If I pray my problems will go away. - A misty eyed soul

“Don’t worry it will all work out eventually.”

We’ve all heard some version of this phrase from well-meaning people, and likely even said it to ourselves as we ruminated on our life’s struggles. From a Christian worldview, everything will work out through God’s providence, but how we interpret and act on this on this sentiment makes a huge difference in our spiritual life.

When we talk about faith without acting on faith we are participating in passive spirituality, magical thinking, and wish fulfillment. You confide in a well-meaning person at church and they tell you to pray on it before abruptly changing the topic. One of your friends has gone through a series of failed relationships, each following the same pattern, but still firmly believes that ’the one’ will come and everything will be fine. You are constantly vexed with struggles but have faith that one day they will all go away even while you repeatedly act out the same behaviors.

Cloaking passivity in a veneer of faith treats our present struggles like an airport layover, a temporary circumstance outside of our control, and all we must do is wait around scrolling on our phones until our boarding group is called for the 9:54 a.m. flight to “everything-works-out-land.”

By waiting around for a serendipitous encounter, midnight catharsis, or another type of miracle to radically transform our experience we imply that the moment we are gifted with now is not important. Our presence is not required and some future far-off daydream is more worthy of our attention than God’s hand in our current surroundings is.

Faith is a companion on our journey, not a rescuer from it. We’re rucking through the wilderness step by step with faith, knowing that God is guiding us as we move forward through the dark and tangled brush. There’s no spiritual airplane coming to take us away from the struggles of this world, and we don’t know what our destination will be.

God is present now. God gifted the current circumstances to us for our growth and salvation. Being everywhere present and filling all things applies equally to the miraculous and the mundane. If miracles account for 0.01% of life and mundane things consume the other 99.99%, we miss out 99.99% of God’s presence in our lives if our minds are constantly set thinking about future miracles.

An obsession with the miraculous leads to a myopic view of the spiritual practice. God can work miracles, but why would he if a miracle isn’t necessary? When I write a SQL script or Python program, I’m aiming for a simple, elegant solution which is usually based on existing software packages and libraries. If I as a man strive to make my handiwork simple and seamless, why would God not do so as He works in our lives? There’s no need to bend the laws of physics to generate a jaw-dropping miracle if a few small nudges can produce the same result; likewise, I wouldn’t write code that uses 100% of my CPU if I can produce the same outcome utilizing only 1%.

Pining away for miracles leads us to miss the master craftsmanship of the Creator that is present in even the smallest details and chance encounters of life. All of creation is a testament to God’s glory, and every circumstance we find ourselves in is an opportunity to encounter the living God. Moreover, isn’t it much better to require a small nudge towards the right path instead of a show-stopping spectacle? I would think the need for dramatic intervention means you’re doing worse, not better. (though this idea does not extend to experiencing the miraculous because you have drawn closer to God through disciplined spiritual practice.)

Even if we are not completely passive, we can still be trapped by the same sentiments of passivity. When we apply magical thinking to our prayer practice, we reduce it to a wish-fulfillment mechanism. Even though we may look as if we’re spiritually proactive, our heads are stuck in the clouds and we act as if uttering the perfect incantation will cause God to acquiesce to our desires.

Imagine the absurdity of going to your father, asking him for everything you ever wanted in life and he simply agrees to give everything you asked for without stipulation. Now imagine if that was the full extent of your relationship. Transactional relationships are considered dysfunctional between humans; how much worse is it to treat God as a spiritual sugar-daddy?

A father who gives in to his children’s every whim is a poor father indeed. The legions of spoiled children, raised in wealth, that quickly destroy their lives when left to their own volition testify to this. A god that simply gives us everything we desire from our limited and naive perspective without encouraging spiritual growth would similarly be setting our souls up for ruin.

Prayer is much deeper than wish-fulfillment; it’s building and strengthening our relationship with God. We commit our attention, time, and energy to express ourselves in all our beauty and shame to our Creator. Our desires are part of this, but as Christians we always remember to humbly allow God’s will to be done after we ask for anything. God knows our hearts, and like a good father, knows what we need far better than we do. We must guard against the idea that we are entitled to getting ‘our way’ simply because we adhere to a spiritual practice.

The reality of this world is all around us; things don’t ‘work out’ for everyone in the sense that a happily-ever-after ending is guaranteed. People succumb to addictions and it takes their life. Soldiers enter into war and even though,they pray for protection many see their lives end on the battlefield. Businessmen lose it all and their final moments are falling from a skyscraper. Everyday men and women die homeless and alone.

Underlying all magical thinking is the belief that we are a special case. We are not like the homeless man begging under the highway overpass. We are not like the alcoholic who passes away from his addiction. No; we pray; we are special; we are unique. God has exempted us from the laws that govern creation and we will surely escape tragedy because the idea of faith sloshes around in our brain.

We know what’s best for ourselves in every given moment. Our happily ever after is guaranteed; we will board the flight to our dreams shortly; we only have to wait and beg God for what we want.

This is foolishness.

We are mortals. We are limited. We must conform ourselves to the Truth. The Christian life is one where we strive to grow in wisdom, humility, and all the other virtues as we move closer to the source of life and meaning: God. As we become wiser, our the likelihood of our having a better outcome in life increases, but this is not guaranteed. Whatever experiences are put forth to us; whether they be boring or exciting, joyous or tragic, success or failure, and everything in between are opportunities for us to grow into a better person with a stronger character.

Spirituality is not magic. Life is not a fairy tale. Religion is not a series of rituals and incantations to escape suffering. The flight to happily-ever-after land isn’t coming; in fact, it was canceled at the beginning of creation. When we subscribe to magical thinking we rob ourselves of the opportunity to grow in the present moment.

Only through the willingness to face life as it is in all it’s joy and suffering, can we grow into the person we have the potential to become. There is no happily-ever-after in this world, death will come for us all and we will lose all earthly things. The only part of us we carry into the ever-after is our character.

As we strive to know and live out the faith, let us remember that the Christian life is far grander than magic and miracles. May God guide us to humility and wisdom.