Prayer Works?

A Reflection on Prayer, Faith, and Suffering.

By now, most people are familiar with the terrible injury that Buffalo Bills Safety, Damar Hamlin, suffered in a game against the Cincinnati Bengals. Suffering cardiac arrest after a legal football hit and nearly dying was terrible. NFL player or not, Hamlin is a young man, and it would have been tragic for him to die.

Fortunately, Damar Hamlin received excellent medical treatment and appeared to be on the road to a full recovery. More importantly, many people were praying for Hamlin’s healing. Even Dan Orlovsky, a former NFL Quarterback and current NFL Analyst for ESPN offered an intercessory prayer for Hamlin on live television. It’s nice to see so many people praying, not only because that is something we should do for others in need but also because people recognize that we mortal humans need God. However, once it became clear that Damar Hamlin was likely to recover, I began reading posts and comments on social media that claimed Hamlin’s recovery was proof that prayer works. This is a problem.

When we respond to a situation like Damar Hamlin’s injury and recovery, saying this is proof that prayer works, we immediately create another problem. If this is how we know that prayer works, why has prayer not worked for the many women who have had difficulty conceiving children and have even miscarried the children they did conceive? Or, if getting well after people pray proves that prayer works, why does prayer not work for some of the children with cancer who will never live to see adulthood?

Pointing to someone who has recovered from an illness or injury as proof that prayer works can be an existential problem for the suffering. However, such a claim is also a theological problem because to speak about prayer working is to talk about the work of God. So when we say that someone’s remarkable recovery is proof that prayer works while knowing that there are other people who others are praying for but do not recover, it then appears that the work of God is either by arbitrary choice or limited in power. That means God either shows favoritism or is not sovereign, which creates a big theological problem. This is why there are scores of books written on theodicy in which philosophers and theologians attempt to account for the existence of a benevolent God and human suffering.

I don’t have an answer to why a loving God allows suffering, and if I’m pressed, I can demonstrate why I don’t believe a good answer exists. However, I think there is an answer to whether prayer works, an answer that affirms prayer does work but perhaps differently than we may assume. So, I want to ask: How does God work for his redemptive purpose through faith expressed in prayer?

Psalms 42 and 43 are connected prayers. However, the Psalmist wonders where God is rather than expressing a robust assurance of God’s presence. The Psalmist prays, “My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When can I go and meet with God?” (42:2).¹ Right now, the only thing that seems to keep the Psalmist living is his tears, which he describes as his food (42:3). Whatever is going on in the life of the Psalmist, there is despair and even doubt that we should not ignore. The despair and doubt seem so pervasive that the Psalmist prays to God, “why have you forgotten me? Why must I go about mourning, oppressed by the enemy?” (42:9).

I can relate to the Psalmist because this is how I felt after my son passed away. The best way to describe how I felt was to say I was lost. My wife and I, along with many others, prayed for our son, yet he still died. In some sense, I felt betrayed by God, and as time passed, I became so tired that I just wanted to give up believing God cared. I couldn’t make sense of God or why God seemingly didn’t answer the prayers for our son.²

Randy Harris says, “Sometimes to walk in faith is to walk in deep darkness.”³ In fact, it doesn’t take much faith to keep trusting God when there isn’t push challenging that trust. On the other hand, it takes a lot of faith to trust when life is consumed by grief that becomes darkness. The faith that walks in darkness may have doubts, but it’s still faith. In The opposite of faith is neither doubts nor the laments one dares to utter amid the darkness. Instead, the opposite of faith may be apathy. It’s okay to have doubts and complaints.

It takes courageous faith to express such doubts and laments in prayer, wrestling with the tension created when faith collides with suffering. This collision is a disturbance within our souls even as we are trying to hold on to hope. We can hear the Psalmist wrestling with the tension in the refrain, as the Psalmist expresses the refrain three times, “Why, my soul, are you downcast? Why so disturbed within me? Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him, my Savior and my God.” (42:5, 11; 43:5).⁴ I propose that this refrain is where we begin understanding how prayer works.

In Psalms 42 and 43, we have an expression of faithful lament, which is a protest or complaint that always hopes. The hope of lament is for God to respond to the reality of suffering.⁵ It is from the depths of darkness that the Psalmist calls out to God. “Deep calls to deep…” (42:7), the Psalmist prays. Even from the depths of his despair, the Psalmist knows his prayers will reach the depths of God’s great power. God is still sovereign, and God is still redemptively at work. So this Psalm offers us a voice for entrusting ourselves in prayer to God, reminding us to put our hope in God.

Psalms 42 and 43 don’t offer any particulars as to what prayer might do. Instead, the Psalmist trusts God enough to say, “Send me your light and your faithful care, let them lead me; let them bring me to your holy mountain, to the place where you dwell. Then I will go to the altar of God, to God, my joy and my delight.” (43:3-4).

Here is what prayer does ad how prayer works. Praying is not about trusting God. Even when prayer is a lament expressing anger, despair, and grief that trouble us to the very core of our beings, prayer works. Prayer works because we trust in God. Prayer works because we express faith in God still at work. Prayer works because, as an act of faith, we entrust our lives to God's loving care even when we have doubts and struggle to make sense of life. Prayer works because we entrust ourselves to the providential care of God, who is redemptively working life for the good through his Son, Jesus Christ—crucified, resurrected, and exalted as our Lord and Savior.

A mature faith, according to Tomáš Halík, “takes seriously the human experience of the tragedy and pain…”⁶ Prayer is a way in which we take seriously the reality of suffering and the trauma that follows, even when the only prayer we have is a lament. Prayer allows us to continue entrusting ourselves to God in his "steadfast love" (NRSV). That's also why I keep praying, for praying keeps me holding on to hope in Christ even if some days I feel like I'm barely clinging to hope. If you're living with grief and pain, I hope you'll entrust yourself to God by praying, even if it's just a simple "Lord, have mercy on me, a sinner" or just a lament, just to be silent with God and let him tend to your soul.

1. Unless otherwise noted, all scripture quotations are from The Holy Bible, New International Version, NIV. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

2. I share the story of my son’s death and the journey to a renewed hope in a chapter titled “Lost Sons,” see John Mark Hicks, Christine Fox Parker, and Bobby Valentine, eds., Surrendering to Hope: Guidance for the Broken, Abilene: Leafwood Publishers, 2018.

3. Randy Harris, Soul Work: Confessions of a Part-Time Monk, Abilene: Leafwood Publishers, 2011, 33.

4. This refrain gives a structure that involves two expressions of lament or complaint that leads to the recognition of hope. For more on the structure of Psalms 42 and 43, see Mitchell Dahood, Psalms I: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary, vol. 16, The Anchor Bible, New York: Double Day, 1965, 255; Bernhard W. Anderson, Out of the Depths: The Psalms Speak For Us Today, 3rd ed., Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2000, 66.

5. Soong-Chan Rah, Prophetic Lament: A Call for Justice in Troubled Times, Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2015, 21.

6. Tomáš Halík, Patience with God: The Story of Zacchaeus Continuing In Us, trans. Gerald Turner, New York: Double Day, 2009, 108.