Prayer and the Computer

(I wrote this a few months ago, but it is just as relevant.)

It could look like computer worship. There I am, head bowed in front of my laptop, occasionally glancing up to scroll down, and then bowing again.

But it is not idolatry. It is my pathetic attempt to regularly pray through the church roster. I have an electric roster in which I type in the prayer requests people give me and the requests I suspect people need even if they don’t tell me. It’s all stored on my hard drive, awaiting retrieval.

But I don’t retrieve it—at least not as often as I should. Today was an anomaly, because things were particularly slow. Usually when I have a free minute to spare, I open Microsoft Outlook and send emails to encourage folks and follow up on prayer requests. Or, I open up a blank Word document and begin working on the next sermon to encourage and challenge us. The prayer requests I’m given are significant. A wayward child to be saved, cancer to be healed, godliness to be developed, and the pursuit of holiness weigh heavy on my mind. I strive to do what I can to see these requests answered.

Why, then, do I so often miss the obvious application of praying for those prayer requests to be answered? Why does regularly start out as once a day, then drop to once a week, and then even less—mirroring my commitment to change the oil in my car (was it every 3,000 or 30,000 miles?)? Why is prayer not the first response in addressing the burdens God has put on my heart and those I care about?

Maybe because computer worship is the case after all. The computer is very predictable, isn’t it? I double-click “prayer roster” and it opens; I click send and receive, and I send email; I—as a curious fool once did years ago—type ”format c:” and I lose all my documents, my dad’s documents, and the entire operating system—whoops. I think I’m searching for the same predictability in prayer that I get with my computer.

I want godliness in my life and the congregation, but prayer finds no “godliness” file that I can open and run. I want to see people in the community trust Christ, but I cannot, through prayer, export “trust Christ express” and send it to them in an email. I want us to grow in our knowledge of God, but I cannot, through prayer, download that knowledge into our minds and hearts. I cannot, through prayer, run a “pride scanner” which will search and destroy the pride that hampers everything I do. Prayer is stuck in antiquity where hoping and waiting were the norm, and it has not been brought into the computer age where we can get instant results with simple commands.

But do you see how disgustingly idolatrous and blasphemous this desire for computerized prayer is. If I want prayer to be an operating system , I want God to be a the computer. I reduce the God of the universe to a Pentium processor that will perform the tasks which I command.

I have missed something absolutely crucial. God is not the means to an end, like a computer that has no inherent value—at least not for me—beyond information it gives me. God is the goal. His character is the most valuable treasure in the universe. Prayer is designed to put me in the position of humble dependence. Waiting and hoping are beneficial means of orienting our lives to depend upon God.

If God is not the goal, I have no choice but to restart, and ask myself, what do I really want. If God is not my goal, (which honestly is often the case for me) my first prayer request must be that he would be, and I must repent of my desire to make other things—even good things—of a higher value than God.