[image: nationalgeographic.org]

Prayer: What it Cannot Achieve

Pardon my insensitivity, but praying amuses me, especially when you ask God to come to your rescue and fix your problems. You probably do need help, but to ask God to solve your problems is to assume you are too dumb to know how to figure them out, or too lazy, or you just haven’t learned how to be self-reliant. What’s more, you are admitting all this up front as a conditional appended to your request list to your Maker. But did it ever occur to you that God is not going to be amused or impressed by your admissions about your shortcomings? He knows about them! Perhaps he even made you that way to give you room to improve, and to grow, and become more like those elevated souls “up there” in that heavenly place.

Somewhere along the way you did not learn God’s Eleventh Commandant: “I gave you a brain. Use it.”

This is a very profound commandment. It implies that study and learning are very important to God as it relates to your own personal growth. Perhaps it is also one of the primary reasons why you are here. It may even be a big chunk of that thing the entire human race has been pondering since time immemorial: “What is my purpose in this life?”

OK, I am not a preacher, nor do I presume to know the mind of God. But I do know a few things about human logic. And, it all modesty, I’m pretty sure I understand it better than do most preachers. Why? Because I’ve studied this subject by flexing my brain power. Most preachers gave up on logic long ago, perhaps believing they did not need it. I doubt if they teach it in seminaries. After all, they already have all the answers—in the Bible or from revelations. But that is circular reasoning, and that just isn’t good enough for me. (The Bible is the truth. When I need to know the truth I go to the Bible. Why? Because the Bible is the truth). Moreover…

The Bible cannot teach you how to build a bridge or how to fly an airplane. It is among the worst sources for mathematics, or psychiatry, or navigation. And it is probably useless as a means for learning how to walk on water. I could go on.

But here is the big issue about asking for the truth or in believing you already have it: It stops inquiry. And that is tantamount to stopping progress, and science, and learning. Imagine being confined to the Stone Age—forever!

I recall listening and watching Walter Cronkite tell this story about how he was sure he would give the world a “scoop” about travel to the moon. Prior to the first moon launch, he interviewed each astronaut. He posed to each of them his most probing question, one that he believed would elicit from them their deepest religious beliefs, and in so doing would reveal the most profound truths. He asked each of them what they would do in the event the engine on their space craft would not start, and it left them stranded on the moon. He expected deeply profound thoughts about life, and death, and God, and hope, and prayer, and inspiration.

What he got from each of them instead was this nearly identical answer: “I would get to work on that engine!”

Hooray for our astronauts! They were flyers and engineers who were well-trained in survival skills. It did not occur to them to resort to the Bible or to prayer. They had only themselves, their skills, and their ingenuity, and they intended to put them to use. I can only imagine that God was very well-pleased with their answers.

He is probably prepared to offer comfort and strength when needed. The rest is up to us.

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The term “he” is used generically, with no assumption that God has gender or form or is connected to or favors any religion or belief.