Jesse Medina

Christians pay for all kinds of crazy things.  Go into your local Christian bookstore and there is a Jesus-ized version of every product imaginable: jeans, shirts, belts, pencils, mints, video games…you name it, they can make a Christian version of it and sell it to Christians who are willing to pay for it.

But there’s a new Christian product out there that you may be surprised about: prayer.

My friend, Mark, sent me a story about an agnostic guy and his Christian friend who started a business where, for $10, you can get someone to pray for you and whatever issue you’re dealing with.  Or you can get holiday-themed prayers.  They even have a free prayer trial.  But, this isn’t the first prayer business out there.  The article mentions several others.  I even know someone who works for a so-called “prophetess” who charges companies to pray for them.  The best part is that one of her conditions is that she only prays for them if she feels the Holy Spirit leading her to.  Plus, she has people who actually pay her, so that they can field these prayer requests.

According to my friend, she’s making bank off of this little service.

So why would anyone pay for prayer?

1. Perhaps they’re desperate. They know that their own ability to bring change, specifically in circumstances outside of their control, is extremely limited.  So, they turn to a higher power.
2. Maybe they don’t think they’re prayers would work. You know the whole, “the prayers of a righteous man are powerful and effective” thing? (James 5:16b)  If you need a prayer that will be effective, and you’re not righteous, better to outsource, right?
3. Or perhaps they don’t understand prayer. This, I suspect, is the most likely alternative.  Unfortunately, I fear Christians are the ones who have caused this misunderstanding.  We treat prayer like our wish-list for the Santa Clause in the sky.  One of the only things that distinguishes these wish lists from our greedy desires is that we try not to pray for bad stuff.  But we certainly don’t understand prayer.  In fact, during a pre-service prayer today at the youth group I volunteer at one young man requested prayer for himself and his family as they will soon be making a twenty-seven hour drive in a car that according to him, “barely seats five people” – guess how many will be sitting in it.

The truth is that prayer is often a means to our end of comfort.  We may say that it is more than that, but our prayers too often communicate otherwise.  We use prayer to get the things that we care about: a successful business, a raise, a comfortable ride, a better job, a win for our team, a better score on a test, our man in office, better behaved children, etc.  But, contrary to what we’ve been taught, God actually doesn’t always care about what we care about.  He cares about us, but he may not really care about whether our car ride is comfortable and entertaining. Nor may he care about whether our business is successful.

It may very well be that in order for God to say “Yes” to some of our prayer requests, he would have to say “No” to doing what is best for us.

You see, God cares about us becoming the type of people he wants us to be, he is interested in our character and whether we are becoming like Christ.  Granting many of our prayer requests would shortchange that process.  That doesn’t mean he’ll never grant us our requests, but it does mean that when he says “No” to us, it is an act of love, first and foremost.  And this is true even in the most tedious prayers, like the twenty-seven hour car ride.

But, hey, if you want to buy a prayer, I’ll happily oblige.  Just  know that my prayer will be for your discontinued business.

Filed under: Uncategorized Tagged: | Comfort, Consumerism, God, Prayer, Theology