Gestalt Prayers

It wouldn’t be right to ignore the fact that there are also some less admirable reasons why people pray. One is a desire to entreat God to make life fair, level, and tidy. David often prayed what I call leveling prayers, where he asked God to dump some painful justice on his enemies, much like kids do to their dads when a bully bothers them. When pressured by people who sought to destroy or slander him, he called upon God to vindicate him (see Psalm 3).

That kind of praying involves what psychologists call gestalt, which is a theory that people have an image of how things ought to be, and they can’t rest until that image becomes reality. So if something is awry, make it right. We saw gestalt in action once when my parents were visiting us for the holidays. One day Barbara asked if anyone knew where the yardstick was, and my Dad said, “Yeah, it’s hanging in the basement where it belongs.” In his mind, yardsticks didn’t belong in kitchens, but in basements, so he found a good place to put it somewhere near the washer and dryer, and there it hung.

I suspect many praying people run to Poppa to see if He’ll level their playing field or solve their latest problem. Such praying isn’t necessarily bad, but sometimes the problem’s fix isn’t God’s responsibility. Or it represents a lesson that requires your perseverance and trust.

Gestalt also works its way into what I call global prayers. This is when people piously entreat God to feed the hungry, shelter the homeless, or enforce world peace. While such prayers make the supplicant feel good about their investment in the world’s problems, I fear their efforts are mostly futile because they pass all the responsibility for justice to God. It’s easy to say you’ll pray for someone, or to humbly boast about your keen insight into the plight of the world. But if you’re burdened by the world’s starving masses, don’t dump that on God; send money to those who feed hungry people. If you worry about the homeless, volunteer in a shelter. If turmoil in other lands bothers you, live peacefully in your own world. As long as you can put hands and feet on your prayers, do it before you ask God to get involved. Only then can you be certain that your concern and faith are real (see James 2:14–19).

Invariably, prayer becomes more urgent as personal power over a circumstance diminishes. When you get the bad news that cancer has invaded your body, you intuitively know how to rush the gates of heaven with passionate petitions for health. Conversely, when you have control over your life and things go well, does prayer become more perfunctory than passionate? Such a reaction is automatic, instinctual, even understandable, but it’s also regrettable. Why? Because that kind of praying limits the potential of prayer to immediate needs and overlooks the long-term values that build character, integrity, and faith.

When General William Booth, co-founder of The Salvation Army, heard that there were hoards of home “homeless people sleeping under bridges in the cold, his orders to the troops were simple and direct: “Well, do something!” While simplistic on the surface, he understood that spiritual concern begins with compassion and extends into practical assistance. His expectations were high, but his was vision simple. He might have just as easily said: “Don’t wring your hands about the world’s hungry people; feed someone. Don’t worry about people dying in the cold; give them shelter. Don’t pray about world peace; be a peacemaker.”

Let’s be clear. It’s wonderful that God’s people care about the suffering of others, and it’s just as wonderful to pray about it, but all of that is useless gestalt if you don’t do something about it as well. So if prayer isn’t about obtaining things, what’s it about? One thing we know for sure: prayer isn’t a game of spiritual persuasion where the biggest lobby groups carry more weight than individual saints. If you doubt that, note that James 5:17 teaches how one single person is enough to move God to action: “The effective, fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much.” (NKJV)

Jesus’ answer to those who worried too much about all the things of life was also simple yet direct: “Seek first His kingdom and His righteousness and all these things will be given to you as well” (Matthew 6:33). In other words, pray to gain a relationship with Him, and then allow Him to share His nature with you before worrying about things like fairness, leveling, or personal justice. Completely entrusting your circumstance and providence to Him takes more will power and spiritual work than anything in life. But when you learn to do that each day, you’ll never again need to worry about getting all those other things.

Excerpt From: Jack Corbin Getz. “Praying When Prayer Doesn't Work.” iUniverse, 2010-06-30. iBooks. This material may be protected by copyright.

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