Synopsis. The deconstruction and reconstruction process of faith – which we should expect to be an ongoing experience throughout our lives – can be extremely challenging at times.  We may certainly wonder if God is even real.  Such massive questions impact our confidence and interest in prayer. Sometimes we give up. Jesus instructs us to keep on praying, though, trusting in its efficacy. Could it be that when we least feel like praying is when we most need to pray?

Paul Kix wrote about his experience and that of UCC pastor Hunt Priest (Paul Kix, “God, Magic Mushrooms & Me,” Esquire, October/November 2023). Both had – in different seasons and times – felt like their faith was evaporating or was maybe even gone.  Both found it difficult to pray.  Hunt Priest entered ministry as a second career and over time found himself wondering where the awe that he once felt had gone, as well as his passion for ministry?  Have you ever felt that way?  Paul Kix felt like the routinized liturgy of the church he attended was dead – he mainly went to church to be part of a community who was trying to actively make the world a better place. But his belief in God was pretty shaky – did he even believe in God?

     Process Question: How do you resonate with the experiences of Paul Kix and/or Hunt Priest?

     These two guys are in good company. Mother Theresa had serious doubts during her journey of faith.  Mother Flipping Theresa!  Jesus cried out while he hung dying on the cross, quoting Psalm 22: “Why, God, have you forsaken me?!”  Elijah ran for 40 days and nights out of fear for his life after he was part of God’s saving act.  Peter in one scene confessed that Jesus was anointed by the Spirit of God and in the next challenged Jesus’ Spirit-inspired vision, followed later with a statement of his undying love followed by his fear-driven denying even knowing him.  Adam and Eve, Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Rebekah, Jacob and Rachel and Leah, Joseph, Moses, Joshua, Gideon, Thomas, Paul – and every other major biblical character and every major player in the development of the Christian faith (and I suspect every enduring faith tradition) struggled at times in their faith. I would imagine that most every human being has struggled similarly.

     If you are struggling in your faith and considering chucking the whole thing, I feel you.  So does everyone else.  Yet I encourage you to consider that this is simply the normal human experience of faith.  Yet these witnesses from our faith tradition will collectively tell you that there is more beyond the doubting and struggling.

     Naturally, when we’re in the darker hours of the struggle, we are sometimes least likely to pray to the God we’re not sure we believe in anymore.  For many of us, part of the problem is that we have been oriented by a faith that values a vision of God that requires certainty, absolutes, and discourages doubt as the opposite of faith.  Don’t question. Don’t doubt. Just believe in what you’ve been told even if it stops working or making sense.  Perhaps that’s why even though 90% of Americans believe in God, only 30% attend church regularly.

     Open and Relational theology offers a different approach to faith.  It welcomes questions and doubt because it sees ALL of life as an unfolding process.  Faith isn’t about finding the absolute truth and believing unwaveringly. Rather, faith is a relationship with God that evolves and changes with time as new discoveries and insights come to light, where God constantly woos but never forces or controls us toward love’s best options.  Our understanding of God matters since it impacts all the movements associated with faith.  As John Cobb notes, “How we think about God affects how we pray... and what we expect our prayers to accomplish. If we pray to a kind of sky god, we are trying to influence some distant and maybe absent being to pay attention to us and act on our behalf. If, instead, we think of God as already here, God isn’t above or outside watching what’s going on but inside taking part. We don’t pray then to get God’s attention, but to align ourselves with a presence that is already there. We reach out to and through others to a presence that is already working. We aren’t pleading with God to do something God would otherwise be reluctant to do.” (Praying with Jennifer, 65-66)

     Process Question: As you have moved through life and your faith has shifted, how has your prayer life been affected?

     I am reminded of the honest words of Paul who wrote toward the end of his oft-quoted love chapter, “When I was a child, I spoke and thought and reasoned as a child. But when I grew up, I put away childish things. Now we see things imperfectly, like puzzling reflections in a mirror, but then we will see everything with perfect clarity. All that I know now is partial and incomplete, but then I will know everything completely, just as God now knows me completely.” (1 Corinthians 13:11-12, NLT) Paul was communicating something entirely obvious that he lived out in his own life – faith is a relationship with God in process.  Paul’s Damascus Road experience helped him see how blind he was.  Thankfully it stuck.  His satori moment wasn’t a one-and-done experience – his thinking continued to expand, resulting in an incredibly inclusive understanding of God that would have put him on the “hit list” he once carried. Faith is a process, not a point-in-time doctrinal statement.

     As Jesus processed his faith, he incorporated prayer into his life rhythm and encouraged his followers to follow suit.  In his famous stump speech, he instructed the following regarding prayer:

     “Keep on asking, and you will receive what you ask for. Keep on seeking, and you will find. Keep on knocking, and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks, receives. Everyone who seeks, finds. And to everyone who knocks, the door will be opened.

     “You parents—if your children ask for a loaf of bread, do you give them a stone instead? Or if they ask for a fish, do you give them a snake? Of course not! So, if you sinful people know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give good gifts to those who ask him.” (Matthew 7:7-11, NLT)

     Bruce Epperly reflects on the impact of following Jesus’ advice: “Prayer changes things. First, it changes those who pray, giving them a wider perspective and transforming enemies into God’s beloved children. Second, prayer changes challenging situations. Prayer can be a tipping point between life and death, health and illness, and success and failure. As many preachers have affirmed, ‘When I pray, coincidences happen. When I don’t, they don’t.’” (Praying with Process Theology, 86) In my experience, I have at times been reluctant to pray because I wondered if it made any difference at all.  At the very least, when I have refrained from praying, I know that I was not personally affected by the caring, compassionate act of praying for another, and neither did those for whom I cared for but did not pray for. Note: no need to pile on guilt or shame here – that’s not helpful – yet I hope you’ll consider how not praying is a loser solution when faced with doubt.

     Process Question: Have you ever had a season when you struggled to pray?  Why? How did not praying affect your faith?

     Process Theologian Marjorie Suchocki offers insight into the impact of prayer that I find compelling. “Prayer changes the way the world is, and therefore changes what the world can be. Prayer opens the world to its own transformation... Prayers for healing make a difference in what kind of resources God can use as God faithfully touches us with impulses toward our good, given our condition. Those prayers can make the difference between reversing a not-yet-reversible illness or not; therefore, God bids us to pray. But God only knows the point of that irreversibility, and in some diseases, it is with the very onset... But what if irreversibility is the case, what then? Shall we stop our prayers for healing? Of course not, for healing comes in many forms, and there is a health that is deeper than death.” (In God’s Presence, 19, 58, 60).

     Process Question: What do you think of Suchocki’s vision here?

     Sometimes we struggle to pray because we continually face the question of unanswered prayer.  Even if we can intellectually understand that prayers don’t get answered the way we deeply hoped, the experience can stop us in our tracks.  Why ask, seek, and knock if it doesn’t seem like we’re being given what we ask for, finding what we’re seeking, and the door remains shut in our faces?  Process theology helps a lot here, appreciating the fact that God is not controlling and therefore will not break in from the outside to save the day like Superman. Open and Relational theology affirms that God is constantly at work in the world for the wellbeing of all people and creation itself, wooing “souls and cells” – as Epperly quips – toward the best options.  It’s the gamble of freedom – free actors may not choose among the better options.  Free actors may instead be wooed by their egos, greed, lust, fear, anger, etc.  Who hasn’t made poor choices a time or two or a million? It is reality. 

     When people are facing serious illness and are facing death sooner than later, this can be especially hard.  We need to be reminded that our respective bodies are not meant to live forever.  The good news is that there is healing, wellbeing beyond the physical. Martha Rowlett reminds us that “how God answers our prayers is beyond our thoughts, and God’s ways are not our ways. But we can trust that our prayers give God more to work with in influencing the world for the good.” (Weaving Prayer in the Tapestry of Life, 121) Let’s keep praying! Stay open to the reality that God is still working toward the good, working toward shalom, which sometimes manifests in physical results, and often offers a deeper current of healing that may matter more. 

     I have experienced painful loss in my life in several areas that I have at times tried to pray away. The losses came anyway. There is a grieving process that we go through – willingly or unwillingly, consciously or unconsciously, slower or faster. When the dust settles, I have discovered that even though I may have felt like I’ve gone through personal earthquakes, the Ground of Being remains. There is strength and peace sustaining me, a reminder that I am not alone, that there is something in me and everywhere that is eternal. That “thisness” is marked by all the qualities of Paul’s fruit of the Spirit, and in a word, is Love.  At the end of the day, this matters most to me. It is not a placebo that fosters the denial of the difficult aspects of life or the avoidance of dealing with its messiness, but rather a foundation that brings me peace, calling me forward with a knowing that there is a Greater Other who beckons us near and calls us home. It helps me get through, well, everything.  This week as I was being still, a memory of a song from an artist who died 26 years ago came to mind.  Rich Mullins positively influenced the entire Christian music industry, bringing authenticity and a St. Francis type of humility and world loyalty that stood in sharp contrast to the greedy, self-absorbed 1980’s and angst-filled 1990’s.  I am generally not comfortable praying to Jesus because I don’t think he wanted that and for other theological reasons that in no way deter my devotion to following in Jesus’ footsteps.  Yet, the song, Hold Me Jesus, bubbled up anyway. I took it as a lure from the Spirit of God and found lasting resonance and healing in its lyrics, music, and tone. Maybe it will for you, too.

     Process Question: Have you ever tapped into a healing beyond the physical, a deeper wholeness despite not getting your prayer-wish granted?

     Paul Kix and Hunt Priest ended up discovering a living God again that was big enough for all their questions and loving enough to trust with their lives. If you’re considering giving up, that’s understandable and certainly an option.  But could it be that you still have a prayer?  That the voice of God may yet whisper to you again, meeting you in the sound of silence with words of hope and a future? How do you need to pray today?  Bruce Epperly reminds us that “prayers create a space for personal and global transformation. I pray with my heart and act with my hands.” (Praying with Process Theology, 93). Maybe, as you struggle with praying, praying is exactly what you need to do.  The Lord’s Prayer taught by Jesus offers a structure for prayer.  Perhaps using its framework might give God some tools to work with to come a bit closer to you, bring healing and wholeness once more, and ground you in Love. Quite naturally, perhaps the effect of such praying may have impact beyond your life – how can it not?

The Lord’s Prayer:  A Guided Meditation

Our Father, who art in Heaven, hallowed be Thy name. We join Jesus in addressing God literally as a loving Daddy (Abba – look it up), recognizing God’s purity/holiness, and goodness.

Thy Kingdom come; Thy will be done as it is in heaven. In light of God’s identity as Love, we align ourselves with wanting Love to permeate everyone and everything as the only hope for personal, relational, political, and environmental healing.

Give us this day our daily bread. We look to God for nourishment, grateful for the fact that we have literal food, wanting to do our part to provide for hunger relief in ways great and small, and being open to a “bread” for our souls that is more than literal.

Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors. What are we holding over others that is preventing them from being well?  How are we holding onto unforgiveness to limit another’s experience of love – at least from us? Do we realize what a foolish move this is? Are we aware that our experience of grace is tied to our gracefulness? Not that God withholds grace from us – which is always completely available to us in full – but that our holding debt over others limits our capacity to receive and live in grace.  This is a hard truth, but it is true.

Lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil. We admit that we can be suckers and are stating that we only want to be wooed by the love of God, by Love itself.

For Thine is the Kingdom, and the Power, and the Glory forever. We want to build our lives on that which is True Community, that which is the greatest Power, and that which is gloriously Eternal – Love.  May it be so.

Songs Incorporated in today’s service: Blessed Be Your Name, True Colors, Full Attention, Hold Me Jesus