Wishful Praying

I have heard countless “prayers” uttered casually. By casual, I mean that these “prayers” sound like wishful thinking. “Lord, ganito/ganyan sana…” It has come to a point that I thought that Christians use such statements as mere expressions that don’t actually mean anything. They use it in conversation to prove a point or elaborate some emotion that will incite more impact than actually saying how they feel. It denotes, as I’ve observed, some feeling of dejection at why the universe is not conspiring to deliver a desired result. If other sorts of people have their expressions, we seem to have Christian-sounding ones. It looks like prayer, but then again it’s not. But then again, it might actually be a prayer. People say them to mean what the words mean, that they want God to do something for them, but it does not sound like the prayer that we see in the Bible.

Now, what is prayer? Prayer is such a basic reality in any religion, not just Christianity, and people know what it is for. It is the means of communication to God. However, the difference lies in how we pray. How should a Christian pray? The main concern with the wishful thinking prayer is that it is not Christian. I might be a little harsh with the judgment but I believe it is spot on. Christian prayers differ since Christians believe that they are praying to the only true and living God. It is not merely the manner of praying that is at stake. Real Christian prayer realizes who God is, not only what He can do.

The heart of wishful thinking is getting something for the sake of getting and having. Wishful thinking prayers focus only on what God can do and should do since He can do it. Here’s another problem: just because God can, does not mean God should and God will. It is as if God is big vending machine with all the things we want and think we need. We just need to insert the right amount of coins, or reasons, and *poof*! We get what we asked for. “Ask and you shall receive”, right? However, God is not a machine. God is a Person. You know that, Christian. God is a Person, and He is the only Free and Sovereign Person. That means that He acts in accordance to His will, not on anyone’s whim. It is true, that we are to ask. Why? For He alone can give, and the fact is that we really don’t have anything. We ask in humility, not in haste, not in irreverent insistence. Most of the times, we don't have since we ask for wrong motives for misguided pleasures (James 4:3)

This kind of irreverent “praying” might be a joke or a mere expression to some, but it incriminates those who use them. It displays how they view God. The frequency of such wishful praying betrays how these people really think of God. What’s alarming here is that this is all too common among the youth. Either I hear of it in person or I see it in my social media feeds. It is that common. It is as if expressions like these are acceptable Christian practice. Now, this is not to be dogmatic or legalistic or old-fashioned, but there is a reverence for God that is totally absent in this practice. I hear these mostly outside the church, but reverence for God and His name is not only delegated in the confines of a church building. There is no reason why outside of it God’s name can be casually mentioned along a conversation, or used as a mere expression to suit one’s needs. Prayer is not a technique or a combination of “God + my concerns”. Prayer is a submission. It is to mirror this: “not my will, but Your will be done.”