People not clear on the concept may get a little clearer because of this

Drudge and Reuters apparently think it newsworthy that a new study fails to show a positive impact for intercessory prayer on outcomes for surgery patients.

Personally, I find the study's result refreshing.

First, "prayer" as such has no particular virtue. Praying to Allah, for example, would figure to be about as effective as praying to a paper clip (sorry, Daystar). Less effective, even. At least a paper clip exists. The object of prayer is a rather significant datum here. So are the terms on which the prayer is offered (see John 14:6, among other passages).

As it happens, in this particular prayer, only Christians- a team of Catholics, and a team of unidentified Protestants- were involved in the praying part. The prayers were standardized, and written out ahead of time. The result: no difference in outcomes between the prayed-for patients and the control group, except that the prayed-for patients had a greater incidence of complications.

Why should I find a study which fails to show a benefit from prayer refreshing? Because the whole concept displays such a perverted understanding of what prayer is all about.

God is nobody's butler.

Prayer is not a a kind of cosmic Internet through which one can order things one wants, and God is not an almighty Sears catalog in the sky just sitting by His computer or telephone waiting for our order!

I remember being taught by one of my early pastors that intercessory prayer should always follow the example of Christ's prayer in Gethsemane, and prominently feature the phrase, "if it be Your will." It is not for nothing that we pray in the Lord's Prayer, "... Thy will be done on earth, as it is in heaven." We would be in a sorry way indeed if God did indiscriminately give us everything we pray for! Better to leave the final decision up to Him Who alone has the wisdom to know whether what we want is also what we need- and Who has a way of often giving us much better things than we ask for!

Maybe this study- whose results contradict so many others- is among other things His way of calling into question the shallow notion of prayer which prevails in our society, and reminding us that even His Son, in the Garden, submitted His requests to His Father's will.

Prayer, as someone once said, is not to bring God into conformity with our will, but to bring us into conformity with His.

HT: Drudge