A pastor never quite knows what his day is going to be like. You plan and schedule things, but you need to be flexible because changes spring up out of nowhere. On Wednesday, as I was preparing for our Advent service I received a phone call from a woman who was brought to tears. Her brother recently committed suicide and her mother had passed away from cancer a few months before. She also has suffered from: drug use, bi-polar disorder, diabetes, and depression. We talked for a while about things in her life; what she’s currently going through and what she needs to fix. And obviously, we also talked about God.
Whenever the topic of God came up the conversation always  reverted back to one thing for this woman – prayer. She talked about how often she prayed, how concerned she was that God wasn’t listening, how close she was to giving up, and so on. She was ready to call it quits with God because He apparently hadn’t answered her prayers. As a Christian, I’d have a hard time encouraging anyone not to pray. But, the more I see and hear about how people view prayer, the more discouraged I get. There’s obviously nothing bad or wrong about prayer, God implores us to use it in our lives and it is a most precious and vital resource. But we need to take care of how we use that gift and how we understand it.
For this woman, her individual prayers composed the foundation of her relationship with God. This conversation made me think about several of the recent tragedies in America and across the world, and how after all of them you hear the same response: “I’ll keep you in my thoughts and prayers.” I would never withhold thoughts and prayers from someone, especially those suffering, but are they all I can give? Are thoughts and prayers even the best thing? When people are led to believe that prayer is the most important part of their faith, they will eventually despair. The truth is, there’s much more to Jesus and my faith than the communication I offer to God. Chief of all should be that Christ loves me enough that He freely paid the penalty of my sins. Without that message, prayer doesn’t mean anything.
The problem is this, if we focus too much on our prayers, we lose sight of God’s communication back. His words to us are not sent by prayer, they’re present in His Word. And often, the one who ignores or doesn’t know that Word, prays only for what they want or what they think they need. Make no mistake, we should ask God for blessings, but it shouldn’t be the only way we communicate with Him. Would you be friends with someone who only talked with you when they wanted something?
“Thoughts and prayers” are nice, but in our culture they have become a cliche, and often one that people repeat without thinking much. And it seems that the “thoughts and prayers” are becoming more important than the faith itself. Jesus once told His disciples, “One’s life does not consist in the abundance of the things he possesses (Luke 12:15).” When it comes to prayer, we might paraphrase it this way, “One’s life with God does not consist in the abundance of the things he prays about.”
Thoughts and prayers are not the end all, be all of the Christian life. Sadly, this woman thought so, and she was ready to give up because of it. Much more important than what we say to God is what He says to us. Take it from Ecclesiastes 5:1-3: Guard your steps when you go to the house of God. Go near to listen rather than to offer the sacrifice of fools, who do not know that they do wrong. Do not be quick with your mouth, do not be hasty in your heart to utter anything before God. God is in heaven and you are on earth, so let your words be few. A dream comes when there are many cares, and many words mark the speech of a fool.
The next time you’re in need or you see someone in need, give them more than just “thoughts and prayers,” give them the gracious gospel of Jesus Christ!