Weak Prayer Yields Weak Results

On Kierkegaard & Nietzsche's views on Prayer and mistaking God for Santa Claus

I find one’s faith to be extremely personal. More personal than one’s sex life. The way religion is talked about on the internet, which is mostly used to scold people, replace having an identity, and self-advertise as a “good person”, makes me sick. I don’t write about religion often because I find it distasteful to talk about publicly, despite what the scriptures say.

However, I’ve always found Prayer to be fascinating. What is it exactly? Is God actually listening? How would you even know? Are people wasting their time? Does it work? How do you know if it works?

Regardless, there’s irrefutable evidence that Prayer has major physical and mental benefits:

• Doubles the pregnancy rates of IVF

• Improves immune system

• Reduces anxiety

Therefore, we know Prayer does something. Whether or not Prayer works is a different question entirely. And there’s no way to prove whether or not it does.

Prayer is often associated with saying specific prayers before bed, a Christian sitting in a pew holding rosary beads, or a Jew rocking back and forth while holding a box. I find these rituals unappealing.

I think about what Jesus said at The Sermon on the Mount:

“And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward in full.

But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.

And when you pray, do not keep on babbling like pagans, for they think they will be heard because of their many words.

Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him.” -Matthew 6:5-8

Challenging the necessity to pray at a certain place has implications about God’s omnipresence and appeals to people (like myself) who are allergic to arbitrary rules. Requiring a ritual pushes away people who otherwise may be interested. “Do I really want to be one of those people?”

How to pray is a different question.

“Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock on the door and the door will be opened to you.” -Matthew 7:7

This has implications about God’s omniscience, but I suspect “Ask and it will be given to you” is often interpreted to mistake God for an ATM machine or personal Santa Claus. And there’s nothing wrong with asking God for help with physical needs, but I’d like to think God rolls his eyes when billions of people are asking him for billions of dollars.

This type of Prayer reflects the darker elements of religion, which is when belief in God is used as a coping mechanism or a belief in magic to soothe the psychic pain of the masses. The purpose of Prayer is less about getting what you want and more about who you can become.

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“Buddy, who are you to be telling people how to pray? What are you, a pastor now? Am I witnessing the fuckboy to moralist pipeline?” No. I’m a Christian and a sinner, and I find Prayer to be immensely transformative. The most I can do is speak from experience.

I’ve found that Prayer only works when you humble yourself before God in a way you shouldn’t before anyone else, for the sake of maintaining your dignity. This means fully admitting your flaws with such ruthless honesty that it unearths a permanent psychological shift. I believe being aggressively vulnerable before God in such a way, privately, is when he (I don’t capitalize the H, sorry) actually knows you’re serious. Given he already knows what you need, he’s simply waiting for you to truly ask. And only then does God begin to Act on your behalf.