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The Purpose of Prayer

We spend so much of our time praying. Yet, have you ever stopped to asked yourself this question: What is prayer?

Let’s start with what prayer isn’t. Prayer isn’t a way to get God to give us what we want. When we make this the focus of our prayers, God can’t be real to us. Why? The answer is simple: We pray for something and it doesn’t get answered. This has happened to you, right? It happens every single day. No matter how much we pray, bad stuff still happens in life. Tragedies, illnesses, acts of violence, crises—the list goes on and on.

I have a friend who lost her husband to an illness. She shared with me how she felt when someone would say, “God answered my prayers.” We say that all the time, don’t we? Praise God, He answered my prayer. Most of us say something like that innocently, with sincere gratitude. But have you ever wondered how that makes someone else—whose prayers weren’t answered—feel? My friend prayed really hard—every day—for her husband to be healed. Yet, he died anyway. She couldn’t help but wonder if God answered other people’s prayers but not hers. If this is true, God seems completely random. Personally speaking, God can’t be all that real to me if He’s random.

So what is prayer then? Prayer is a way for us to learn to allow God to give us what Hewants for us. It’s trusting that what God wants to give us is what’s best for us. I have such a limited view of my life but God sees everything.

In Steps to Christ, Ellen G. White wrote, “We are so erring and shortsighted that we sometimes ask for things that would not be a blessing to us, and our heavenly Father in love answers our prayers by giving us that which will be for our highest good—that which we ourselves would desire if with vision divinely enlightened we could see all things as they really are.”

One day I saw a spider in my bathtub. This was around the time when I had a change of heart toward bugs. Up until then, I had a rule: I’ll leave you alone if you stay outside. But once you choose to enter my house, it’s squish, squash, splat! Seemed fair and reasonable to me until I got soft. Must have been my kids, who gave me the evil eye every time I reached for some tissue, or begged me to have mercy on the “poor, helpless little thing.” Whatever the reason, I stopped killing bugs and instead did my best to catch them and let them loose outside. Except those pesky flies—I still reach for the swatter.

So, back to my story. Something interesting happens when a spider falls into a bathtub or the sink. You’ve probably seen spiders easily walk along walls and even upside down on ceilings. But they’re powerless in sinks and bathtubs. They’ll take a few steps before slipping. Must have something to do with the porousness of the material. Walls and ceilings must have tiny holes they can grab. But sinks and bathtubs are made of porcelain, which make them too smooth to climb. Have you ever tried making it to the top of one of those climbing walls? Imagine trying to scale one without any rocks or crevices to grab. What if it was as smooth as glass?

So, there was the spider—stuck, helpless, and without hope at the bottom of my big bathtub. It had tried again and again to get out without success. Before I became a bug saver, my solution would have been easy: just turn the faucet on full blast and wave bye-bye to it as I watch it go down the drain. But since that was no longer an option, I had to figure out a way to catch the spider without harming it. I looked around and saw an empty water bottle. I figured all I had to do was turn the bottle upside down and place the opening right over the spider, hoping I don’t squish it in the process. The plan worked. I got the spider in the bottle and quickly put the cap on.

That’s when it got interesting. The spider started freaking out. It was frantically running all around the inside of the bottle. I almost heard it saying, “WHAT IS GOING ON?! WHAT IS THIS THING I’M IN?!?!”

Here’s the thing: this spider couldn’t see what I saw. It didn’t know that it was trapped in a bathtub with no chance of getting out. It had a very narrow view of its situation. I, on the other hand, looking down at it from where I was, had a much broader view of what was going on. And it was very clear to me that this spider didn’t have many options. If I didn’t help, it was facing a pretty grim ending.

So, when you pray, do you pray that God will give you what you want? If that spider had a choice, it would have preferred to stay in that bathtub—even if it meant a slow death—rather than go in that water bottle. Wouldn’t you rather pray that God will give you what He knows is best for you? His view of your life is infinitely bigger and wider than you will ever see. So, who do you want guiding your life? You, who sees about as much as that spider, or God, who sees you’re stuck and is trying to help you? I choose my omniscient (all-knowing), omnipotent (all-powerful), omnipresent (in all places at the same time) God.

Oh, that spider? I successfully let it free outside my house and asked it to go out and catch a bunch of those pesky flies. 

An excerpt from the book Real, reprinted here with the permission of the author, Tony Yang.

Tony Yang currently serves as pastor of Living Springs Fellowship, the English Ministry within Andrews Korean SDA Church in Berrien Springs, Mich. Pastor Tony is also on the administrative team at Andrews University as associate VP/chief marketing officer and is the author of two books, Are You Sure You Want to Love God? (You Might Start Using the “O” Word) and Real.