A recent magazine article stated, “Doctors believe prayer helps.” A few nights later, doctors were being interviewed by reporters about the same topic – the relationship between prayer and health. These reporters spoke with doctors from some of the nation’s leading medical institutions who told of their belief that there is a link between a person’s physical well-being and their spiritual health. It seems that many medical professionals are encouraging their patients to pay attention to their spiritual needs. The television story took its viewers into a medical clinic where people with cancer, heart disease, and other illnesses were being introduced to meditation techniques, and a clergyperson was available to speak with patients about prayer.
As I listened to the television report, I remembered a heart specialist who, when I was a chaplain in Clinical Pastoral Education at Overlook Hospital, insisted that his patients facing heart surgery spend some time talking with one of the hospital chaplains. He understood this link between physical well-being and spiritual health. And then I remembered something I had come across from the Indian political and spiritual leader Ghandi, who said this about prayer:
“I discovered that after a time of prayer, I was able to do a far greater amount of work. A doctor has testified as a medical fact that my blood pressure was lowered by it, my nerves calmer, my mind rested and alert, my whole body in better health. I was refreshed and ready for work, and if previously I had been in a mood of pessimism and despair, after I prayed I was charged with new hope and new confidence.”
The old slogan “prayer changes things” seems to be true! But what does that mean? What does it mean that doctors believe prayer helps? If prayer changes things, then what things do we expect prayer to change?
The author of the book of Exodus recorded the faith of the Israelite community who looked back at their experience of liberation from the bondage of slavery in Egypt and told a story about the calling of their leader, Moses. In that story we hear an affirmation of the faith of the Hebrew people that God heard their cry – God gave heed to what had been done to them – and God broke in to make a difference – to deliver them from bondage, to heal their hurt. The writer of Exodus testifies to a faith that believes that God is not removed from our hurts and pains, but God is present – God hears us, and responds. But, this is their faith statement after their deliverance, looking back to tell the story after the fact. I wonder if they felt God heard their cries and was responding while they were still experiencing the hardship of slavery.
I think the struggle for us is not how to respond after the fact, but how to respond in the midst of the difficulty. Once the cancer is cured, once the problems in a relationship are resolved, once the difficulties have passed, the prayers of thanksgiving are easy.
The prayers we struggle with are those prayers that are prayed in the midst of the hard times. If prayer changes things, what things do we hope will change, or do we dare expect anything? If doctors believe prayer helps, what do they think it helps? If we believe in this God of the exodus who is not removed from humanity and our troubles, if we believe in a God who is present, who breaks into real life, then how does that affect our prayers and our expectations?
A theologian once remarked, “prayer may change things, but much more important, prayer changes us.”
The story is told of a shrine in the French Pyrenees where people come to pray for healing. A war veteran who lost a leg appeared at the shrine after WW2. As he hobbled his way along the street to the shrine, someone said, “Look at that silly man! Does he really think God is going to give him back his leg?” The veteran overheard this comment and turned toward the one who had spoken and said, “Of course I do not expect God to give me back my leg. I am going to pray to God to help me live without it!” That was the healing he sought – the strength to change himself, to change the way he dealt with life.
Spirituality is about being connected to something beyond and greater than one’s self. Christianity is about relationships, our relationship with God, our relationship with one another, our relationship with ourselves. And the truth is, relationships take time, and patience, and nurturing.
Paul in his letter to the Romans put it this way, “Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what is seen? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience.”
Such hope is not wishful thinking, or the ability to persuade ourselves that things will be better in the future. The hope we have, the hope which enables us to wait with patience, is real and sure because we already have a taste of its fulfillment. We have moments when we recognize the Divine presence with us, even just a glimpse. There are those times when we hear the whisper of God’s still, small voice. We have seen and experienced those moments of grace and care that could only be explained by our faith that God is at work among us, at work in us, and at work through us. These are the foretastes that cause us to look for the fulfillment of God’s ways yet to come. This is the source of our hope which keeps us going and waiting with patience for that which is surely coming.
Paul in the letter to the Romans declares, “the Spirit helps us in our weakness, for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but that very Spirit intercedes for us with sighs too deep for words. And God who searches the heart, knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.”
Here is a picture of a Divine presence with us in the midst of our difficulties, a presence that knows our hurts and experiences our anxieties, a presence who understands, even when words cannot express what we are feeling. Here is the God who breaks in, who walks alongside us, holding us up when we are about to fall, giving us strength when we are about to faint, giving us hope when we are about to give up.
What we can expect of our prayers is a greater awareness of the presence of that God. Prayer is not about us, prayer is about the God who is with us whatever our situation, and that changes things – it changes us!
No longer do I hear those words of Paul, “We know that all things work together for good for those who love God,” as some mysterious assurance that whatever happens is for the best. I do not believe that everything that happens is for the best, at all. Some things are simply awful. But now I hear those words as an assurance that in whatever situation we find ourselves, God can work with us to bring some good out of it, even if the only good which can come is a greater awareness of God’s presence by our side. And such an assurance brings a healing that enables us to get on with life and find hope. No longer are we only in the presence of our difficulty. We are also in the presence of a powerful, loving, and empowering God.
Prayer helps because it lifts our eyes out of a focus upon ourselves and our present situation and refocuses us upon the One who offers hope for the future and a vision of life and a world made whole. Prayer helps because it changes our whole way of seeing and understanding ourselves and others. Prayer helps because it puts us in a closer relationship with God. Prayer helps because it reminds us that we are not alone.
God said to Moses, “Tell the people…I have given heed to you…I will bring you out of your misery…” Sometimes that is all we need to hear in order to find healing and a greater sense of wholeness in our lives.
At the root of our faith is the deep conviction that the source of life, the God of creation, the One who can bring healing for all our brokenness, has heard our cry, has come to dwell with us, has promised never to leave us. God does break in to the real situations of our lives and is still working in and through and among us, by the power of the Spirit.
So pray, pray with fervor and with faith. Pray without ceasing and with all hope. Pray with the expectation that God will indeed break in to your life and the lives of those for whom you pray. That is the testimony of Scripture. That is what doctors have observed. That is for us to witness. Thanks be to God for breaking into the very real stuff of our lives.