Asking the Right Questions

Mark 11:22-25

As with many passages of scripture, there is a tendency to read only to the part we like, then stop. To do so, though, is often to miss the point of the whole statement being made. Nothing could more true here. We read to the point where Jesus says, “...whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have it, and it will be yours.” So good is this good news that that is as far as we get. What more could be said?

Well, a lot, really.

The very next thought that Christ states is, 

...whenever you stand praying, forgive if you have anything against anyone, so your Father who is in heaven may also forgive you your trespasses.

That changes everything. That immediately shatters any and all delusions of self-interest or self-gratification in prayer. 

Suddenly, Christ’s meaning becomes sharply clear--what you ask for in prayer that is love, other-centered, self-emptying love--will be met with the fullness of God. Anything that seeks to bring love to others, flowing from our own love, will be met by the love of God to bring it to complete fruition. 

So, it would seem, if we are going to practice prayer, then we need to have a full comprehension of this love that God is. 

This love engages with the world, recognizing that where there is life, there is God; and where there is God, there is love. So, we meet the world, fully accepting that everyone we meet is a beloved of God. That changes how we speak, act, and understand the presence of others. It means we have to practice awareness in any and all encounters, stopping ourselves--or, at least, slowing ourselves--to fully acknowledge the wonder that is before us in each and every person. We are all human, therefore, we are all connected. There are universals that bind us together--such as being in the image of God, being formed by love, and wanting to find happiness. These are things that are true no matter what group of human beings we happen to be within. So, we act as if it were so. We learn to diminish our impulses toward self-gratification or self-interest (realizing we may never fully eradicate them). The Dalai Lama taught at a recent conference that since selfishness seems to be human tendency, then we need to learn the difference between wise selfishness and foolish selfishness. What he meant was that we often do good things, compassionate things, and helpful things because that makes us feel better inside and about ourselves--so even a good word or deed has a selfish element. But it is wise selfishness because it ends up helping someone else and leads us to a better place--everyone benefits. Foolish selfishness is something that is truly only self-serving, something that so radically focuses only on ME that all others are excluded except as they can be used for my gratification. So, to engage in love means we seek to practice wise selfishness. Who knows? We may even eventually be able to speak goodness and do goodness only because they are good one day. 

Okay--now we have an understanding of love that God is. We can now move to understanding what prayer might be.

An utterly simple definition of prayer might be “sitting with God.” Prayer is really nothing more than seeking to experience the presence of God that is always present. 

Too often, though, we end up thwarting this end by talking too much. We fill up the time with God with our words, our wants, our needs, our life, and just us to the point that God has nowhere to be. A quick cure--prayer as listening. As Elijah encountered God, he had a stunning revelation--God was not in the noise of the world--no earthquake or tornado could hold God--instead, God was in the utter silence of stillness, speaking in a whisper. In other words, it was only as Elijah fell into silent listening that he found God who was always with him. So, sitting with God means just that--sit still and listen. This allows us to be directed by God, for we are ready to be led. 

Have you ever had the experience of being asked for directions and then the person asking keeps right on talking about all their wrong turns, guesses, faulty GPS, and whatnot and you never get to answer? They have to listen to get help.

Ditto, prayer.

However, there does come a moment when we present ourselves to God. Christ hints at this in the lesson heard in Mark--he assumes that what will be presented is an imperfect, incomplete human being seeking forgiveness and completion. Don’t quickly pass over this insight. When we do speak in prayer, it should be self-revelation that is an honest assessment of who and what we are. Another universal of human existence is that we are imperfect and incomplete. No one has everything it takes to fully realize being the image of God--it takes community to find that realization, for we are interconnected and interdependent--each has something that makes another more complete; we need each other. Because we are incomplete and imperfect, we are in need of mending. To find that mending, we have to be completely honest in our confession of its needfulness. That is when we talk in prayer. “This is who I am, right here, right now. This where I am, right here, right now. This is how I am, right here, right now.”

Then we fall silent again. 

It is time to listen. We grow still, following the Psalmist, “Be still and know that I am God.” We wait. God’s answers flow from God’s eternity. Sure, there will be moments of sudden insight through the presence of God, but there will also be times when the answer comes in God’s time--i.e., it will be a slow realization, unfolding over continued experience as we make our way through the world. 

Also, we realize that God’s answers may or may not look like what we expect them to be. At times, God is counterintuitive because what we assume to be right thinking may not be--ergo, the Pharisees, with the absolute best of intentions, found themselves lost. We have to cultivate an openness to God’s freedom. The answer will be love, but it may not be love as we assume it to be. Listening includes deep reflection in what is heard to see what all it might actually contain and carry. 

That means that getting what we ask in prayer may not be at all what we thought we were asking for. Peppermint Patty helps here--as she signed up for her classes at school, she asked for macrame, art, music, gym, and basket weaving; what she got was science, math, English, and two study halls. Her response? “I learned that what you sign up for and what you get are two different things.”

So, we see that we cannot stop at the good part, but we have to hear the whole lesson. Prayer is about listening for God. It is understanding that God’s answers will all be expressions of love that God is. Prayers made from that base will be answered. We have to be open to the answers that come, for they may be different from what we thought. But they will be love. They will be love that deepens us as children of God, made in the image of God, able to serve others as we have been served.

Go and pray.