Most of my asking in prayer is self-interested asking. It is self-interested in that I ask for my own benefit. It is self-interested in that I ask according to what I think another person or situation needs. I pray from my own vision of life and propriety and what it means to experience well-being. And my own vision of life is always very narrow and very short-sighted.
I bring a basic assumption into my prayer. I assume that God is interested fundamentally in wholeness and healing for me and for the world. Wholeness is central to God's nature. Putting broken things together is what God does. God wants my fractured life to be whole. God desires that the brokenness and divisions of the world be healed.
Persons moving toward wholeness and a world being healed embody the kingdom of God in our midst. Healed persons bring healing to the world. Transformed persons transform the world.
When I acknowledge that God is invested in wholeness for the people of God and for the world, it changes my prayer and the way I ask. All of a sudden, I realize that my asking for things, for creature comforts, and for outcomes to situations that favor me may not bring wholeness. In fact, for God to give me some of the things I ask for -- both for myself and for others -- won't bring healing, but will only create deeper wounds. My prayer can actually be counter to what God truly wants to do in the lives of those for whom I pray.
The bottom line is that I don't have the big picture. I don't see very far down the road. I don't know what I need for wholeness, nor what others need for healing. At best, I see only the outside of situations.
But God, on the other hand, sees beyond my limited sight. God knows my inner landscape. God knows the wounds beneath the surface in any situation. And God is working for wholeness.
Prayer, then, is the way that I offer my life and others to God for this soul-healing, for this inner wholeness. Rather than tell God what I think should happen in my life, prayer invites me to find ways to offer my life in surrender to God. Rather than instruct God in what to do for someone else, prayer invites me to offer others sincerely to God for healing and wholeness.
In effect, prayer invites me to bring persons into the presence of Jesus. Like the persons who carried a paralyzed friend to Jesus (Mark 2:1 - 5), I hold out persons to his gaze and touch. I know that I don't know everything.
In prayer I do what I'm able to do. I bring people to God.
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