Mount of Beatitudes and the Sea of Galilee; credit: BiblePlaces.com

When you pray, what should you pray for? Should you pray specifically and persistently for what you need? In his essay on Step Eleven in Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, Bill W. said this type of prayer could be done, “but it has hazards.” The problem is the thoughts that seem to come from God may not really be His answers. They may be “well-intentioned unconscious rationalizations.” Bill warned the person who tried to run their life by this kind of prayer could create havoc without meaning to.

 He may have forgotten the possibility that his own wishful thinking and the human tendency to rationalize have distorted his so-called guidance. With the best of intentions, he tends to force his own will into all sorts of situations and problems with the comfortable assurance that he is acting under God’s specific direction. Under such an illusion, he can of course create great havoc without in the least intending it. . . .Our immediate temptation will be to ask for specific solutions to specific problems, and for the ability to help other people as we have already thought they should be helped. In that case, we are asking God to do it our way. . . . As the day goes on, we can pause where situations must be met and decisions made, and renew the simple request: “Thy will, not mine be done.”

If you want biblical guidance on how to pray, you could turn to the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 7:7-11), where Jesus said we should ask, seek and knock. If human fathers know how to give good gifts to their children, “how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him!”

⁷ “Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. ⁸ For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened. ⁹ Or which one of you, if his son asks him for bread, will give him a stone? ¹⁰ Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a serpent? ¹¹ If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him! (Matthew 7:7-11)

Leon Morris said in his commentary on Matthew the central point of these verses is that prayer to a loving Father is effective. “The point is not that human persistence wins out in the end, but that the heavenly Father who loves his children will certainly answer their prayer.”  So when we ask, seek and knock we can confidently believe God will answer our prayer, because Your Father knows what you need before you ask him” (Matthew 6:8).

Craig Blomberg, in his commentary on Matthew, said Jesus presupposed his listeners would remember his teaching on the Lord’s Prayer when he told them to ask, seek and knock. Jesus said we should pray for God’s will to be done “on earth as it is in heaven” (6:7-13). The asking, seeking, knocking in 7:7-11 highlight the effectiveness of prayer and not some name-it-and-claim-it mantra that compels God to gave us what we want when we want it. Blomberg added:

Those who today claim that in certain contexts it is unscriptural to pray “if it is the Lord’s will” are both heretical and dangerous. Often our prayers are not answered as originally desired because we do not share God’s perspective in knowing what is ultimately a good gift for us.

James confirmed this when he said: “You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions” (James 4:3). Sometimes our own wishful thinking will lead us to ask wrongly. Bill W. agreed: “We discover that we receive guidance for our lives to just about the extent we stop making demands upon God to give it to us on order and on our terms.”

In Matthew 6:9-10 Jesus makes the same point—that God will certainly answer our prayer because He is a Father who loves His children—by approaching it in a different way. Here he uses the analogy of a human father and son and asks his audience if they would give their own son a stone if he asked for bread or a serpent if he asked for a fish.  The rhetorical questions imply a negative answer: of course they wouldn’t! No human parent would treat a son this way. Reasoning from the lesser human father to God as the greater Heavenly Father, Jesus said if an “evil” (morally bankrupt or degenerate) human father would not think of treating his son in this way, certainly God would not so mistreat His children.

Returning now to Bill W. and his essay on Step Eleven, he said those in A.A. who have come to make regular use of prayer “would no more do without it than [they] would refuse air, food, or sunshine.” Just as the body would fail if it did not receive nourishment, so will the soul. “Pray and meditation are our principle means of conscious contact with God.”

In A.A. we have found that the actual good results of prayer are beyond question. They are matters of knowledge and experience. All those who have persisted have found strength not ordinarily their own. They have found wisdom beyond their usual capability. And they have increasingly found a peace of mind, which can stand firm in the face of difficult circumstances.

Those who were reluctant to pray because they did not see any evidence of “a God who knew and cared about human beings” were likened to a scientist who refused to perform a certain experiment “lest it prove his pet theory wrong.” When they finally tried the experiment of prayer, they felt and knew differently. “It has been well said that ‘almost the only scoffers at prayer are those who never tried it enough.’”

In the A.A. Big Book, Alcoholics Anonymous, Bill W. wrote about putting prayer into action with Step Eleven. He suggested you begin each day by considering your plans for the day. First, you should ask God to direct your thinking, “especially asking that it be divorced from self-pity, dishonest or self-seeking motives.” Be careful to never pray for your own selfish ends. Your thought life will be placed on a higher plane when it is cleared of wrong motives.

 As we go through the day we pause, when agitated or doubtful, and ask for the right thought or action. We constantly remind ourselves we are no longer running the show, humbly saying to ourselves many times each day, “Thy will be done.”

So ask, seek, and knock. Everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds. God knows what you need even before you ask. And if you ask wrongly, seeking what you want and not what He knows you need, He won’t give you a stone or a snake. Rather, He will give you the bread and fish you need because he is the Father who gives good gifts. “Thy will, not mine be done.”

This is part of a series of reflections dedicated to the memory of Audrey Conn, whose questions reminded me of my intention to look at the various ways the Sermon on the Mount applies to Alcoholics Anonymous and recovery. If you’re interested in more, look under the category link “Sermon on the Mount.”