area of prayer, just as in all areas of spirituality, we must fall dependently upon Christ as our only hope to learn how to pray and to sustain us in prayer. This is a refreshing point for anyone who feels that prayer is something we have to generate from within ourselves.

[1] O. Hallesby, Prayer (Minneapolis: Augsburg Publishing House, 1931, 1975) 11, 16, 24, 27

[2] Alister McGrath, Spirituality in an Age of Change (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1994) 80

[3] Richard Foster, Celebration of Discipline, Revised Edition. (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1978, 1988 ) 33

[4] Watchman Nee, Let us Pray ( New York: Christian Life Publishers, 1977) 3, 9

[5] David F. Wells, "Prayer: Rebelling against the Status Quo" in Perspectives on the World Christian Movement, ed. by Ralph Winter and Steven Hawthorne (Pasadena: William Carey Library, 1981) 124, 125