What happens when your prayers stop working?

When I was a child, prayer was easy. I was taught to pray for anything and everything: healing, finances, blessing, good sleep; all of life was immersed in prayer. Our family would regularly attend worship and prayer meetings; meetings where as a toddler I would fall asleep, squeezed awkwardly under the church seats in a school hall wrapped in my favourite green blanket. My dreams were filled with the rising and falling of earnest voices; the rhythms of pentecostal prayer.

At 11 years old I came home from a healing meeting and, having spent the evening watching streams of people testify to their miracle, I was determined to have a miracle of my own. And so there I was, sitting on my bed late at night, peering at my alarm clock through my thick spectacles. A short, ginger haired kid with glasses, wanting to be healed from his short-sightedness. Surely God would heal me. That’s how this thing works, right? Just pray and believe. And if I persisted then God would ultimately relent, compelled by my steadfast devotion and unyielding commitment. 

I removed my glasses, mustered up the most determined and ‘faith-filled’ attitude possible and sat there, nestled under a crumpled duvet, staring at the blurry, pale green numbers as they glowed irrepressibly on the digital clock face. I informed God in a loud whisper, “I’m staying here, wide awake, staring at this clock until you heal my eyes and the numbers become clear!” And there I remained, staring, pleading, trying to muster as much resolute belief as I could, hoping to outlast God. I clung to consciousness, forcing my eyes to remain open for fear that I would give up before my miracle arrived. When I woke in the morning, dishevelled and tired but still in need of my glasses, I was undaunted. I was disappointed of course, but mostly in myself for falling asleep. If I could have only hung in there, surely God would have done it. This was not God’s fault, it was mine. Next time I would be more committed.

If you haven’t experienced this version of religious faith, you could be forgiven for wondering why people don’t just give up when the prayer goes unanswered, but it’s a potent and surprisingly robust framework. God answers our prayers, but only if the conditions are perfect, and there were four common reasons why conditions weren’t perfect.

The first was confronting: I needed less doubt and more faith. Lack of ‘success’ was obviously my fault and resulted in buckets of self-flagellation drawn from an endlessly abundant well of blame. If only I had believed a little more, if only I hadn’t doubted, if only I had prayed for longer. Or perhaps this is a test; God is waiting to see if I’ll hang in there and show real perseverance. When I was in my twenties, this was my preferred modus operandi. Self-flagellation was the perfect spiritual practice for a melancholic introvert trying to make his way in a prosperity oriented mega-church. 

The second reason was connected to the first, and was particularly effective at dialling up the dosage. It was sin of course - and for a young man a cleaner mind is usually what was required! 

The third was a little tamer in comparison, and was always perfect for those situations where faith seemed genuine and the request appeared honest: it was a matter of timing. It’s a good request, but it doesn’t fit in God’s plan right now. It may not be ‘no’ - it might be ‘wait’. God closes some doors and opens other doors; all according to an unseen master plan. 

The fourth reason managed to be simultaneously terrifying and encouraging: things weren’t going well because of the devil. Terrifying because, well, the devil! But encouraging, because you were obviously on top of his hit list due to being such a good Christian.

I fluctuated between these four reasons for years and this framework held me firmly in my spiritual paradigm. I knew that if I could just get the formula right then my prayers would start being answered in dramatic ways. But despite the resilience of this system it did, eventually, begin to break down. I looked at my own life, the lives of my friends and at those who had the best possible responses to the four common reasons for unanswered prayer, and they still experienced pain, suffering, loss and disintegration. The system didn’t hold for everyone (or, if we were able to be honest, for many at all). 

And if God is going around answering prayers for some people with liberal abandon – miraculous carparks, miraculous clothing sales, miraculous job opportunities, miraculous new houses – but not answering other people who are requesting vital divine interventions in matters of life and death, then what does that say about God? 

I don’t say all of this simply to wallow in smug cynicism toward my own tradition. We all want something to help us make sense of life. We live in a chaotic and unstable world and even when things look settled, there are mountains of anxiety sitting under the surface. We are drawn to that which can tell us why things are the way they are, to tell us that it’s all going to be okay and that there’s something we can do. 

And some of you might be ready to respond with a list of beautifully answered prayers that demonstrate that God is still in business. And if you’ve experienced that, I am genuinely happy for you - my aim is not to stop people from asking for things from God. But my mind is continually drawn to the experience of those for whom the prayer does not work. Those for whom the illness will not be defeated. For whom life will not turn out okay. For whom the tears will flow and being told to pray with more faith will only serve to add to the grief.

And so I have been confronted with the reality that I can no longer pray as I once did. I can no longer see God as an old man in the sky looking down on me, analysing my devotion and deciding whether or not ‘He’ would give me a ‘yes’ or a ‘no’. This view of God was comforting to me at one point, but when life ceases to follow the rules of the religious script, this view of God is revealed to be toxic and deeply unhealthy. Its well-hidden of course, otherwise no-one would buy in; it is buried beneath layers of religious language, well-meaning advice, inspirational quotes and a sense of belonging. 

But if this is not a helpful view of God, where does that leave us? For many, it leads to an abandonment of faith and spirituality entirely. And for others, it is this kind of inconsistency that helps to describe why they have never bought into Christian religion in the first place. But for many people, a realisation that the old framework is no longer working is not enough cause to throw away the notion of spirituality, or even Christian faith, itself.

Many of us are still interested in the idea that there is more going on here, that we are connected in ways that are unseen and that there is meaning in the world. And the idea that whatever language we use for it, there is still something sacred and divine at work that calls us forward into something more beautiful than what we see right now.

I still want to stay open to a little mystery, to the possibility that miracles can emerge in the most unexpected places. But I also want to explore what prayer looks like when God is found in the face of the ‘other’, in the soil beneath my feet, and in the movement of life that can take us from joy to tragedy in a heartbeat. In fact, I find now that this is where the story of Jesus takes me. And that is where I want to find God; not as some cosmic granddaddy who approves or declines my requests, but as the source of life and the presence of grace in a world where both life and grace are sorely needed.