Many Prayers Come From Wrong Motives

Many prayers, even though disguised in a pious cloak, are in the final analysis based on wrong motives. I might pray for another person because I am afraid of losing a precious friendship. I might pray for success in the cause of God because I am playing an important role in it, and my influence will be strengthened if what I pray for succeeds. I might ask to be spared a defeat because I am ashamed of failure and do not want to face the malicious comments of others. I might pray for health because I am afraid of pain and do not want to live a restricted or handicapped life. I might pray that someone’s life be spared because I do not like living alone. I might pray for the conversion of a person because my life will then be easier. I might pray to find a significant other because I yearn for love and seek recognition. I might ask God for specific things because I have become used to a certain standard of living and am not content with less. I might ask for success because I desire money and wealth and the admiration of others. And if I do not get what I am asking for right away, I intensify my prayer and pray even harder. But actually, my prayers often center only on myself. They speak about what I wish to have. What I want to receive from God. Sometimes even in His name.

Prayer that is pleasing to God has a refreshingly different focus. No longer is my “want-to-have” the center of my prayer. Instead, God becomes central. That is the crucial and all-important point. First of all, prayer that is pleasing to God recognizes God as a faithful friend whose companionship I seek because He is important to me, not because I want something from Him. God’s presence is much more important than the things He gives to me. In His presence, I feel sheltered. Without Him I don’t want to live. That is the reason that I want to get to know Him better. I want to learn from Him. Without Him my life would lack the decisive perspective. More important than anything I can ask for is my desire to be with Him. The time I spend with Him is precious—because He is precious to me. I can confide everything to Him. He understands me. He loves me tenderly. He wants to be with me. I long to be with Him. That is the center of true prayer.1

Prayer that is pleasing to God is focused on God. It begins with a personal communion with Him, not with my wishes and requests. It is not about following specific religious formulas or adhering to specific prayer techniques that are supposed to guarantee the fulfillment of my wishes. Prayer that pleases God has Him at the center and relates to Him. When my request, even my intercessory prayer, is not anchored in this living relationship with Him, it relates more to my wishes and my well-being than to God and His will. Without this living friendship with God, my prayer resembles more the operation of a divine prayer vending machine. I feed in my prayer requests at the top and take out my granted wishes at the bottom.

Not a Matter of Following Specific Prayer Techniques

First, prayer that pleases God arises out of my enjoyment of spending time in the presence of God and expresses my admiration and love for Him. Once I understand that my relationship with God is the center of my prayer, my prayer requests gain a totally new focus. I begin to think and pray from God’s perspective. I begin to view my requests, my wishes, my yearning, my whole life through His eyes. I tell Him what is really on my heart, what makes me insecure, what makes me anxious, for what I really yearn deep inside, what I desire, what I would rather avoid, what embarrasses me, what gives me pleasure, what makes me shout with joy, and what drives me to despair. In short, I share my life with God. If we remove the relationship aspect from prayer, it becomes one-sided, selfish, and wrong.

God is deeply interested in me. He longs to be part of me, in all aspects of my life: my worries, my fears, my wishes, my hopes, my wants, my abilities, my yearnings, my success, my honor, my recognition, my joy, my children, my money, my possessions, my friendships, my marriage, my needs, my health, my talents, my plans, my love, my anger, my creativity, my energy, my thoughts, my admiration, my music, my praise, my gratitude, my appearance—in short, my entire life. I talk about these things with Him as with a good friend. And I look at all of it through His eyes.

Prayer That Pleases God Is Based on Relationship

Prayer that pleases God frees my thinking from revolving around the “I.” It allows me to become honest with myself and with God. In the light of His love and His holiness, I begin to see myself differently. Gently I move toward the true purpose of prayer: not the fulfillment of my wishes but the relationship with the life-changing God. To pray in this way fills my life with the knowledge that He is the center of my life. My thoughts and wishes are in accordance with Him.

To pray in this way is a real challenge. It is only too easy to pray as I would normally do. It is so easy to ask God for something before I have enjoyed His companionship. In more than a thousand ways, I am told that God will give me that for which I ask Him, and my natural, sinful heart insists that all my wishes be fulfilled. Often the fulfillment of my wishes is more important than my relationship with Him.

However, prayer that pleases God has Him at its center. It opens up new perspectives. When I consciously think about His character, His qualities and abilities, and express my adoration for them in my own words, my prayers are filled with spiritual life and even have an element of reverence and admiration that goes along with them. No longer are my problems and needs the center of my prayers. God is the center. Prayer that pleases God means to step into His presence. It is an expression of my relationship with Him. Prayer does not bring God down to me; it lifts me up into His presence. Prayer does not change God; it changes me. Start to pray like that.

“You need not go to the ends of the earth for wisdom, for God is near. It is not the capabilities you now possess or ever will have that will give you success. It is that which the Lord can do for you. We need to have far less confidence in what man can do and far more confidence in what God can do for every believing soul. He longs to have you reach after Him by faith. He longs to have you expect great things from Him. He longs to give you understanding in temporal as well as in spiritual matters. He can sharpen the intellect. He can give tact and skill. Put your talents into the work, ask God for wisdom, and it will be given you.”2

NOTES AND REFERENCES

1. I have taken the above suggestions from a book by Larry Crabb that is well worth reading: The Papa Prayer: The Prayer You’ve Never Prayed (Nashville, Tenn.: Thomas Nelson, 2006).

2. Christ’s Objects Lessons, 146.