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jenny_islanderToday's section is about obstacles to prayer. Note: Foster acknowledges that prayer is an enormous and multi-faceted jewel, so he restricts his discussion in this book to intercessory prayer, that is, prayer on behalf of others.
Foster had more time to think about obstacles to intercessory prayer between writing the original book and his study guide. From the study guide, here is a list of problems we may encounter when we try to pray or even try to want to pray.
The first obstacle is the assumption that "prayer mainly involves asking things from God." Foster describes answers to prayer as "a happy by-product" of its most important function, which is "To sink down into the light of Christ and become comfortable in that posture...to discover God in all the moments of our days, and to be pleased rather than perturbed at the discovery," in short, "a growing, perpetual communion." Heady stuff! But attainable. Now and then you meet someone who has that light. In general, they aren't conspicuously separated from everyday life. They move through it and partake in it, but they are secure in the knowledge that the greater world is always there.
The second is the assumption that prayer must be difficult--that it must carry with it awe and terror of the Almighty, or be a struggle to define sacred space amidst the distractions of the mundane. Foster does not downplay either of these issues, but from his perspective, "the most frequent experience during prayer is one of lightness, joy, comfort, serenity. Even laughter...There is a feeling of companionship...of a different quality from the ordinary human variety. Perhaps it is that we are becoming friends with God." That sounds like something from a bland modern praise song until you think about the implications. Again I recall the Gregory Paul print of the running tyrannosaurs that I kept near my desk for years. What is man, that Thou art mindful of him? What does it mean to be a temporal--a temporary--creature, a mere spark in the long burn of Creation, and yet have the Creator personally interested in your ordinary life and in what you have to say? Maybe the way over this obstacle is to remember that we are made in God's image, and that includes inclinations toward mercy and hospitality.
The third is one that I have bumped into in my personal life. People who are quite close to me, who were raised just as Lutheran as I was, have preached to me of the absolute control of God over every moment of our lives in a way that leaves absolutely no room for our mercy or compassion or creativity or consciousness. Put another way, if there is only ever one possible outcome for every event, why not just sit down like a bump on a log and let whatever happens happen? Foster has encountered the same notion; he calls it Stoic. He points out that we are in truth made in God's image, which also means that we too are creators. (I note that J.R.R. Tolkien described his intricately imagined Middle-Earth as sub-creation, that is, as an expression of his own nature as a reflection of the Creator God.) "If the Apostle Paul is right that 'we are fellow workers with God' (1 Corinthians 3:9), then ours is indeed an open universe." But be careful not to get a big head about it. The same passage begins by pointing out that although the crop grows because it is planted and watered, humankind is not the force that causes planting and watering to have results. And it ends like this (Young's Literal Translation): "God's tillage, God's building ye are."
The fourth is the fear of loss of faith "if our prayers are not answered the first time every time." So we don't ask for what we want; we take refuge in vague petĪ¹tions and wishes. But this, Foster says, reflects a fundamental misunderstanding of the nature of prayer. If we flip a light switch but it doesn't work, we don't decide that electricty is a fraud. Something in the network between the light switch and the power plant needs attention. Or it's possible that we were trying to light up the wrong room or flipping the wrong switch. This only appears facile if you don't consider what it might mean to co-ordinate our attempts at sub-creating with the immense complexity and limitless motion of the greater real world.
The fifth and final item on Foster's list is a teaching that Foster calls common, although I am glad not to have encountered it. "Pray once! Any more than that shows a lack of faith." Foster observes that Jesus' own parables directly contradict it. See "The Friend at Midnight" in Luke 11 and "The Persistent Widow" in Luke 18 for details. Foster goes on to say, "We are to keep at this work, mainly, I think, because we aer the channel through which God's life and light flows into individuals or situations."
Turning back to the main text, Foster remarks of his list of giants of prayer life, "For those explorers in the frontiers of faith, prayer was no little habit tacked onto the periphery of their lives; it was their lives. It was the most serious work of their most productive years."
How to go about this is the subject of the next post.
Foster had more time to think about obstacles to intercessory prayer between writing the original book and his study guide. From the study guide, here is a list of problems we may encounter when we try to pray or even try to want to pray.
The first obstacle is the assumption that "prayer mainly involves asking things from God." Foster describes answers to prayer as "a happy by-product" of its most important function, which is "To sink down into the light of Christ and become comfortable in that posture...to discover God in all the moments of our days, and to be pleased rather than perturbed at the discovery," in short, "a growing, perpetual communion." Heady stuff! But attainable. Now and then you meet someone who has that light. In general, they aren't conspicuously separated from everyday life. They move through it and partake in it, but they are secure in the knowledge that the greater world is always there.
The second is the assumption that prayer must be difficult--that it must carry with it awe and terror of the Almighty, or be a struggle to define sacred space amidst the distractions of the mundane. Foster does not downplay either of these issues, but from his perspective, "the most frequent experience during prayer is one of lightness, joy, comfort, serenity. Even laughter...There is a feeling of companionship...of a different quality from the ordinary human variety. Perhaps it is that we are becoming friends with God." That sounds like something from a bland modern praise song until you think about the implications. Again I recall the Gregory Paul print of the running tyrannosaurs that I kept near my desk for years. What is man, that Thou art mindful of him? What does it mean to be a temporal--a temporary--creature, a mere spark in the long burn of Creation, and yet have the Creator personally interested in your ordinary life and in what you have to say? Maybe the way over this obstacle is to remember that we are made in God's image, and that includes inclinations toward mercy and hospitality.
The third is one that I have bumped into in my personal life. People who are quite close to me, who were raised just as Lutheran as I was, have preached to me of the absolute control of God over every moment of our lives in a way that leaves absolutely no room for our mercy or compassion or creativity or consciousness. Put another way, if there is only ever one possible outcome for every event, why not just sit down like a bump on a log and let whatever happens happen? Foster has encountered the same notion; he calls it Stoic. He points out that we are in truth made in God's image, which also means that we too are creators. (I note that J.R.R. Tolkien described his intricately imagined Middle-Earth as sub-creation, that is, as an expression of his own nature as a reflection of the Creator God.) "If the Apostle Paul is right that 'we are fellow workers with God' (1 Corinthians 3:9), then ours is indeed an open universe." But be careful not to get a big head about it. The same passage begins by pointing out that although the crop grows because it is planted and watered, humankind is not the force that causes planting and watering to have results. And it ends like this (Young's Literal Translation): "God's tillage, God's building ye are."
The fourth is the fear of loss of faith "if our prayers are not answered the first time every time." So we don't ask for what we want; we take refuge in vague petĪ¹tions and wishes. But this, Foster says, reflects a fundamental misunderstanding of the nature of prayer. If we flip a light switch but it doesn't work, we don't decide that electricty is a fraud. Something in the network between the light switch and the power plant needs attention. Or it's possible that we were trying to light up the wrong room or flipping the wrong switch. This only appears facile if you don't consider what it might mean to co-ordinate our attempts at sub-creating with the immense complexity and limitless motion of the greater real world.
The fifth and final item on Foster's list is a teaching that Foster calls common, although I am glad not to have encountered it. "Pray once! Any more than that shows a lack of faith." Foster observes that Jesus' own parables directly contradict it. See "The Friend at Midnight" in Luke 11 and "The Persistent Widow" in Luke 18 for details. Foster goes on to say, "We are to keep at this work, mainly, I think, because we aer the channel through which God's life and light flows into individuals or situations."
Turning back to the main text, Foster remarks of his list of giants of prayer life, "For those explorers in the frontiers of faith, prayer was no little habit tacked onto the periphery of their lives; it was their lives. It was the most serious work of their most productive years."
How to go about this is the subject of the next post.
