Why Pray - A Reflection on Ephesians 1
I remember a feeling of dread churn in my stomach as I looked up at the climbing rope hanging from the gymnasium ceiling. Today was the day our class was going to compete for the presidential fitness awards. I watched classmate after classmate unable to ascend more than a few feet, while kids’ cheers and jeers echoed around the room. By the time it was my turn, the rope was slick from all the sweaty palms that had gripped and grappled.
If you ever had to climb a rope like this, especially if you weren’t prepared for it, I imagine you looked up thinking, “I don’t want to climb this rope… I’m not strong enough to climb this rope… I don’t know how to climb this rope.” I notice that this is how a lot of people feel about prayer. “I don’t know how… I’m not spiritual enough… I’m not sure I even want to…”.
For others of us the image of the rope may conjure the intensive focus and grit of the cross-fit gym. We grab onto this sweaty rope with white-knuckled determination to force our bodies into the shape our culture has determined is most desirable. This also reminds me of a way we can approach prayer, as an obligation, something we have to gut through by force of will if we want a spiritual life.
The image of a climbing a rope can also evoke a sense of suspension, that vulnerable perch between where we want to be and where we are. Many of us live lives, not of quiet desperation as Thoreau hinted, but of restless, grappling, to find the job, influence, finances, spouse, or lifestyle that will prove that we really do deserve to be here.
And, when we feel like we’re hanging in the balance, suspended somewhere between our future hopes and our past disappointments, we pray.
Today I want to reflect on prayer using this passage from Ephesians 1 to show how this simple Christian prayer transforms why we pray, what we pray, and how we pray.
Why Pray?
We might not think of it this way, but prayer is an essentially human practice. Religious people pray. Non-religious people pray. Atheist apologist Sam Harris invites his readers to practice a Tibetan form of contemplation, or prayer, called Dzogchen. Disney invites us to wish on a star and believe in our dreams, this is a secular way of describing prayer. We pray when a cancer diagnosis disrupts our family, when the career opportunity we’ve been chasing comes into view, or when we watch a tragedy unfold.
With prayer so ubiquitous, it’s worth asking why we do it. About 15 years ago, when my daughter Malaya was 3 years old, I overheard her praying. I was working from home, juggling attention between work calls and emails on one side, and diapers, snacks, and play time on the other. As I crossed the room where Malaya and her younger sister were playing, I heard Malaya pray, “God, please help papa…”. I thought, “my daughter is a spiritual genius.” So, the next time I crossed the room I listened a little more closely. Again, Malaya prayed, “God, please help papa…”. I was touched. Here is my little girl praying earnestly for me. So, I stopped just outside where they were playing and continued to listen. Malaya continued, “God, please help papa… listen to Malaya!”
As far as I can tell, most of us pray in order to get something. We pray to get physical things; a job, restored health, a good placement, an apartment in the right neighborhood. We pray to get relational things papa’s attention, friendship, love, reconciliation. We pray to fill the spiritual hunger inside; a hunger for freedom, a hunger for justice, a hunger for mercy, a hunger for forgiveness, a hunger for beauty.
Whether our needs are physical, relational, or spiritual, we put our hands to prayer like we put our hands to the climbing rope, to get something, a presidential award, a desirable body, a preferred future, peace.
Now notice this prayer from Ephesians 1. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing… just as he chose us in Christ …to be holy and blameless… He destined us for adoption as his children … In him we have redemption…. the forgiveness of our trespasses…he has made known to us the mystery of his will… In Christ we have also obtained an inheritance… so that we….might live for the praise of his glory. 13 In him you … were marked with the seal of the promised Holy Spirit;
Did you notice there isn’t a single request in this prayer? There are only two elements; 1. Elaborate praise and celebration of God, 2. Reflection on why God has been so generous.
This leads me to observe that this is not the prayer of someone who is trying to get something. This is the prayer of someone who already has something. In fact, they don’t just have something, they have everything:relationship, blessing, perspective, inheritance, forgiveness, and identity. The language in this prayer spills over itself in elaborate praise and celebration of God. In the original language this is one complex sentence, just one thought expressed in symphonic ecstasy.
Remember the author of this prayer describes himself later in this letter as, “an ambassador in chains.” Paul is under house arrest at least, in prison at worst. Paul isn’t praying like this because he’s having a good day. He’s praying like this because he’s discovered a different answer to the question, “why pray”. If you asked Paul, “why we should pray?” He wouldn’t say, “to get what we need from God.” He’d say, “because of the outlandish generosity we’ve already received from God, in Jesus, by the Spirit, we can’t help but pray.”
What to Pray?
If we can absorb the shift from praying to get something to praying because we already have something it will change WHAT we pray.
Have you ever noticed that sometimes you feel more anxious after you pray than before? If you read my prayer journals from a number of years ago, you’d see a litany of challenges, unresolved relationship difficulties, and professional angst. I wanted peace but prayed my fears. I wanted hope but prayed despair. I wanted security but prayed anxiety. I don’t think I’m alone. In fact, I think many of us, if we’re honest, come to prayer hoping to get something out of it, and so, what is at the forefront of our hearts and minds is our need, our fear, our grief, and our disappointment.
Here’s what can happen. We pray for something: healing, relief, a relationship, peace, and we don’t feel any different. So, we pray harder, with more earnestness, with greater intensity, and we don’t see any change. We don’t feel any different. And then, we give up… allowing our differed hopes to make our hearts sick. We give up on prayer, on God, on ourselves.
This prayer from Ephesians 1 invites us to pray differently. It invites us to come to prayer as chosen, blessed, graced, forgiven, filled, celebrating the God who has made us these things, in Jesus and by the Spirit.
This simple change in perspective frees us from restlessness. In a world that says you’re not really living unless you have lots of wealth, lots of power, lots of esteem, and lots of sex, this Christian prayer says, you have all the life you need and more. You are already loved…valued… cherished… provided for… forgiven… blessed…
The reason you have all this is not because you’re so great, but because the God who made you, stretched his own flesh between heaven and earth to reconcile earth and heaven. That same God is present by the Spirit as we come to know, love, and follow Jesus.
How to Pray?
Now, I want to be careful here as we move towards how we might incorporate this prayer’s insight into our own practice. First, I’m not suggesting that we can’t bring our needs, fears, or longings to prayer. Of course, can bring these feelings to prayer. Ephesians 1 shows us how.
When my daughter Malaya was a toddler, we took to the playground almost every day. I remember teaching her to climb the rope ladder. It would shake with her weight and she’d freeze in fear. Every time she’d freeze I’d put my hand on her back and say, “It’s ok, papa’s got you.” Over time I took a step back, but whenever she’d freeze in fear I’d say, “It’s ok, papa’s got you.” Months later when she was climbing a much bigger ladder, much more daring, much bolder, but I noticed her lips moving.
So, unobtrusively, I moved closer and I saw her… suspended on that rope. Every time she froze in fear she’d say, “It’s ok, papa’s got you…” And she’d reach for the next rung. “It’s ok, papa’s got you.”
Now, did I have her? In one sense, no. If she’d have fallen, she could have gotten hurt. But, in another sense, I absolutely had her! Because, even if she’d fallen and gotten hurt, I’d have been there to care for her, to pick her up, to help her overcome the bruises and breaks that are an inevitable part of growing up.
Does God have you when you’re afraid, disappointed, or hurt?
In an uncertain, unjust, and scary world, we are going to face heartbreak. We are going to grieve, rage, and worry. But, just like Malaya on that rope, Ephesians 1 invites us to confront those moments in prayer by reminding ourselves, it’s ok… Papa’s got you. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ…
The wisdom of Ephesians 1 is that it anchors our prayer in the story of God, so that even when we wrestle, cry, or rage, we find ourselves held in generous arms that have blessed, chosen, and bled on our behalf.
The other reason to be careful is that the words of this prayer and the perspective behind this exhortation is unapologetically Christian. You may not share a Christian worldview, in which case you may think that the wisdom of this prayer is of limited value, but I’m going to encourage you to reconsider.
First, it’s worse than you think. Almost every word in this prayer is layered with theological meaning. For example, “Blessed be God, the father, who has blessed us… even as he chose us…”. Blessing and choosing are themes that go all the way back to Genesis 12 where God chooses Abraham saying, ‘I’m choosing you, to bless you, so that you can be a blessing to the nations.’ Here these ancient multi-layered ideas focused on us because of our connection to Jesus.
But this is better than you think too. Because these ancient ideas are the existential dilemma that is the spiritual life. Like the rope hanging from the ceiling in physical education the invitation to spiritual life is not easy. We may feel like we don’t want to, or can’t, climb the spiritual heights. This prayer suggests the spiritual heights have already come to you, that there is life, love, hope, and blessedness already available to anyone who wants it. Perhaps, even if you doubt the Christian story, this image of hope is attractive enough to be worth considering.
Here’s a challenge for your spiritual practice this week. Include Ephesians 1:3-14 in your prayer periods every day this week. Memorize parts of it (if not the whole thing). Let the richness of the images soak into your imagination.”
If you don’t already have a prayer practice, try praying this prayer once in the morning and once before bed. See if praying this way causes you to be any more aware of the love of God, more inclined to gratitude, or more joyful.
For those of you who are up for a little bigger challenge I invite you to take one of the words in this prayer, a word like: blessing, adoption, chosen, redemption, forgiveness, etc. And with an open Bible spend some time contemplating how this theme emerges in the story of God and Israel, how this prayer focuses it, and what it means for the community of faith.
This prayer changed my life. Because it anchored my heart and mind in the generosity of God, it enabled me walk through a season of profound vulnerability. When ministry at church, challenges at work, and a loss in my family all happened at the same time, rather than become bitter or filled with self-pity, I would remember the generosity of God and know, in my bones, that I could stay calm, stay connected, and stay the course.
This week you’re going to have a moment where it feels like you’re being invited to climb a sweaty rope. Perhaps you’re in a situation where you already feel suspended somewhere between your future aspirations and present limitations. As we respond in the very human practice of prayer, perhaps Ephesians can help us to remind ourselves… “It’s ok, papa’s got you.”