In Defense of “Thoughts and Prayers”

In predictable fashion, after another horrific display of evil, the very compassionate Left has come out to pillory “thoughts and prayers” as “not freaking enough“, or even denigrating the idea because children were murdered while literally praying. Whenever I hear someone confidently proclaim that prayer is “not working”, I want to ask, “How do you know?”

The biggest problem with The Left’s disparaging of “thoughts and prayers” starts with the fact that they are largely non-religious. For those on the Left who do claim some sort of faith (Christian or otherwise), it’s usually so watered down and distorted that it only barely reflects any sort of historic faith to which it claims to hold allegiance. It’s claiming the name, but denying the power. Hollow and useless.

The other problem, though stemming somewhat from the first, is a bit more widespread, I think. It’s the idea that prayer is a magic incantation we can utter to make God do what we want. “Lord, give me more money!”, “Stop the school shootings and murders!”, etc. and poof! The problem is solved. Prayer, though, doesn’t work that way. At least Christian prayer does not.

Prayer is not a means to force God to do our will. It’s a means by which we can boldly approach the throne of grace and make our petitions heard. We can pour our hearts before the creator of the universe, knowing the He hears us. It is, in some small way, an act for us. In pleading our case before the Lord, we admit our utter dependence on Him. “I can’t do this for myself, Lord. I need you.” This, in turn, helps align our hearts with His. “Not my will, but Yours be done” is what Jesus Himself prayed, and every prayer should have that at its heart: “I need ‘A’, but, Lord, I’ll take ‘B’ if that’s what You want”.

God already knows what we want. He’s known it long before time began. Prayer, then, isn’t so much a changing of God’s heart, but ours. Sure, the Bible talks about the Lord being “moved with compassion”, but it’s not because He’s hearing something for the first time. He knows and He expects, but He is still moved when His people kneel before Him in humility and honesty.

However, in a world where faith for many has been reduced to a feel good, get what you want arrangement (and that’s largely on the name-it-and-claim-it types among God’s faithful), we expect to pray and get what we want, and when we don’t, well… God’s probably not real anyway. Or something.

However, what if those prayers are working. What if, without those prayers, things could be so much worse. Perhaps, God in His mercy has been preventing them being more than they are. What if, without these prayers, we could be seeing more of these types of events. We don’t really know, but in act of hubris mixed with moral outrage, “we” declare that thoughts and prayers just aren’t cutting it, and what we really need is some new law that makes us feel good, but is just rearranging the deck chairs.

I can’t tell you exactly what the solution to evil people like the Annunciation shooter is. I can tell you, though, that in a broken and evil world, we should expect broken and evil acts. There’s coming a day, though, when that evil will end for good. My heart and soul are ready for that day. I hope yours is as well.