"Thoughts and Prayers": The Relationship of Prayer and Action

A Facebook friend posted this picture earlier today. It's a "campaign contribution" from a frustrated constituent to a member of Congress whose only response to yet another school shooting in the United States is "thoughts and prayers."

I too grow frustrated with the seeming unwillingness of Congress to act on a host of important matters.

Inertia born of a corrupted congressional apportionment process, the influence of interest group money, and spinelessness of legislators fearful they won't be re-elected is an ongoing reality in America.

And it's true that public figures send out hollow assurances of "thoughts and prayers" after mass shootings, terrorist acts, and other tragedies.

But I confess to wincing every time I read or hear someone say, "Prayer doesn't solve anything. It's time for action."

Actually, a slew of research done at top universities, including Harvard, shows that prayer, in fact, can solve lots of things. Two books I recommend to skeptics, both written by medical doctors and incorporating findings from rigorous scientific studies, are Healing Words: The Power of Prayer and the Practice of Medicine by Larry Dossey and The Faith Factor: Proof of the Healing Power of Prayer by Dale Matthews and Connie Clark.

These books affirm what has been my experience after forty-two years as a Christian and thirty-three years as a pastor: Prayer can make a difference, both in the lives of those for whom prayer is offered and, importantly, in the lives of those who pray.

But prayer only makes a difference if those who pray do so with an openness to acting on what they pray about, an openness to God inciting them to action.

As a Christian, I'm taught to pray in Jesus' name. For example, Jesus says in John 16:24: "Until now you have not asked for anything in my name. Ask and you will receive, and your joy will be complete."

But praying in Jesus' name isn't a secret formula. To pray in Jesus' name must mean several things:

• It means that I acknowledge that I can only approach God the Father through Jesus. God's holiness and perfection are such that I have no right to speak with God except through God the Son, Jesus, Whose death and resurrection for sinners like me tear down the wall between God and all who repent and believe in Christ. Jesus says: “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me." (John 14:6)
• It means that I'm asking God to answer my prayer petitions in ways that are consistent with the character of Jesus and will of God. Jesus teaches His disciples, including those living in 2018, to pray, "Your will be done." And in the garden of Gethsemane where He would be arrested and taken to be condemned and crucified, Jesus, knowing all that awaited Him, prayed, "Father, if you are willing, take this cup [of suffering and death] from me; yet not my will, but yours be done." (Luke 22:42)

Intrinsic to this second element of prayer is the willingness to be called by God to have our own agendas changed, to be called by God to act.

True prayer is surrender. It's something you actually do and something God may use to tell you what to do.

But that happens only if you're really praying. Only if your prayer is an actual conversation with God in which you take the time to listen to what God tells you in His Word, the Bible, and in your spirit as you listen for His still small voice as you pray.

In fact, it's difficult not to suspect that all the sweet-sounding assurances of "thoughts and prayers" are nothing more than idle words, like saying, "I'll be there in spirit." As Pastor Rick Warren points out, people who say that they'll be somewhere in spirit are really saying, "I won't be there," no matter how high-minded they may want to sound.

The capacity of prayer in Jesus' name to result in action struck me again today during my quiet time with God. The list of daily Bible readings I use appointed Acts 16-18. As always, I asked God to show me the truth He wanted me to see as I read the Bible. I was struck by these verses from Acts 16:

Paul and his companions traveled throughout the region of Phrygia and Galatia, having been kept by the Holy Spirit from preaching the word in the province of Asia. When they came to the border of Mysia, they tried to enter Bithynia, but the Spirit of Jesus would not allow them to. So they passed by Mysia and went down to Troas. During the night Paul had a vision of a man of Macedonia standing and begging him, “Come over to Macedonia and help us.” After Paul had seen the vision, we got ready at once to leave for Macedonia, concluding that God had called us to preach the gospel to them. (Acts 16:6-10)

The apostle Paul and his ministry team were dialed into God through their reading of God's Word in the Old Testament (the New Testament didn't yet exist), their relationship with God through the risen Jesus, and their times in prayer in Jesus' name.

These verses tell us that at first, they felt prevented from taking the good news of new life for all who repent and believe in Jesus into Asia (by which the New Testament writers meant Asia Minor, which is now largely composed of Turkey). They were prevented not by soldiers, but by God. It wasn't time for them to go into Asia yet. How did they know not to act? Because God impressed that view on them as they read God's Word and prayed.

Once again, the "Spirit of Jesus" prevented them going into Bithynia.

But that night, in a dream, God seemed to tell Paul that he and his team were to go to Macedonia.

When Paul shared his vision with the others, they all appear to agree that this was what God wanted them to do.

In other words, when Paul and the others prayerfully lived in community with God through Christ, they were given their marching orders. Action was born in humble prayer.

Prayer is not the opposite of action. Prayer is useful action's motive force.

When we act without a vibrant prayer relationship with God through Christ, our action is futile.

When we fail to act after we've prayed and God has impressed us with the action we need to take, the fault is not with God or prayer, but with us.

So, of course, we should be praying for the victims of gun violence.

But we should also pray asking God what it is He would have us to do in the face of this scourge on our country. And then, for the sake of Christ and all for whom He died and rose, we should act.

[This photograph was taken by Joel Auerbach of the Associated Press. If it's a copyright infringement for me to use it here, I ask to be notified and I will take it down. It is a powerful symbol of the ongoing tragedy of school shootings in America.]

[I'm the pastor of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio.]

Does Jesus Heal?

[This was shared during this morning's worship services with the people and guests of Living Water Lutheran Church in Springboro, Ohio.]

Mark 1:29-39

Some people may hear the Gospel lesson for this morning and say, “That’s nice. Jesus healed Simon Peter’s mother-in-law and others. Why doesn’t He heal people today?”

The answer, of course, is that He does.

In an October 25, 1999 article of The Archives of Internal Medicine,  seven physicians, a hospital chaplain, a social worker, and a scholar associated with leading hospitals from around the country, presented the findings of their research on the connection between intercessory prayer—prayer offered on behalf of others--and the recovery of coronary patients. The researchers set up what’s known as a “double blind” experiment on those recovering from heart problems. There were 990 patients in the study. Prayers were said for some of them. Prayers were not offered for the others. The doctors treating the patients didn’t know who was chosen to be prayed for and the subjects of the prayers didn’t know either. But a list of first names was given to people in local churches who prayed for those on the list each day. Neither the people doing the praying, nor the people being prayed for, nor the researchers knew who had been chosen to be the target of prayer. 

And what happened? Those for whom prayers were said recovered more quickly. As the researchers put it in the conclusion of their abstract (I love this), “This result suggests that prayer may be an effective adjunct to standard medical care.” (1)

Now, if this were an isolated study, it wouldn’t mean much. But in recent decades, literally hundreds of objective scientific studies, conducted at major hospitals and universities, have been done looking into the connection between things like faith, prayer, and worship attendance on the one hand and healing and health on the other. The results are stunning.

A few examples: A 1972 study of 91,909 people in Washington County, Maryland “found that those who attended church once or more a week had significantly lower death rates from…coronary-artery disease (50 percent reduction), emphysema (56 percent reduction), cirrhosis of the liver (74 percent reduction), suicide (53 percent reduction).” (2)

“A 1978 study of 355 men in Evans County, Georgia showed that those who attended church one or more times per week had significantly lower blood-pressure readings than individuals who attended church less often. The positive link between church attendance and lower blood pressure held up even if the church attenders were smokers!” (2)

Now, I know that I’m preaching to the choir here. Many of you in this sanctuary this morning would affirm that the God we know in Jesus Christ is still in the healing business. Certainly, God uses doctors, nurses, and other health care professionals to bring His healing. But, as study after study has confirmed, their efforts are enhanced by prayer. 

In my years as a pastor, I’ve learned that many health care professionals know this. One surgeon I met years ago made a point of asking when I would be joining the patient he was operating on for prayer before surgery. “I want to be there when you pray,” he told me. “And would you please pray for me, too?” I was happy to do that. 

That has happened several times before surgeries for members of Living Water in just the past year or so. One morning, the family and I were asked by both the surgeon and the anesthetist if we would pray with them.

God is still in the healing business. In his book, The Faith Factor, Dr. Dale A. Matthews tells the true story of Barbara, who suffered from cancer. Barbara was in worship one Sunday at the Anglican church she attended when the priest read the Gospel of Mark’s account of the woman who had been hemorrhaging for twelve years. Not wanting to call attention to herself, Barbara believed that if she touched the hem of Jesus’ garment as He passed, she would be healed. As Barbara prepared to go to the altar to receive Holy Communion, a thought crossed her mind: “I could be like her.”

She looked at her priest who was, she thought, “standing in” for Jesus as He presided over the Eucharist. “She decided that she would touch the priest’s robe when he gave her the communion wafer.” As Barbara tells it: “I touched his robe, and he couldn’t have known that I did, though he did know about my cancer. He did something in that moment that I had never seen him do before: he put down the paten with the communion wafers and came over to me; laying both hands on my head, he prayed for my healing.”

Barbara wasn’t healed instantly. But she knew that God was healing her. As she explains it, though at that point her healing wasn’t physical, her heart was healed. “I had complete trust in God and his love, something [God] knew I needed far more than any other kind of healing at the moment.”

Of course, you and I know that not every one for whom we pray is healed. And even more than that, Pastor Mark Dahle, a Lutheran pastor who has written and spoken about his California congregation’s healing ministry, reminds us, everybody for whom we pray will eventually die. We live in a fallen and imperfect world. Death comes, as does suffering of all kinds. Faith in Jesus is no insurance policy against the reality of living in a dying world.

So, why did Jesus heal Simon’s mother-in-law and the others our Gospel lesson tells us He healed? Why does Jesus heal today?

We get at least one answer to that question from an interchange that happens between Simon and Jesus before dawn, the day after Jesus healed Simon’s mother-in-law and after Jesus has just spent time in prayer.

It had been a busy Sabbath for Jesus. After worshiping and teaching in the synagogue at Capernaum—where, you’ll remember from last week’s Gospel lesson, He had cast out a demon--He’d gone to the house of Simon and Andrew for dinner, healed Simon’s mother-in-law, cured many who were sick, cast out demons, and then before sun-up, prayed. 

While He was praying, Simon and the others hunted Jesus down. They clearly wanted Jesus to go back to the scene of so much triumph and success. Instead, Jesus tells them, “Let us go somewhere else—to the nearby villages—so I can preach there also. That is why I have come.”

For Jesus, healing was never an end. It was only a means.

John’s Gospel constantly refers to Jesus’ healings and other miracles as signs. Signs point to something more significant, more meaningful than themselves. The miracles of Jesus point us to the simple, powerful fact that Jesus has power over life, death, suffering, disease, sin, the devil, our sinful selves, and every other one of our enemies.

What Jesus came to do during His time on earth was share a plain message, one that will change our lives forever if we let it. In Mark 1:15, we find the only of sermons Jesus that Mark recounts: The time has come,” he said. “The kingdom of God has come near. Repent and believe the good news!”

He says, in effect, “Turn from sin—repent—and trust in Me to give you life forever—fuller life today and totally new, restored life forever with God.”

Repent. Trust. That’s Jesus’ message in a nutshell. Its validity is underscored by HIs miracles, by His suffering death on our behalf, and by His resurrection.

Jesus once asked an important question. “What good will it be for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul?” [Matthew 16:26] Today’s lesson, I think, asks a similar question: “What good is it to have perfect health, but not have life with God?”

Jesus Christ heals. And, by the power of His death and resurrection, the ultimate healing, the one that matters for all eternity, is the healing of our broken relationships with God, with others, and with ourselves. The healing Christ brings to those who repent and believe in Him will be our joy for all eternity. It can also be our comfort, our strength, and our hope even now. Amen

(1) I had heard of this research before. But I'm grateful to the late Father Andrew Greeley for pointing to it.

(2) These are cited in a book by Dr. Dale A. Matthews, here. Dr. Larry Dossey also has spent years cataloging scientific studies specifically showing the connection between prayer and healing. Both Matthews and Dossey are physicians.

3 Lessons My Health Issues Have Taught Me

[This was prepared to be shared with the people of the Logan Cancer Recovery Group this evening.]

Since my last visit with you several years ago, a few things have happened in my life.

In 2010, I suffered a heart attack that took out 40% of my heart. Since then, a stent was implanted in an artery that had been 100% blocked and in 2011, as a precautionary measure, I received a defibrillator/pacemaker.

Also in 2011, a small spot of melanoma was found on my left leg and I underwent an outpatient surgical procedure at the James Center at Ohio State. A biopsy showed that there was no cancer in the surrounding area.

In 2012, I developed a stubborn rash that ultimately proved to be a symptom of Celiac Disease, a genetic condition that may or may not show up in he course of a person’s life. The thinking is that all that whole wheat I was eating to keep my heart healthy triggered the activation of the Celiac Disease. Because I still had a rash and both my wife and I were getting acclimated to the new gluten-free, wheat-free diet that is the only treatment that exists for Celiac, we had to cancel a planned visit with friends who live in France.

Shortly after the Celiac diagnosis, I told an old high school classmate: “It’s no biggie. Heart, cancer, and Celiac were all on my bucket list.” We laughed and he said, “Man, you gotta get a different list.”

Now, I’m doing well. Most days I do several miles of brisk walking. My heart is steady at about 60 beats per minute. My blood pressure, which has never been an issue, is, my doctor says, “perfect.”

There’s been no hint of skin cancer on any other part of my body.

And I’m actually enjoying the gluten-free diet.

After my last physical, my doctor declared that I was in "great shape."

I can’t claim to have experienced anything like what many of you have gone through. But I have learned some things I either didn’t know or didn’t pay much attention to before my last visit with you. They’re probably things all of you know from your experiences. Nonetheless, they’re worth remembering.

So what are some of these lessons I’ve learned?

First: Any time we receive bad news about our health, we should remember that it isn’t always our faults. We know that smoking leaves us at heightened risk for heart attack and cancer. We know that not exercising and not getting immunized leaves us susceptible to all sorts of diseases. We know that it’s not wise to drive without securing our seat belts. There are common sense precautions we all can take to reduce our risk for diseases or accidents.

But sometimes bad things happen even to cautious people.

In Matthew 5:45, Jesus says that the Father “makes His sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.”

In Romans, the apostle Paul says that the whole universe groans under the weight of the condition of sin, that condition of enmity between God and the creation that you and I have inherited from Adam and Eve.

For nearly two years after my heart attack, I beat myself up for it. Although I had been unaware of feeling stressed, I assumed since I had none of the other risk factors for a heart attack that I had stressed myself into it. I even said so publicly. And stress may have played some role in it.

But only recently, my doctor said that he didn’t think my heart attack was caused by stress. “What was it then?” I asked. He paused for a long time and then said, “Maybe just bad luck.”

Now, I don’t believe in luck. But I do believe that there are some things that happen to us over which we have no control. In fact, most of the things that happen to us are probably in that category.

My doctor told me, “Mark, you may have been born with a partially occluded artery that simply took fifty-seven years to become completely blocked.” He went on to say that given the numbers of collateral arteries that had developed near the blocked one, something that would have taken decades to develop, I probably was born with that blockage.

Again, common sense dictates that we control those negative behaviors or habits that may endanger our health and instead, engage in other habits, like exercise, that can help us. But not every illness we’re hit with has anything to do with our behaviors. Our genes, our environments, or just being at the wrong place at the wrong time can all work against us.

The last thing we need to do when we’re hit with a negative medical diagnosis is to send ourselves on a guilt trip. That will not help us feel better.

A second lesson is really one I have re-learned. It’s summarized in the words of Pastor Chuck Swindoll. “I am convinced,” Swindoll has said, “that life is 10% what happens to me and 90% how I react to it.” Viktor Frankl, the psychotherapist who survived time in a Nazi concentration camp said much the same thing when he wrote that, “Everything can be taken from a [person] but one thing; the last of the human freedoms - to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances...”

Every one of you here this evening knows well that while we may not control what happens to us, we can control how we react to it.

I have known people who suffered minor health setbacks and allowed them to become death sentences. These people withdrew from life, proclaimed themselves to be suffering from the terminal disease of being human, shuttered their spirits, metaphorically wrapped themselves in cotton balls, and waited for the Grim Reaper.

Others recognize though that life, even in the midst of adversity, is a precious, undeserved gift from God worth living, worth cherishing.

Some of you know "B" from our congregation. B will turn 99 years old in a few days. A few years back, her sons and she decided that she could no longer fend for herself in her home. So, she moved to an assisted care facility.

B is legally blind and has to wear hearing aids. Last year, she had Shingles.

She could be bitter, wondering why she’s still around despite her afflictions. But that isn’t the choice she’s made. Always an avid reader, now largely unable to read, she listens to about five novels on CD every week. She works out every day, is a member of the garden club, participates in the crossword puzzle group, laughs, and keeps me on the straight and narrow.

B once told me that after the decision was made that she needed to leave her home, “I could have felt sorry for myself. But I decided to be happy.” We can control how we react to what happens to us.

A third lesson I’ve re-learned in a powerful way over the past few years is the most important one of all. It’s this. When Jesus tells those who believe in Him, “I am with you always, even to the close of the age,” you can bank on it.

I have never felt the closeness of Jesus, the One Who died and rose to set me free from bondage to sin and death, more than I have in the two-and-a-half years since my heart attack.

And belief in Jesus, Emmanuel--God with us--is good for our health and good for our recovery from health challenges.

This is borne out by research. In the book, The Faith Factor: Proof of the Healing Power of Prayer, Dr. Dale Matthews and co-author Connie Clark write: “Scientific studies show that religious involvement helps people prevent illness, recover from illness, and--most remarkably--live longer.” [The authors' italics.]

They go on to cite several studies that prove that point. For example, a 1972 study of 91,909 people in Washington County, Maryland “found that those who attended church once or more a week had significantly lower death rates from” coronary disease, emphysema, cirrhosis of the liver, and suicide. They also had less tuberculosis and other diseases.

In 1995, a Dartmouth University study of 232 elderly patients who underwent open-heart surgery showed that the “overall death rate among these patients was 9 percent the first six months after surgery. But for patients who said they attended church regularly, the death rate was 5 percent; the death rate for non-church attenders was nearly three times what it was for churchgoers.” Even more impressively, among the believers, the 37 patients who said they received “significant ‘strength and comfort’ from their beliefs all survived the six-month period.”

The authors go on to document study after study that show the positive effect that faith has on cancer patients, those suffering from depression and grief, and those who have addictions.

Now, we all know, as one of my seminary professors used to remind us, that, except for Jesus, God in the flesh, Who rose from the dead, and Enoch and Elijah, two Old Testament figures who never died, the ratio of births to deaths among the human race remains 1 to 1.

But I have learned that belonging to a Savior Who gives new and everlasting life to all who repent--disavowing the power of sin over their lives--and believe in Jesus--surrendering their whole lives to Him--have a power for living and dealing with life’s adversities that those who don’t have a  relationship with Christ don't enjoy.

This shouldn’t surprise us. Jesus describes Himself as “the way, and the truth, and the life.” When we have a relationship with Jesus, we know that we belong to God now and for all eternity and that nothing can separate us from God or His love for us.

If that doesn’t give us strength to handle anything, nothing will!

So, these are the lessons I have learned or relearned these past few years, lessons I’m sure you all know well.

Number one, when we get a bad medical diagnosis, we need to change what behaviors and habits we can, but we shouldn’t beat ourselves up for things we can’t control.

Number two, we can’t always control what happens to us, but we can control how we react to what happens to us.

Number three, we need to embrace and maintain a strong personal relationship with Christ through prayer, reading God’s Word, regular worship attendance, service in Christ’s Name, and sharing our faith in Christ with others.

When we undertake these steps, we will ensure that however long we live, we will truly live, making full use of the gift of life with which God has blessed each of us. Thank you.