When my brother and I were old enough to get jobs, he started working at Taco Johns, a local tex mex fast food restaurant. He was working a lot in the drive through, using the headset to take orders. 

One evening as our family sat down for dinner, my mom asked him to pray over our meal. We all bowed our heads expectantly when we heard,

“Welcome to Taco Johns, may I take your order?”

Laughter erupted, and to this day that is one of our favorite memories to recount as a family. 

But maybe his prayer wasn’t too far off from our actual belief about praying. How many times do we enter God’s presence expecting Him to say “Welcome to my court, may I take your order?” 

I’ll take two tacos please.

Then we get something else, or nothing at all, and we have some complaints for the management! This view of prayer feels all too similar to the local fast food joint staffed with teenagers not even old enough to drive or have facial hair. 

For a long time I had this view of prayer. It was nothing more than a wish list ordered up to God, hoping that it would be fulfilled. A genie in a bottle, if you will. After some big requests went unanswered, my faith in God began to wane. I knew he existed. I knew he loved me in the global sense of the word, but I didn’t think he really loved ME. 

Prayer seemed trivial. Like a waste of time. And worst of all, it seemed to only drive me further away from God, not closer to him. 

When I prayed, if at all, they were vague prayers like “Dear Lord, help us to have a good day today and thank you for this food. Amen.” That’s like setting an annual business goal of “Have a successful year.” What does it even mean? What is the point?

Others have asked (I can hear my son’s analytical brain churning) “If God is all knowing and all powerful, what’s the point of praying?” Have you ever wondered that? 

Jesus’ brother, James, says that we don’t have because we don’t ask God. And when we do ask God, we ask with the wrong motives because we only want to please ourselves. 

Of course God is all-knowing and all-powerful, and that is precisely why we should be in communication with Him regularly, constantly, without ceasing. Prayer, however, is more of a positioning of ourselves to ask, to hear, and to receive. 

In prayer we come humbly, tearing down the idols in our hearts, the desires we’ve put on God’s throne for worship. Lord, less than (fill in the blank) I want you. When I have You, I have all that I want or need. I can rest, like a contented child in his mother’s arms. 

The irony of approaching all-powerful, all-knowing God with our shopping list of desires for a comfortable life (right now a 2022 pink Jeep Wrangler swirls in my thoughts) is ironic. Are we approaching God as if He is our servant and chief wish granter? As if He is beneath us, as if we are greater than our creator?

I think that’s the problem. It comes down to pride. Aside from the things we want, the idol that is really in our hearts is ourselves. And that’s the reason why we enter into prayer. Because we constantly need to surrender our own lives, our desires, our hopes to Him. In this posture, having let go of control, we are in a position of trust to accept the good things that God desires to give us. Ultimately the things received in humility are less likely to become idols, and created idols do nothing but destroy. After all, we are far too pleased with the comforts of this life when God has so much more to offer.

In this state of surrender and submission, we’re also in a position to obey. In trust, we receive instructions with peaceful clarity. We’re no longer the child striving after extra chores to appease a parent, gaining favor for something desired. Instead we’re a child joyfully loving and serving because we have been loved, and we want nothing more than a peaceful relationship with our Father. 

The privilege and responsibility of approaching Jesus’ throne is suddenly clear. Our words, uttered in breaths, align us with the Creator’s purposes and plans. What can a word do? Can it fight a battle or win a war? Can words change and create? Indeed. And this is what we are invited into, in humble submission, with Him.