Why doesn't prayer always work?

It depends, of course, on what we use prayer for. Should it, for example, be used to ask for what we want? Many of us with a strong spiritual focus say no, it shouldn't. But a local AA member has an interesting take on this. Peter (not his real name) maintains that to share with God what he wants is merely being honest, so he will ask for -- say --$100 that he needs for house repair. Then he waits to see what happens. Whether God provides the $100 is, says Peter, none of Peter's business.

If this seems odd, consider the prayer of Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane. He asked for the "cup" -- the prospect of his imminent death -- to be removed, but with one proviso -- "not my will, but thine, be done." Not so very different from Peter; and perhaps not so very different from the AA Big Book recommendation about prayer, that we are careful to ask nothing for ourselves.

It seems to follow, then, that prayer will often "work" well as long as we demand nothing for ourselves. Unfortunately, it seems to turn out that most of our prayers are demands. We pray that our child recover from illness because that's what we demand. We pray for peace in the world because that's what we demand. By the time we've removed from our prayers all the petitions that, directly or indirectly, benefit us, there doesn't seem to be an awful lot left.

If Peter is right, then it's OK to pray for what we want -- as long as we are completely accepting of whatever the result of the prayer might be. But the danger is that we are not accepting. Many an addict has returned to the source of her addiction because she prayed for something, and the prayer went unanswered.