Trump's Day of Prayer (Part 2): "Well would you listen to him?!"

In response to the coronavirus pandemic, President Trump announced a national day of prayer in America but it is not clear if or how God answered those prayers. What do we make of this? Chatting it through whilst preparing to write this blog I received the tongue in cheek reply "Well, would you listen to him?"

Joking aside there is a very good question implicit in this comment. Why should God listen to Donald Trump? Does calling a 'day of prayer' compel God to listen and do whatever people ask him?

It is easy to imagine God as a vending machine: press the right religious buttons and put the right spiritual coins in and whatever we want falls into our laps. It is also easy to imagine God as a kind of genie in the sky: use your prayers to rub His lamp the right way and He pops up to give you your three wishes. Sadly, some people claiming to be Christians are deliberately encouraging this view of God promising that He always gives healing and prosperity, particularly to those who give financial support to their 'ministry'! This is a very deceitful and damaging idea (e.g. see this critique).

While we tend to think that somehow our religion and our prayers will impress God as though He needs us, the Bible is very clear that He is not like that at all.  He does not need people to rub Him the right way or press the right buttons. He is not dependent on anybody for anything. It's  bit like the cat that leaves dead mice as an offering for its owner - we think that our religious efforts are worth their weight in gold but God does not necessarily share our assessment!

Let me qualify that illustration just a little bit! Prayer and religion can be good things and the Bible commends these things. But it also teaches that God is concerned about the heart and attitude in which these things are done. There are lots of examples of this in the Bible - here are just a few:

• Jesus told the story of a religious man and a sinner in the temple. The religious man used his prayer to tell God how good he was - better than the other guy! The sinner acknowledged how bad he was and cried for mercy. Jesus says that it was the sinner who went away forgiven not the proud religious guy (Luke 18:9-14).

• In another place Jesus taught that prayer should primarily be a secret thing between you and God and never be intended to impress other people (Matthew 6:1).

• It is a principle throughout the Bible that "God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble" (Proverbs 3:34:, James 4:6). An arrogant prayer will provoke God's opposition rather than gaining His assistance! When Peter quotes this same proverb, he expands it in this way:

"Clothe yourselves, all of you, with humility towards one another, for

"God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble". Humble

yourselves, therefore under the mighty hand of God so that

at the proper time he may exalt you, casting all your anxieties

on him, because he cares for you" (1 Peter 5:5-7).

The problem with a vending machine, genie god is that he would have to answer the demands of anyone who pushed the right buttons regardless of whether that person and their requests were good or evil. The God of the Bible is good. He has the wisdom and insight to weigh the hearts and the requests of everyone who prays and to answer those prayers as He sees best. I, emphatically, do not have that wisdom and insight. Emphatically because I do not want to give the impression that I am passing judgment on President Trump or anyone else. It is impossible for me to look into Trump's heart or the hearts of others who prayed with him - I'm not even that good at reading my own heart! How much of Trump's public persona is deliberate bluster and media distortion? I cannot say with any certainty. What I can say with confidence is that according to the Bible we should not expect God to answer arrogant prayers which are offered to impress other people (such as Christian voters); He will in fact oppose those pray-ers and their prayers.

In the next posts I hope to look at two questions which arise from this. The first is this - 'Putting Trump aside, why should God listen to anybody's prayers?' The second is whether God should always answer prayers in the way which we expect Him to.