What is prayer all about? How does it work? How could we ever be sure it was God that made a certain request come true? Is it all just wishful thinking?

This question requires a whole book to give a proper answer, so this blog will just scratch the surface.

There are four really important principles to remember when thinking about prayer:

1.     God is a King on a throne, not a public servant behind a shop counter or a cosmic vending machine.

2.     He has told us to pray for all kinds of things, especially those things that touch the affairs of the kingdom of heaven, our own lives, and the lives of those we know of, or have contact with.

3.     His answers may not be what we want to hear, they may not come when we want them to come, and we may be bitterly disappointed, but he is sovereign and knows everything there is to know, including our future and what we really need and what will benefit us most.

4.     There are no secret tricks, no special favourites, no magic words or formulae, and he does not respond to promises of cash or future behaviour.

The Example of Jesus

Jesus, in his incarnated (i.e. made flesh, in human form) body found it necessary to pray. Although he himself was God, in his humanity, he needed to pray – and possibly in his divinity, too, but I'm not sure how that might have worked.

He himself said that if we wanted to achieve certain things, we must pray. On the other hand, not even all of his prayers produced the most comfortable outcome for him. Consider, for example, his prayer just before his crucifixion, “Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me”. It wasn’t, and it didn’t.

The Example of the Apostles and of Old Testament characters

You cannot read the Bible for long before encountering David or Paul or Miriam or Moses or Isaiah or Phoebe or Peter or John or Abraham at their prayers. Praying seems to be an integral part of what it means to be in relationship with God.

This is not surprising. Imagine being in a relationship with another human person but never communicating with them. The more intimate the relationship, the more and deeper the communication will be.

Jesus’ Model Prayer

When asked by his disciples about prayer, Jesus gave what we know as the “Lord’s Prayer”, but should really be known as the “Disciples’ Prayer”, as it is meant to be prayed by us, not by him.

That prayer includes all of these elements, among others:

• Recognition of who God is, and worship of him by name;
• Recognition of God’s sovereignty and Kingship;
• Requests for practical things such as food and shelter, safety and peace;
• Confession of our sin and request for forgiveness;
• Request for greater personal holiness and Christlikeness.

Of course, this was only a model prayer, not a complete or “Only” prayer. There are many more prayers we can pray, but this is a useful daily model. It hits all the essential daily buttons, but not the emergency or unusual ones.

What happens when we pray?

I have absolutely no idea, really. But I can make some guesses.

The closer I am in tune with who God is and what his character is like, and the more I am trying to follow him, the more I am likely to ask of him things which he is really very happy to do.

It’s rather like being married for a long time, or working with the same person or team for a long time. After a while, you just get to know what is expected, what is likely to be generally agreeable, and what suits the culture and the needs of the organisation or relationship. You don’t often ask outside those boundaries because you know it is just not within the rules of the game to do so.

Part of being in an intimate relationship means that I can sometimes ask outside the boundaries, knowing that out of love, my partner or friend or boss will be likely to grant my wish, if they think it will be good for me, and for us as a team. (The ‘and’ there is quite important.)

In this vein, then, I think that what happens when I pray is that I try to align my will with God’s will, with the intention that we are cooperating together to achieve good outcomes. When it doesn’t come about the way I asked, the first thing I do is to wonder whether I properly understood what he wanted.

Yes, but what about the hard questions – like when God doesn’t heal my mum's cancer?

Yes, I know, these are really hard questions. And it won't do to just gloss over them. I have lost close friends who died in accidents, from suicide, or from serious illness, despite hundreds, even thousands of prayers for them from really nice, good, Christian people. There didn’t seem to be any good reason for God to say ‘No”, but he did.

I have written a book about this problem, Restoring Hope. It’s not the perfect answer either, but it is a start, I think, although I am thinking about re-writing it, doing better this time.

In a short blog, I don’t want to give too brief an answer, because I know it will be inadequate and probably put people off who are deeply grieving some personal loss or tragedy or trauma.

I will say just this: When you are hurting, it is quite OK to scream and shout at God, demanding answers and just not wanting to go on. If there is a cat nearby, it’s OK to kick it (assuming it’s a metaphorical one - we don't want to approve animal cruelty).

God can cope with our anger. Just remember Jonah, Moses, Peter and others who got very angry with him, saying things they should not have said, but who lived to repent and hear his words of comfort. In the midst of all that shouting and kicking, try to accept in the quiet part of your mind that God does not make mistakes and that one day, you might just understand more. And humbly ask for help – he will know that you really, really need it right now.

If we pray for something like fine weather or a parking spot or even a successful job interview, how could we know that it is God who gives a successful response? Why couldn’t it just be luck or our own good management?

Yep. I agree. In many of these cases, I think luck, our own good management, our own skills and personality or preparation are the best reasons for the result. But that wouldn’t stop me from praying before a job interview. I don’t generally pray for fine weather or parking spots; I tend to think that God expects me to be more grown-up than that, and take the good with the bad.

But if I am successful at a job interview or acceptance into a course, or in a marriage proposal, it is not unreasonable to thank him for the long process of events, meetings, crises, personal growth and experience that has got me there. Has God been a part of all that? Yes, I think he has. In praying for the outcome, I am likely to pray in a way that acknowledges that he has already been with me on a journey and ask him to help me take it further.

Does God expect me to pray for guidance as to what I do in life?

I'm likely to write an entire blog on this question soon, but in brief now, and at the risk of shocking some people, I would say no, not really. I think that God has told us how to live life. Love God, love others, perform merciful and compassionate actions and act in and for justice wherever we can. Outside of that, I don’t think that God minds whether you choose to become a lawyer or a window-cleaner, a haberdasher, a jockey or a doctor. Or who you marry, or what house you buy. But whatever you choose to do, do it really, really well and for the benefit of God’s kingdom and his service.

But that might need some more unpacking for some people. Watch this space!