THE PERILS OF PSYCHOLOGICAL PRAYERS
Prayer is worship and one of the ways we communicate with God. Prayer is a very important element in worship. At a time Jesus disciples asked him to teach them how to pray. What prompted this? They had observed the disciples of John praying and they had also seen the Pharisees praying in the temple. Probably they had seen Jesus praying too. It was as if praying was associated to the religious leaders and prophets. The disciples did not imitate Jesus or John disciples but approached Jesus to teach them how to pray. Prayer is a spiritual exercise and it is dynamic. There is no one way to it. It takes the Spirit of God to pray effectively and get results. Prayer is not only limited to Christianity religion. They pray in Hindu, Islam, and other religions. Jesus did not give them a recitation or a set of words to cram. Instead Jesus gave them a model of prayer. This model prayer is a balance prayer pointing to God alone. It is not manipulative and there is no form of desperation or coercion there. It's simply a worship, honouring God and clamouring for his will, protection and provision. The pattern of Jesus's prayers shows that praise takes a high priority, there is no unnecessary repetitions but action words. A critical examination of Jesus's prayers reveal that his prayers were usually specific with the place of honor to God who have the sovereignty to do and undo.
Prayers in twenty first century show lot of deviations from the biblical way of praying. There are a lot of prayers that we pray which are not necessary especially in the African countries. It is as if we are disturbing God with our prayers. There are things God will not do for you, you have to do it for yourself. There are amenities and facilities government should provide but here you are disturbing God to provide it instead of you to clamour for a better and working government. Understanding the will of God and what he require from us will save us from unnecessary prayers. Prayer is simply knowing the will of God and praying his will of God. The will of God is the mind of God. How can you know the mind of God without acquainting yourself with the scriptures. Any prayer that is not intimated or guided by the scriptures is simply psychological prayer. Psychological prayers are prayers that arise as a result of understanding the plight, nature, situation and environment of the people. Psychological prayers have filled the churches and gradually the church is turning from a place of worship to a merchandise. Prayers like if you want to buy a car before the year ends....is intimated from you knowing that there are people that want to drive cars but are limited by the economy of the country. Instead of you teaching them on biblical principles of success and bringing christian professionals to come and share innovation and ideas with them, you result into making prayers out of their situations. Prayers like shout like someone bitten by snake or shout like a wounded lion or someone in pains are unnecessary. Does it mean our God is deaf? You are in a place and you have quickly study that there are alot of young people there, you know deep inside of you that some may have issues maritally...then you see it as an opportunity to cajole them with psychological prayers...then you hear prayer point like there is someone here God is telling me that there are some people here you should have married but some power are at work when inside of you God have not said anything but just a way to arrest their attention. Instead of teaching them principles of choosing a godly life partner or invite married christians to lecture them on necessity of Christian homes.
Psychological prayers come with a lot of dangers, the members will see their pastor like a herbalist who can cast away their problems.
Psychological prayers shift attention from God to men. People begin to see their pastor like almighty who have power and begin to attach more honour to his name and called him all kind of names.
Psychological prayers is a way of extorting money from people in such a way that they will have no choice than to drop it. There are churches that will say come and drop offering of grace or come and drop offering of I will witness the celebration next year. Everyone will desire to witness the celebration next year invariably all will be out to give the offering.
Psychological prayers makes the pastor to be busy for nothing. They will be busy doing one prayer program or the other and all these prayers programs will end in giving out money.
Psychological prayers usually turn pastor to story tellers. You will begin to hear stories like when" I was in Abuja last week , 5 people were greatly blessed, God told me that they have spirit of delay working against them. One of them is now in Germany...I want you to pray that Spirit of Delay hindering me from moving forward..... " When people hear stories with results they will pray.
Psychological prayers produce lazy Christians. There used to be a woman who will always shut her shop to attend one prayer or the other at prayer mountain or prayer centers. At the end of the month she will be complaining of there is no money when she is not at a place where God will bless the work of her hands.
Psychological prayers usually produce people that are comfortable in their sins. No messages on salvation and consecration. Attention is on prayers on how to make it in life.
Psychological prayers makes prayer to be a ritual which they can always pay for to get.
Psychological prayer will make people to see an enemy behind everything that happen to them. A woman lost everything she had to inferno. She went to mountain and instead of praying for restoration all she was praying is that God who is that person behind the mysterious fire that burn my house. Why that thinking? She has been program to believe that anything that happen to her is from household enemies
Psychological prayers makes prayer mechanical. How? Anytime there is problem the next thing is to pray for 3 hours against enemies of your household. You begin to see prayer as the solution to everything even when you need to use your brain, you will still pray.
Psychological prayers lead to syncretism.In the bid of making it real, knowing fully well that people believe what they see, you will see them saying go to the room naked and pray into water, use the water to bath... Some will even say pray into sand , use that sand to bath...all these are elements of traditional worship that has been forcefully infuse to christainity.
Psychological prayers produce shallow christians. I once met a member of one of these churches that are specialist in Psychological prayers, he does not have a time of personal devotion to study the word of God. All the verses in his head are verses related to warfare prayers.
Psychological prayers ritualized the psalms. The psalms have been bastardized and has become a tool to pray dangerous and unnecessary prayers. Psalms are good for worship but should not become a tool of praying against witchcraft
Psychological prayers lead to eisegesis. The evangelist will make the scripture says his thoughts. How? One Evangelist while ministering said it was because Uriah was poor that was why David slept with his wife. He said if he really had money he could have covered the bathroom in such a way that it will be difficult for someone to peep through. He said pray against spirit of poverty. One may even say in the year King uzziah died, Isaiah saw the LORD, Pray that whoever needs to die for my glory to manifest die.....
Psychological prayers are manipulative and full of schemes in such a way that you will have a kind of belief that your prayers have been answered.
So many churches and prayer mountains in Nigeria will shut down if there is a divine turn around in the economy situation of Nigeria. Why? Some of the prayers we pray are unnecessary and are as a result of what our government has failed to do. God hear all prayers but does not listen or respond to all prayers. If we have a repentant heart and pray according to the Spirit of God there would be a great change in the church and our country. psychological prayers in the church is gradually becoming a norm and pastors who are not subscribing to it are seen as ignorants The standard of God has not change, people may change but God will not lower his standards for anyone. If there will be a revival or reformation in the church, people of God need to repent from their ways and call upon God with a humble and contrite heart. Prayers rendered in Gods way accomplish great results.
Abolanle Oladipupo
11th November 2021
