Prayer is like pushing on the back window

I had a minor brainwave yesterday. It occurred me, not for the first time, that Christians generally don't believe their own hype about prayer. Here's what I mean: Listen to any Christian organization asking for help and you'll notice how prayer is always thrown in as an afterthought. They need your money. They need you to join. They need you to write letters and emails. They need you to attend. And, oh yes, please pray for us, too.

Why don't they ask only for prayer? Pray for us to be able to pay our bills! No need to send actual money, because prayer will get us the money. Like that.

When I was a child, we used to play a game in my dad's car. We pretended that we were racing all the other cars on the road behind us. When another car seemed to be gaining on us, we pushed on the back window to get them to fall back. And damned if it didn't work some of the time. How exciting to push on the glass and see the competing vehicles respond to our efforts by slowing down! It was a feeling of such power and control. Oh sure, a lot of the time it didn't work, but that was OK, as long as our method was successful some of the time.

Need I say more? Obviously, pushing on the glass had nothing to do with the acceleration or deceleration of the other cars. But we quickly built a connection in our minds when it seemed to work. Just like prayer. We have a ready explanation for the gobs of times it has no effect, and we take great delight whenever it seems to be effective. Oh, to be a child again.

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