Lessons on Prayer from Huck Finn

Huck has an interesting view of religion, God and prayer. I am eagerly awaiting Austin's post on superstition that Amanda promised me, but until then I have some less profound notes on Huck's view on prayer.

From chapter 3: "Miss Watson took me in the closet and prayed but nothing came of it. She told me to pray every day, and whatever I asked for I would get it. But it warn't so. I tried it. Once I got a fish-line, but no hooks. I tried for the hooks three or four times, but somehow I couldn't make it work. By and by, one day, I asked Miss Watson to try for me, but she said I was a fool. She never told me why, and I couldn't make it out no way."

Huck goes on to reason that if there was something to prayer than every one would have everything they wanted...but when he tells Miss Watson this, she amends her statement with, "the thing a body could get by praying was 'spiritual gifts.'" Well, Huck thinks to himself, "I couldn't see no advantage about it."

Later in the chapter, Huck is out with Tom Sawyer pretending to pillage and kill. Huck gets fed up at this make-believe: "I couldn't see no profit in it."  Tom goes on to talk about genies in lamps who do thier master's bidding. He says, "If he tells them to build a palace forty miles long, out of diamonds, and fill it full of chewing gum, or whatever you want, and fetch an emperor's daughter from China for you to marry, they've got to do it..." So Huck goes and tries it, just like he tried to pray for fish-hooks, "calculating to build a palace and sell it; but it weren't no use, none of the genies come. So then I judged that all that stuff was only just one of Tom Sawyer's lies. I reckoned he believed in the A-rabs and the elephants, but as for me I think different." 

Huck deduces that prayer and genies can't be real because they simply don't work. What apparently does work is a complicated (or just vague) system of good-luck, bad-luck, signs, and fortune-telling. More on this from Austin, please...?

What struck me is that many Christians are, in theory, Miss Watson and in practice, Huck.  Like Miss Watson, we have the theology down. But like Huck, we come to prayer with the attitude of presenting our personal wish-list to God and we rarely pray because our prayers don't get answered. If prayer worked like a genie than wouldn't we be praying every day about every desire that ever entered our heads?   It's interesting that some versions of fairy tales with genies reveal ultimate destruction to the possessor of the genie. As each wish is granted the wisher becomes increasingly greedy.

Thankfully, God doesn't capitulate to our desires. He isn't a genie; prayer is not about getting what we want; and we cannot judge the worth of prayer like Huck, with statements such as, "it weren't no use.." and "I could see no advantage..." Hopefully we know that prayer isn't about accessing the Divine Vending Machine, but about conforming our will to God's will through relationship. Our natures are bent toward greed, but true prayer bends us back toward God.