To Be Loved Alone: Prayer

I type this in a darkened hotel room. Heidi’s portable crib is tucked around the corner, halfway in the bathroom, so she can sleep while the rest of us are awake. On the other bed, Jeff and Dutch have been hard at work putting together a new Lego set, a sea-plane. Dutch is now narrating a detailed account in a hushed voice: “‘The plane needs to land on the runway,’ said the driver,’ but the runway is cracked, so I have to find another way…'”  It’s pretty intense.

We’re on day six of a week-long vacation.  We’ve been camping since last Tuesday, then today we drove to Newport for a quick 2-day beach trip including a much-anticipated visit to the Oregon Coast Aquarium.  For the ocean-animal obsessed boy that Dutch is, this is the trip of a lifetime.  Seeing a real octopus and shark is like flying to the moon.

This has been the best vacation our little family has ever had.  I’ve seen this “loved alone” phenomenon playing out left and right. We almost always made our plans each day so that each kid could get a special experience with one of us (or with a grandparent).  As a result, we had some of the sweetest experiences ever, and saw our kids deliriously happy. I’m double-convinced now that making a real effort for this one-on-one times is critical.

So how does this relate to prayer?

I recently received this comment from a reader:

If God has a perfect plan, and everything happens for a reason than I can’t see how prayer would do anything at all.

If you are praying you’re either:

1. Asking God to do what he was already going to do.
2. Asking him to go against his perfect plan.

I’m sure we’ve all had this dilemma at one time or another.  I know I have.

I surely do not claim to fully understand the supernatural dynamic of prayer.  But I believe this reader expresses the most common misconception about prayer.  Which is, that the primary purpose of prayer is to make things happen.

Now, I do believe that God responds to prayer, and that therefore things do happen, but not in the way that is represented above.  My best understanding of prayer actually comes from the little 40-pound blond-haired monkey who’s lying on the bed next to me, watching a Planet Earth documentary (to prep his little brain for tomorrow and to keep him quiet so sister can sleep :).  It is through loving him alone that I understand prayer.

We pray because we are loved alone.

It’s all about relationship.  Today in the car, Dutch was talking (nothing new there). Now he’s been such an amazingly good boy on this trip. And, by day six, he’s also a very tired little boy. No naps and going to bed at 10pm in a tent each night, he’s one tired little guy.  As we were driving, he began talking about how he was so excited to play “little Legos” (not duplos, the real ones) with daddy while sister was asleep (he only gets to use the little ones when sister’s asleep since they’re a choking hazard).  Well, of course we’re not at home and we have no Legos with us and we’re on the way to a hotel where there will be no such thing happening.  But, we’d been super frugal and I had $10 of fun spending money in my wallet. So, I ran into Fred Meyer and got a bag of microwave popcorn and a new little Lego sea-plane and we were set for an entire evening of hotel-room fun.  With Heidi sound asleep, they constructed that sea-plane, and here we are at the beginning of the post.

But back to Dutch talking in the backseat. There is nothing so sweet on earth as the sound of my children’s voices.  Just hearing them babble is the purest pleasure. On the drive today we took a video of them singing together.  Ah! Precious!  I could just listen to that sound forever.  Of course I don’t like hearing them complain, but hearing their soft sweet sing-song voices express their ideas, wishes, dreams, fears, songs, thoughts–there is nothing I love more. I don’t just love them in some generic sort of love.  I don’t love hearing other kids’ voices.  I love my kids voices because I love who they are.  Unique, individual miracles of God’s creation.  I love them alone, so I love hearing from them alone.

We talk to God (pray) because we love God.  God speaks to us because He loves us.  We don’t talk to God to tell Him something He doesn’t know.  I will sit and listen to Dutch’s stories (which can be lengthy!), because they express the wonder of who he is, and by communing together we are being bonded.

We talk to God because that is how we engage in relationship with Him.  And, we would miss out tremendously if we did not.  This vacation again is a perfect example. There are too many instances to detail, but I prayed some very specific things about this trip–some things that might even seem silly (for a good campsite where we could be next to our family and friends), or selfish (beautiful weather). Of course I didn’t demand those things, but like Dutch sitting in the backseat, I simply wanted to tell my heavenly daddy what the dreams of my heart were. And over and over and over God answered little prayers left and right on this vacation.  He gave my family and me a million little kisses to shower us with a reminder that He cares about the details of our lives and loves to be part of it all.

Does that make Him a genie? Certainly not. There are, of course, huge things in the life of my family that I wish I could change. I wish certain people lived closer, I wish certain people didn’t have illnesses, I wish certain people had babies like they so desire.  And yes, I have prayed all these things to God, and have sensed and know that He is at work in some greater purpose through it all.

So where does that leave me? I will continue to pray about those big things, reassured in my daily life of God’s one-and-only love for me and my family.  I might add that Dutch also expressed in the car that he was excited to see a blue whale at the aquarium tomorrow.  Now that, obviously, is not going to happen, no matter how much I love Dutch. There are physical limitations in this fallen world, and there are therefore no fish tanks that hold whales the size of mack trucks.  Similarly, no matter how much God might love to answer every whim and wish of ours, we live in a fallen world bound by the corruption that sin has brought.  And because of that we have brokenness, disease, loss.  Though He doesn’t right every wrong this very moment, He entered into our suffering on the cross, has already conquered the grave, and has promised to make all things new, wiping every tear from our eyes so that we will remember sorrow no more.

I cannot show Dutch a blue whale tomorrow, but today I will buy him a Lego set, and I will spend my life loving him alone and teaching him about Jesus, so that one day in heaven, Dutch will experience more joyful amazement than any blue whale could ever bring. I will do the little things to win his heart, and convince him of my love for him, so that he will be able to rest in my love and trust me, even when I must allow him to go through hard times.  I win his heart so he will trust me even when it hurts.  God does the same for us.

So, it is not about us changing God’s will. It is about telling God every hope and dream, and listening as God tells us His.  There is nothing so sweet at communicating with one’s own child.  If only we could know, truly know, the Father’s extravagant love for us, I think we’d find ourselves talking and listening to Him all day.  We’d forget about right and wrong ways of praying, and we’d just fall in love with our Heavenly Dad.