On my social media feed, I saw a question today: “I have been deconstructing Christianity, but I want to remain Christian; I just have issues with how and when God answers prayer.”
I suppose it depends on how you define “prayer.” And I think it also depends on what we expect from God as a response to our prayer.
Those of us raised in the evangelical or conservative churches probably have a certain prayer picture drilled into our heads. It’s usually a “prosperity gospel” kind of prayer, what I often call “vending machine prayer” – God is basically a big cosmic vending machine, and if we put in the right kind of coin (prayer, and good works or right beliefs underlying the prayer) then we get out whatever we prayed for. God is almost obligated, in that mindset, to give us what we want. He literally has to do it to glorify Himself, we were taught. And we even quote certain Bible verses to back up that idea, especially “God will give you the desires of your heart” from Psalm 37:4.
But…
What if that verse doesn’t mean “God will give you what you really want” but instead “God will put the right desires into your heart, so that you will only be asking what God wills, instead of what you humanly want”?
Let’s think then about what kind of answer we expect out of God.
There are several theories about salvation (“soteriology,” the logic of salvation) and what Jesus came to earth to do, and each has some scriptural support. Christians have never agreed on a single answer to this topic, and which one you grew up with probably is a function of the kind of church you attend, as well as the culture in which you were raised.
The dominant version in Western evangelical culture is something like a divine rescue operation: Jesus came to fix our broken relationship with God, absorb the punishment we deserved, and secure our entry into heaven: a life of blessing here on earth is part of the package. This theory of soteriology is called “substitutionary atonement,” which believes that Jesus died as a substitute for sinners, taking on the punishment for sin to provide salvation. And the “salvation” in that view is primarily about going to heaven when we die; any improvement of our present circumstances is a wonderful byproduct, not the main point; eternity is far and away the most important outcome.
But the one I have found far more compelling, and which lines up with the world I see around me – and with the way I read the scriptures these days – is not so easy to swallow. There’s an older and I think more honest reading: Jesus came as the suffering servant of Isaiah 53, to fully inhabit human pain and show us, from the inside, what faithfulness to God looks like under real pressure. In that view, the cross isn’t primarily a transaction; it’s a very tangible, incarnated revelation of who God is and how God loves. And the resurrection isn’t God’s way of saying “see, it all worked out;” instead, it’s God’s vindication of the One who remained faithful through suffering rather than being rescued from it. This soteriology is called either “Christus Exemplar” or the “moral influence” theory.
In that soteriology, we’re not able to simply play “vending machine prayer” because all too often, God doesn’t answer our prayer the way we want.
And this comes with an absolutely critical prototypical example in scripture: God didn’t answer Jesus’ single most important prayer either – Jesus still went on to suffer and die, instead of God saving him from all that pain and humiliation.
It’s a totally different mindset, but I think it serves me better, especially as I watch so much crumbling in our society. The ultimate questions for me are: How can I be more like Jesus in the gathering darkness? How can I treat people like Jesus did? How can I serve the Kingdom even when the empire rises around me?
Ultimately, I think it’s a far more Jesus-like way of living than anything that was modeled for me by the vending-machine Christian I was taught to be. And I think it still honors Jesus as one who was willing to suffer at great personal cost for the eternal benefit of all of God’s children. Gregory of Nyssa would say that instead of eternity being a destination we earn, eternal life becomes something we participate in through how we live now. And beyond any payoff to us, any focus on our own destiny and comfort, God has put into our hands the responsibility to continue to do the works of Jesus, bringing salvation “on earth as in Heaven,” yet without giving us false promises about how our prayers will be answered if we just pray correctly.
I really do think that the most honest reading of the entirety of scripture focuses on God’s call for us to focus on the thriving of those around us, more than our own reward. And yet, in so doing, I believe that someday we will hear from Jesus what He taught in Matthew 25:34-40:
34 Then the king will say to those at his right hand, “Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world, 35 for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, 36 I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me.”
37 Then the righteous will answer him, “Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry and gave you food or thirsty and gave you something to drink? 38 And when was it that we saw you a stranger and welcomed you or naked and gave you clothing? 39 And when was it that we saw you sick or in prison and visited you?”
40 And the king will answer them, “Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did it to me.”
And so to Jesus’ prayer “on earth as it is in heaven,” that’s a prayer that I’d like to see answered today.
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