Letters to Malcolm

Now the disquieting thing is not simply that we skimp and begrudge the duty of prayer. The really disquieting thing is it should have to be numbered among duties at all. For we believe that we were created to glorify God and enjoy Him forever. And if the few, the very few, minutes we now spend on intercourse with God are a burden to us rather than a delight, what then? —C.S. Lewis, Letters to Malcolm

I’m currently wading thru C.S. Lewis’s Letters to Malcolm: Chiefly on Prayer. Letters is his last book, written while Lewis was increasingly feeble. It would be published after his death. It’s a wonderful book on prayer–a final reflection on an important topic by my favorite author. Some call it “one of the modern masterpieces on the devotional life.”

So I feel badly saying that I’m “wading thru it.” It should be delight. Not a burden. As Lewis might have argued: if reading my book is a burden, what does it mean when “talking to God is a burden?”. Ouch!

Lewis’s own struggle with prayer was a life-long concern. His early childhood frustration with unanswered prayer caused him to give up his faith. Later, when he was converted, he gave a great deal of thought to the meaning and practice of prayer.

In Terry Glaspey’s book, The Spiritual Legacy of C.S. Lewis, I found the following summary of Lewis’s thoughts on prayer.

Why pray?
If indeed, God is sovereign, why does He need our prayers? He knows our needs before we ask and is certainly now without the means to accomplish His will. He doesn’t need to be told what is best or urged to do it. As Lewis said, God does not need man to accomplish anything.. He could produce food without farmers, knowledge without scholars, and conversions without missionaries. And yet He chooses to use men and women for the accomplishing of His will. He makes us collaborators in His work; this is the way He chooses to execute His will. As Lewis wrote: God’s action lingers till men have prayed, and suffers their weak prayers indeed to move as very muscles His delaying fingers.

Answered Prayer?
Lewis knew the power of answered prayer. He saw how prayer led to the remission of his wife Joy’s cancer. But while God promises to hear every prayer, He does not grant our every little whim. “I must often be glad,” writes Lewis, “that certain past prayers of my own were not granted.” It is unrealistic to think that we will get everything we prayer for because “if an infinitely wise Being listens to the requests of finite and foolish creatures, of course He will sometimes grant and sometimes refuse them.” Prayer is more like a child addressing requests to a wise parent than someone waving a magic wand.

The Burden of Prayer?
Why is prayer often a burden? Lewis suggested two reasons for the irksomeness of prayer: because of sin and because of the difficulty of concentrating on something that is concrete yet immaterial like God. The burden of prayer doesn’t prove that when we are praying we are doing something we weren’t created to do. If we were perfected creatures, prayer would not be a duty but a delight. “We must remember that we are still in the school of prayer; we haven’t graduated yet. And what seem to be our worst prayers may be our best; being performed by sheer willpower, such prayers come from the depths.”(Will Vaus)