The People Journal

Prayers for Haiti

Posted by: Jim Mondry

Thursday, January 14th, 2010 at 6:13 pm

I’m certain that anyone reading this post has heard of the earthquake in Haiti. Looking from the outside, I feel really powerless in the face of this tragedy. A lot of people are calling for prayer for Haiti, and I think that’s a good thing. A lot of people have been moved by the destruction, and the death that has happened so far, and continues to be discovered. But, I wonder what prayer is going to accomplish here?

Now, let me put that question in context - Something that has come up in conversation with people recently is our understanding of God. God is often seen as this being that exists outside of what we know and see, and occasionally “breaks in”. A lot of people with this understanding see prayer as asking God to impose himself upon the situation. “God, please be with those in Haiti right now, and be with those that are travelling to help with rescue and recovery operations”. At its best, a prayer like this is asking God to do work we want done (which is often really good things). At its worst, we’re treating God like Santa Claus. So, every time I feel the urge to pray for Haiti, I think that I’m trying to either harness a hurricane, or feel like I’m trying to get God to do work that I should be doing myself.

Yet, I don’t know what I can do myself. There is always the obvious one of giving money to charities that will be doing recovery there. This is simple, and effective, but after I am left with a sense that I need to do more. But what is more? It’s not like I have any useful skills to go down right now and help with rescue and recovery. I have just as few skills when it comes to doing something like rebuilding later. So, I’m left feeling like I’m not doing enough, and then not praying enough, so I must be doing something really wrong.

Am I the only one feeling this?

One Response to “Prayers for Haiti”

cameronMontgomery Says:
January 20th, 2010 at 4:24 pm
I agree with your concerns, but i’d like to draw your attention to a couple of other important dimensions of prayer. First, we need to remember to think of prayer as talking to a being who is in Love with us. Who wants to hear from us, and wants us to share the burdens of our heart. We can’t build relationships without dialogue and our relationship with God is not very different in this aspect. It’s hard to think of prayer as dialogue but that should be our goal in our prayer life. We need to invest time in our side of the dialogue before we start to hear God’s side.

We also have to invest our selves in the dialogue. This is probably the hardest and least understood part of prayer. Take a look at the Psalms and the prayers of people in the Bible including Jesus. People in the Bible pour out their hearts to God, their deepest fears, longings and frustrations. They express anger, hurt and desire, they express who they are. This is the kind of conversation God wants with us, and I believe that the more honest we are with God the more we will hear from God.

Several years ago a lovely woman in my church in Thunder Bay was diagnosed with cancer and not given much hope. One of my friends in the church who is a nurse said that she couldn’t pray for recovery because she didn’t see it happening, so she would just pray for peace and strength for the woman and her family. It’s a good and important prayer, and her reasoning was not a lot different from yours regarding Haiti. If God wanted to heal this woman it would happen in order to bring glory and honour to God, not as an answer to a selfish desire to save a friend who is just one of many facing death. The thing is, as I listened to my friend share her response to what seemed a hopeless situation, God challenged me. God wanted to know if I was willing to ask for the desire of my heart, knowing that there was a good chance that it would not be granted. Was I willing to pour my heart out to God, to share my desires, and still believe that whatever God’s plan was that it would work for the best. Maybe it wouldn’t be my best or the best for the woman’s family but the best in a bigger plan. That bigger plan part sounds trite but I don’t know a better way to put it. Could I ask God for a good gift and believe I wouldn’t get a rock or a scorpion*, and would I still believe He Loved me if I didn’t get the answer I wanted?

*Luke 11:11-13

I prayed for healing and it didn’t come. I prayed again for healing a few years later when the same man’s second wife was diagnosed with cancer, and again when my own wife was given six to twelve months to live, and each time I did not get the desire of my heart. Every time though, I prayed with as much faith as I could muster, that God cared about what I wanted and that He still Loved me even if I didn’t get what I wanted.

I’m glad my children don’t rely on getting everything they want from me, to know that I Love them. I’m glad that even when I couldn’t give my wife everything she needed, she knew I Loved her with all my heart. The people we Love know it because we share our lives with them, prayer is about sharing our lives with God and inviting God to share life with us.

The second dimension of prayer often neglected is that we talk to and with God so that we can be changed. Moses comes down the mountain from his meeting with God, and he is glowing because of the experience. God really does rub off on us if we spend time with Him. We need to talk with God continually for this to happen.

I doubt any of this will take away the frustration we feel about tragedies like Haiti or the death of a loved one, but I hope it does encourage us to continue to spend time talking with God and being honest about the the things we desire. Miracles still happen even when we don’t always see them, and the most important miracle is when any one of us encounters God in a meaningful way.