by Stephen Rodgers

First of all, apologies for the lateness of the article today. I didn’t know I was writing it until a few hours ago. I take small consolation in the fact that our beloved pastor has apparently been so overcome by his guilt in surprising me in this way, that he has fled the country.

No…not really. See me Sunday if you don’t get the joke. But let’s skip over that and move on to something more substantial: reflections on a particular aspect of the recent Singles Retreat. The theme of the retreat was “Dependence,” and if you haven’t yet read Pastor Patrick’s article that he wrote in response to the messages, I would commend it to you.

One of the messages was particular focused on prayer, particularly in regards to Romans 8:26-27. For those of you who aren’t as familiar with that passage, it speaks of how the Spirit intercedes on our behalf in our prayers. This passage sits at a nexus of several biblical themes: prayer (as the act of every believer, verse 26), the will of God (and how the Spirit will assist us in praying within it, verse 27), and even the work of each member of the trinity (in this passage, the Spirit intercedes before God on the behalf of the believer, just as Christ is said to do in Hebrews 2:17-18, 4:14-16, and 7:24-26).

When those messages are added to the media archive, I’ll be sure to include a link here. (Editor’s Note: they have been added). Meanwhile, I wanted to highlight three additional ways that we are dependent on God in prayer. These aren’t drawn from the retreat messages per se, but I think that all of them underscore our dependence on God.

1. God is the object of our prayers. Prayers in and of themselves are objectively useless. They may impart some sort of subjective experience of catharsis, but part from a deity who can both hear and respond, they are nothing more than baseless utterances. But we know from Scripture that God does hear our prayers, and that He is the final arbiter of that which will be. In directing our prayers to Him we can have full confidence that they are anything but useless. He may not always answer in the way we would hope, but we know that this is due to our own lack of understanding rather than a limitation on His part.
2. God is the model for our prayers. Prayer can seem nerve-wracking at times; after all, what do to you say to someone who has not only seen the birth of our entire universe, but actually spoke the words that birthed it? Thanking him for a good day or asking him to impart His divine blessing on your pizza can seem downright trivial. How much more confidence should we have then since He has given us instruction on how to pray to Him? From the instruction of the Lord’s prayer to the examples of the psalmists, Scripture is full of models of prayer that please God. We have nothing less than the very words of God to tell us how to have words with God.
3. God is the answer to our prayers. In Matthew 21:16, Jesus identifies Himself as the object of the prayer of Psalm 8:2. Hebrews 1:8-12 identifies Jesus as the object of some prayers in the Psalms as well. This may seem obvious, but think for a moment of what it means that we have a God who came down to us. We already touched on the fact that God hears and responds to prayer. But in His plan for redemption, God didn’t simply manipulate a few events; He personally involved Himself in the story. He condescended to His own creation. And before He left, He told us that He would one day do so again, and in the meantime we still have access to Him.

As I mentioned before, the theme of the retreat was “Dependence,” and I think it was a theme that was hammered home over and over again. But as I reflect on God and His gift of prayer, I can’t help but realize how this common experience ties us together as Christians. The first instance of prayer in the Bible is recorded in Genesis: the book of beginnings. The last instance of prayer in the Bible is recorded in Revelation: the book of new beginnings. Somewhere in between those two are the entirety of a people called by God, who in turn call upon Him. From Adam and Abraham to Peter and Paul to you and me, the same God has heard us all.

I’m not sure you can follow that thought and not feel very, very small.

What seem our worst prayers may really be, in God’s eyes, our best. Those, I mean, which are least supported by devotional feeling. For these may come from a deeper level than feeling. God sometimes seems to speak to us most intimately when he catches us, as it were, off our guard. (CS Lewis, Letters to Malcolm: Chiefly on Prayer)