Take From Me and Give to Him: A New Perspective on Prayer
By Daniel Miessler on July 30th, 2008: Tagged as Religion
This is for the people who believe in God, and believe in the power of prayer.
The next time you have the urge to pray for someone I want you to try something. I want you to offer something to them. I want you to make a pact with God regarding your life and the life of the person in need.
Say these words:
Take from me, and give to him.
And here’s what I want you to offer:
- Offer to not get your raise at work this year
- Offer to have a powerful enemy at work who hurts your reputation
- Offer a reduction in title and pay
- Offer to be fired and to struggle financially for six months
- Offer to grapple with a horrible disease
- Offer to never truly be respected by those you love
- Offer to die early and never achieve your goals
- Offer to never attain happiness in your life
In other words, on a scale equal to your offering, give of yourself something that you desire greatly — something that God has the ability to take from you. Give it in exchange for the thing you’re asking for, on behalf of that person you’re trying to help.
For example:
Take from me the promotion I’ve been working for for two years, in exchange for giving that man a stable job to take care of his family.
But do this with belief. Do this knowing that God will really take it.
I’ve done this a few times myself throughout my life as a believer. And I’m somewhat ashamed to say that I’ve done it even after being an atheist. I offer to the universe, sort of, but a universe that has the ability to make the trade. I have not done it recently because I’ve been too selfish, and too cynical, as of late.
But I do it as a believer, so I don’t offer much. It’s amazing what happens to your willingness to give via prayer when the gift is coming from your own prosperity. I have in the past, but only a few times, offered much of my future success in return for the easing of suffering of someone. I was very moved at the time, and it was an honest offering. As a selfish person I hope it wasn’t accepted, but to this day I wouldn’t revoke it if given the knowledge that it was real.
And that’s my challenge to believers: rise at least to the height of this morally deprived atheist. Put something behind your prayers. Offer something of yourself. It’s too easy to ask that someone receive a hundred bundles of happiness if not a single one is coming out of your own stockpile.
Offer gifts from your own finite supply, and see if you are as generous.:
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When I lived at home I wanted nothing more in my life than to have my alcoholic step-father removed from my life. I prayed a lot, but it never occurred to me to pray about my step-father. The day it did occur to me I wanted to pray to have him removed from my life in any fashion, it didn’t matter to me. I took a step back and thought about it for a second. It occurred to me that I should rely on the wisdom of God for the best answer to my problem. So instead I simply prayed for him to resolve the problem in the way he saw best fit. A month later my step-father enrolled in AA and quit drinking within the year. Today I have a positive and constructive relationship with my step-father. While this doesn’t go along with the selflessness you were talking about, it goes along with the idea that we don’t always know, in the big picture, what the best solution is to a problem. Simply asking for the things you want, the way you want them, isn’t usually the best solution to very many problems. In stead of praying for what you want, pray for the wisdom to seek what you need.
Comment by Maxo — 7/30/2008 @ 12:06 pm
Uhm, here’s an idea. Why don’t you get up and go volunteer, that’s doing God’s work without His having to kick one in the ass to do it?
Comment by Steven G. Harms — 7/30/2008 @ 3:53 pm
I came to the conclusion late in catholic school that the primary result I saw in people conducting themselves in religious activities was that there was a prevailing anti-Darwinian effect, basically, that charity prevents the detriments of failure from rooting out the inherantly weak from today’s society.
In a wolf pack, each member must be able to stand their own ground, and have the same type of ability the alpha must have, if to some other degree. In our society, the weak don’t need to succeed in the same manner as the alphas. In fact, all that needs to be done is to survive waking up to know that food and shelter is available.
Yet, here we are, unable to let go of our charitable ways, because we believe that something good will become of the victims of circumstance that we cherish with some sense of good will. Even I cannot shake the feeling that saying they should just die is fundamentally wrong.
So, I persist in my questions as to why. I seek to know why I should buy blankets and take them to homeless shelters, which I have done. Why have I even taken from the basket of generosity, knowing I am condoning a system I don’t fully understand, or find fault in?
As to the religious aspects, I divide the theological world from the terrestrial. I don’t ask god for much, if only for him to serve him on his turf on an autumn armageddon. I’ve even contemplated the value of my soul when measured against other souls, and would it be worth the sale of my soul to hell to save a million others, or 10,000, or even one, on a hope of release from their damnation, if I took their place. I leave such questions in the realm of religious conjecture, and find it very impractical and rarely applicable, other than to be somewhat inspired by the answers I find.
The question of what to ask from god is similar to what the famous line from President Robert F. Kennedy, when he said “Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country.” Likewise, “Ask not from god what you can recieve of his host, but what you can give them.”
Nice article.
-=T=-
Comment by TIMM — 7/30/2008 @ 5:11 pm
The very fact that one is asking something from GOD (Allah) is with the pre-assumption that HE (the GOD) is all-mighty, all-knowing & all-able to do what he pleases.
Then why not ask something new for the person in question rather than ask God to take something from ourselves & give it to other. Surely HE must be resourceful enough.
But then again u must be trying to be provocative in a philosophical sense (highlighting our(human beings) selfishness, on which point I agree that we are selfish. we shouldn’t be or at least try not to be. There are ways to deal with that. At least mentioned in the last & final semitic religion that I know a little about.
But if ur insinuating about the existence of GOD. Then this is out-right wicked way to go about it.
– Confused article I would say. but as always nice tech article on that iphone thing.
Comment by Osman — 7/31/2008 @ 5:23 am
Osman,
My point is simply that the excuse of “let God figure it out” is a weak one. It gives cover for the fact that we can ask for anything for anyone without sacrifice.
I was simply stating that prayer might have more meaning if it required sacrifice on behalf of the person doing the praying. I don’t see how that’s confusing.
Comment by Daniel Miessler — 7/31/2008 @ 11:53 am