Jesus Teaches on Prayer
“So I say to you,” said Jesus. “Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; the one who seeks finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened. Which of you fathers, if your son asks for a fish, will give him a snake instead? Or if he asks for an egg, will give him a scorpion? If you then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!”
There was a pause.
“Lord,” said Matthew.
“Yes, Matthew?” said Jesus.
“Is there a Technical Support prayer that I can pray?”
“A… what?”
“I am having some connectivity issues,” went on Matthew. “I can send my prayers, that’s fine – the sending is fine. But I don’t seem to be receiving any signal. I just get silence.”
“Let me deal with this, Master,” smiled Peter, placing his hand on Jesus’ arm. “Matthew, have you correctly begun your prayer?”
“I – I suppose so…”
“You must clearly begin the prayer by addressing God the Father, or Jesus, or the Holy Spirit. If you don’t state this then the prayer can get lost in the… the… air.”
“Yes, yes I’m doing that.”
“Okay, then have you given the right information? You must begin with Adoration, then follow with Confession, then give Thanks and finally ask for what you want – Supplication. ACTS. If you haven’t entered your details correctly then this can lead to unnecessary delays in prayer-answering.”
“Yes I’ve done all that too – the right order and everything.”
“Hmm,” said Peter. “Tricky one this, what language are you using?”
“Aramaic,” said Matthew.
Peter nodded, deep in thought. “Yes, Aramaic is supported, so it can’t be that – tell you what, maybe there’s a user-error. Are you waiting for the buffering to finish? It can take a while for the answer to download. You have to be really, really quiet and not let yourself think about anything else.”
“Yes, yes I’m doing that! I’m waiting ages!”
“Well,” said Peter, unravelling a scroll and casting his eyes up and down it. “Well that completes the diagnostic schedule – I’m not sure what’s wrong with this one.”
“Have you tried turning yourself off and on again?” Asked John.
“DON’T do that,” said Jesus.
The adolescence of a believer
I never trust anybody who says they enjoyed their teenage years. For me, being a teenager represented a decade of pitched conflict against an army of cleverly-organised guerilla skin pimples, punctuated by brief moments of rejection by girls. Being a teenager meant trying to survive in a nuanced but brutal school hierachy which would make even the most complex Mafia family feel like an article in Hello! magazine.
There were moments, however, of impressive ingenuity – my friends and I could never pass as 18, so we had to rely on the largest of our group to buy the beer and cigarettes for us on a Friday night. Years later, he would casually admit he had been overcharging us the whole time and had happily bought a bookcase-worth of albums from the profits.
I think he’s a lawyer now.
One of the things I found most confusing was the sudden ramp-up in personal responsibility that you go through when you hit adolescence. You’re forced to start thinking and developing for yourself, rather than relying on the constant support of parents or teachers. It ramped-up again at college, where you had to get a job (outrageous) or there’d be no beer for you. I got a job in telesales, signing people with credit cards up for a new credit card (“You seem to be in debt, would you like some more?”).
This was hard because until this point, relationships felt transactional to us. We needed something, and if we asked nicely by adding ‘please’, we might get it. My godson (who is three), for example, has been known to ask “Mummy, can I go to Narnia… Pleeeeez?” and “Mummy, I want ice-cream for breakfast… Pleeeeez!”
But when we hit adolescence, the parent-child relationship increases the tempo of the child’s development. The transaction ceases to be tangible things like pocket money (‘allowances’ to our American friends), lifts in the car and ironed shirts, and instead we receive independence and growth as people.
And God’s really clear in the Bible about who He expects us to be. Although we are to be dependent on Him, He doesn’t intend for us to be like babies clambering for their next feed. We are to develop into Christians who can stand on their own two feet and take what’s thrown at them in life. We’re to think, and make decisions, in line with what He’s given us in the Bible. Sometimes this can be extremely tough. It means making decisions and coping with things even if we feel like we’re on our own, because God doesn’t seem to be communicating with us.
The quote from Jesus at the start of this article (which comes from Luke 11 and Matthew 7) does not imply that prayer will involve immediate answers or that we will receive exactly what we think we need, or ask for. It’s not a magic ordering service. It promises instead that God will provide for our needs, which He knows better than us. And sometimes it’s just that which we need to cling to as we are compelled to act in spite of radio silence.
So, let’s be careful about running too many diagnostic tests to work out why God isn’t speaking, like he’s a malfunctioning printer or a 1991 Ford Orion. I’m not convinced that God is a blackmailer or a petulant child, who refuses to speak to us because we haven’t (or have) done a certain thing. Instead, let’s think more broadly – and more like grown-ups. Let’s ensure we’re making time to ‘listen’ – that is, we know what to look out for and we’re looking for it, that we’re flexible in what we consider to be ‘answers’ to prayers, or try to find out if an answer might already exist in the Bible first. If nothing’s coming, let’s trust Him that we’re to operate on radio silence for a bit, and do it.
Let’s be better – and less pimply – spiritual adolescents.
Undercover Christian 