What we are praying for when we pray for the gospel to spread

Last night the pastor at my church here was telling the story of his conversion. He said God meant nothing to his family during his childhood. None of the family believed or cared to follow God's ways. But when he was a teenager, first his sister and then his mother began going to church. He decided to investigate what this was all about, and he began to read the Bible. Not out of love for God, but out of curiosity. Then he said because of his reading the gospel message he began to be thirsty. That was not surprising to me.

Then he said he began to feel dirty. I wasn't sure I had translated correctly. He said he began to feel alone, and to feel very ugly. He said that before his encounter with the gospel as portrayed in the Bible he had been a very prideful person, content in his achievements and his intelligence and the pride of his family for these things about him. I knew that what he was saying made sense, but at first it struck me as very strange. And I realized that many people who don't know God simply don't feel a need for Him. And I realized, again, that the way to God dips into a valley before it climbs to heaven. We aren't taken from glory to glory until we've come face to face with the end of ourselves.

This has been a question I've had lately: how to pray for non-believers, when all they really need is God. At my church in America, sometimes they go and pray for people who don't know God, right in front of them. They ask what they need and pray for that. That's probably fine or they wouldn't be doing it, but I said "they" because I've not yet understood how that is supposed to work. It seems to be ignoring the most glaring and basic need in the person's life to pray for them and leave out the part about their heart encountering God, and yet it seems dishonest to leave that part out if you're planning to do it later so that they don't feel weird.

The truth is, when you find a person who is in need of God (aka everyone who doesn't walk with Him yet), what they need first to even be able to approach Him is a deep sense of unease with the way things are going. This might be why some of us describe encountering God as "having your life turned upside down" or "getting rocked" or even (okay, this is just me, in some dramatic moments) "having your life ruined." Because once you see the truth, going back isn't an option. There are no easy roads left to you once your ignorance has been stripped away. You have to do things that break your fleshly little heart, and yet not to do them is to turn your back on the one you love.

All this has been a surprise to me. It's dawned on me very, very slowly. And it's for this that I believe it's not up to us to make the gospel sound appealing to people. I once told a friend it's not like we listen for problems in someone's life and prescribe God to them like a medicine. He's not a product we're selling. We can't even exaggerate how great He is, but we can misrepresent Him sometimes if we try to make (or God forbid, succeed at making) the Christian life look cool. It's just not cool, okay? It's way better than the alternative, but it's not easier, and to tell someone it is can mess them up for a long time as they try to reconcile this paradox. It's not that we convince people into the kingdom; God chooses people, and calls them, and that's His divine initiative. And we can partner with His work by praying that the people we love will come to know Him.

But let's make no mistake about what we're asking. When I ask for someone's salvation, a person far from God who is pretty happy with their life, I am asking that they will be completely broken. That they will begin to feel dirty, and thirsty, and alone. Even ugly. Not that they will stay feeling that way forever with no comfort, but that they will get to that place and not be able to pretend it away anymore.

All through church I kept having more thoughts about this, and I thought, "maybe it's not so bad to pray for a little unhappiness in this life, seeing that it's so fleeting, and painful anyway, and that it could lead to eternal life. It's just like those metaphors about a doctor who gives a painful but life-saving shot, or who relocates a limb, or those people who have to push harder on the trap to free an animal or whatever."

And I also realized that prayers to get closer to God, which we might toss up so casually, knowing they are always a good bet, never the wrong thing to pray, might as well just be prayers for more sadness and more emptiness, so that God can comfort and fill us. It's impossible for Him to fill what is not empty.

I guess if there's anything good about this, at least for me, it is that whenever I am very, very sad (it happens) I am a vessel that can contain more of God's comfort, or when I am empty or alone, I can invite God to fellowship with me in a way that someone who is totally content just wouldn't be able to.

⁸ Even if I caused you sorrow by my letter, I do not regret it. Though I did regret it—I see that my letter hurt you, but only for a little while— ⁹ yet now I am happy, not because you were made sorry, but because your sorrow led you to repentance. For you became sorrowful as God intended and so were not harmed in any way by us. ¹⁰ Godly sorrow brings repentance that leads to salvation and leaves no regret, but worldly sorrow brings death. ¹¹ See what this godly sorrow has produced in you: what earnestness, what eagerness to clear yourselves, what indignation, what alarm, what longing, what concern, what readiness to see justice done. At every point you have proved yourselves to be innocent in this matter. --2 Corinthians 7:8-11

P.S. This idea, paraphrased, "Don't Just Pray For Someone's Happiness, You Fool (Because It Might Interfere With God's Work In Their Life)" was originally given to me about a year ago by good ol Oswald Chambers, and I've been working it through ever since, and continue to realize more about it all the time.