Vacuum Cleaner Prayers

I was thinking about the way we pray today as I was praying for a couple people close to me that I believed were likely in a situation that would create potential for very intense temptation. The thought came to me that too often our prayers devolve into simply praying our fears. How often I hear prayers that primarily beg God to get rid of the negative things we don't want in our life and don't do much more. How many times have I found myself praying that way. “Oh God, please deliver me from this temptation. Please take away this bad feeling. Please fix my financial problem. Please protect me from evil and bad things happening to me....”

Focusing primarily on my fears can actually have the unintended effect of making those fears my gods and empowering them instead of overcoming and eliminating them. One of the enemy's greatest weapons against us is fear, so when we allow our imagination to obsess with those fears, even in our prayers to God, the fears become bigger to us than God is and the fears and objects of those fears are literally turned into gods that gain control over our lives. We then live in reference to those fears and make our decisions and goals in relationship to them instead of orienting our life using God as the solid source of reliable reference. It is very much like allowing a compass needle to be distracted by a nearby magnetic object that cause it to produce false readings instead of referencing the true mother-lode magnetic North.

It is true that confession is an important aspect of prayer. But it is also important to understand what confession really is and what it isn't. The literal meaning for the word confession is simply “to agree with”. When we are convicted of something wrong in our soul and life we simple agree with God's Spirit and His assessment of that fact about us. That is confession. But when we attempt to preempt the Holy Spirit or replace its role in our life by trying to dredge up more and more evil that may be lurking within us instead of moving on to growth and forgiveness and following the leading of the Spirit, we fall into a trap of negative prayer that leaves us nearly powerless and makes a mockery of the power of God to effect change in our lives and those we are praying for.

An examination of some of the powerful prayers recorded in the Bible shows that they often, if not always, started with confession. But confession also involves not only agreeing with God about sin but agreeing with God about God. Really, effective prayer and confession is simply a reality check. When you want to go on a trip using a map, you first have to know where you are on the map before you can figure out how to get to someplace else. Confession is perceiving and acknowledging where I am so I can then make definite plans and progress toward where God wants me to go.

I believe that many of our prayers are like vacuum cleaners. We spend a great deal of energy and focus on trying to get evil and discomfort out of our lives but we do not ask God for the good things that we need and that He desires for us. “"Now when the unclean spirit goes out of a man, it passes through waterless places seeking rest, and does not find it. Then it says, 'I will return to my house from which I came'; and when it comes, it finds it unoccupied, swept (vacuumed), and put in order. Then it goes and takes along with it seven other spirits more wicked than itself, and they go in and live there; and the last state of that man becomes worse than the first. That is the way it will also be with this evil generation.” (Matthew 12:43-45 NAS95)

Notice that it is not wrong to clean and sweep your soul-house. It is very important to participate in the process of cleansing, healing and restoration to wholeness. But an empty house can also become an open invitation for druggies, pimps and others such characters if it is not filled up with good things and good people.

As I was praying for my friends yesterday and thinking about this, I began to reorient my prayers to ask God not so much for protection and deliverance from temptation for them, but more for good thoughts implanted in their minds, for blessings to fall on them and for them to inexplicably fell urges toward goodness and love and purity. I asked that God glorify His name and reputation in their experience and that growth and good lessons will emerge from whatever takes place in their experience. As I chose to pray in this (unfamiliar) way I found my own feelings toward them and my fears melting away in the atmosphere of praise and the positive presence of God. I realized that even if they were overcome by temptation that God has the amazing ability to bring more good out of bad situations than we can imagine if He is just given permission by His people on earth.

I have a great deal to learn about this, but I am glad that I am starting to be more aware. There are many very powerful things we can do that are easily within our reach but are often kept just outside of our awareness because of our past conditioning. Maturing and growing involves bringing these things into our lives and practicing them by choice until they become more integrated into our thinking and living.