Probably the most common form of prayer is the bargain with God. It takes the form of, “God, if you do this for me, I’ll
We fill in the blank with all sorts of things. We promise we’ll reform our behavior: We’ll stop sinning, start some religious practice—or do one of ’em more regularly, be more charitable,
I’ve heard a lot of Christians dismiss, mock, or discourage the bargain with God. They believe it encourages the wrong attitude about prayer: Prayer’s about
True. But the whole putting-God’s-will-first idea? That’s something devout believers know and practice. The bargain-with-God idea? We find it more among
But when we’re talking newbies, I don’t mind when they bargain with God. And y’know, God doesn’t mind if they bargain with him either. Sometimes he actually accepts their deals.
No, really. It’s in the bible.
Genesis 28.20-22 KWL - 20 Jacob vowed a vow, saying, “God, if you’re with me on the way I’m going,
- you’ll give me bread to eat and clothes to wear, 21 and I’ll return in peace to my father’s house.
- L
ORD , be God to me. - 22 This stone, which I set up as a marker, is God’s house.
- Everything you give me, I tithe you a tenth of it.”
God actually went along with that one. He watched over Jacob, despite the trickery of his uncle/father-in-law Laban, and despite some of Jacob’s own trickery. Jacob did eventually return to Canaan in peace.
1 Samuel 1.11 KWL - Hanna vowed a vow, saying, “L
ORD of War, if you see me, - see your maidservant’s affliction. Remember me. Don’t forget your maidservant.
- Give your maidservant offspring, a man,
- and I give him to the L
ORD all the days of his life. - A razor will never go upon his head.”
God went along with that one too. Hanna’s offspring was the prophet Samuel, and his mother dedicated him to God. Hence the whole no-razor thing; those under
Judges 11.30-31 KWL - 30 Jefta vowed a vow to the L
ORD . He said, “If you give answers to prayer, - give the sons of Ammon into my hand.
- 31 My offering will be whatever goes out the door of my house to meet me on my return,
- in peace after battling the sons of Ammon.
- It’s for the L
ORD ; it goes up in the fire.”
And God did indeed help Jefta defeat the Ammonites. Unfortunately Jefta’s story has a nasty ending. See, the first thing out of Jefta’s house—the thing which Jefta promised to go up in the fire—was his only daughter.
Yeah, are we sure this was part of the bargain?
Jefta’s first, understandable response was to freak out.
So he gave his daughter two months to mourn, then “did to her as he vowed.”
Because of the horrible outcome of the Jefta story, there are plenty of Christians who insist there’s no such thing as a bargain with God. Jefta thought God gave him victory because of his vow, but this is a case of the post hoc ergo propter hoc error: Just because one event follows another, it doesn’t mean one’s a cause and the other’s an effect. God was gonna let Jefta defeat the Ammonites anyway. He didn’t have to vow to burn the first thing out of his door. Arguably he might’ve just been showing off, just to demonstrate how devout he was.
Anyway, these Christians
Sounds all reasonable and logical… till we get to the rotten fruit.
Look, obviously God has his own ideas and plans in a lot of situations. Sometimes, especially when we’re following Jesus, we’re gonna want the same things he does, and pray for the same outcomes he wants. Even when we’re not following Jesus, sometimes we’re gonna coincidentally want the same things: Pagans don’t want their neighbors to throw noisy orgies every weekend, any more than God does, though for different reasons. Sometimes the bargain with God isn’t necessary, ’cause we’re on the very same page: He wants what we want.
But the main reason people decide, after the fact, that the bargain with God is invalid: They wanna weasel out of the bargain. At that point, they’re perfectly happy when some know-it-all Christian proclaims, “God doesn’t make such deals.” He doesn’t? Great!—it lets ’em off the hook. They don’t have to follow through with their end of the bargain. Heck, some of ’em will quickly jump from “God doesn’t make such deals” to “There’s no God out there to make such deals with.”
The fact is, if God appears to come through in any bargain, we’re on the hook for it. ’Cause we promised God, “If you… then I’ll,” and it doesn’t matter whether he did it specifically for us or not: We promised we would. God holds us to our promises. Don’t make ’em if you won’t follow through with them.
If you don’t really believe there’s a God out there to make such promises to, that’s a whole separate issue. The whole no-atheists-in-foxholes, “If you’re there, God, get me out of this!” situation is a pretty common move of desperation. But be honest with yourself: Did God legitimately come through for you? Did you actually get what you prayed for? You did? Then do a little more investigating. You’ve got some evidence for a real God; it makes sense to find out more. Denial might be convenient, but it’s stupid.
God’s motive: Faith.
The bargain with God isn’t an invalid form of prayer. Immature? Sure. But sometimes we’re immature. And God is willing to meet us where we are.
That’s the point. That’s why God sometimes takes us up on these deals: We don’t know him. We don’t know any better. We doubt he’s there. We don’t know the difference between God’s love
The bargain with God means he’s dealing with a person who lacks knowledge and faith. He interacts with these people anyway because he wants to grow their knowledge and faith. He knows answering their prayers will get them to take him seriously, even follow him. In the long run it’ll have a positive outcome. And he’s not gonna be so hung up on “what’s proper” to deny such people. (Besides, who gets to decide what’s proper anyway?)
Hence when we bargain with God, we need to be sincere in what we offer. Too often people tell God, “If you… then I’ll,” but have no follow-through. They might totally mean it in the moment, but they’re flaky. And God knows whether we’re the type of people who will, no matter how ridiculous it might look, how humiliated we might feel, do as we promised. If our promise is likely to bring us into a relationship with him, of course he’ll take us up on those deals. God’s no fool. He knows a good deal when he sees it.
In some cases, we’re not sincere but God still takes us up on our bargains. And then—because we’re not allowed to break our oaths to God
Maturity: When God stops making deals.
Keep following God, and you’ll invariably find we reach a point where we can’t bargain with him anymore.
About 15 years ago I was really in a bind. I asked God’s help out of it, and in good ol’ desperation I found myself trying to bargain with him a little. “If you do this for me,” I told him, trying to think of anything to bargain with, “then I’ll….”
“You’ll do it anyway,” said the Holy Spirit.
I stopped. Went through a mental inventory, which took a while: Everything I could think of to offer, was stuff I ought to do regardless.
- Give something up? I should give it up regardless.
- Pray more? I should pray more regardless.
- Praise more? Ditto.
- Give more charity? Also ditto.
Went through everything I could think of, and gradually realized I was screwed. I got nothing.
And as any mature Christian could tell you: Well duh. We’re supposed to surrender everything to God when we first became Christians. We don’t have anything left to bargain with: It’s all surrendered! If we have any bargaining chip, it means we’re inappropriately clinging to something we have no business saving. Gotta give it up too.
When we look back upon our old bargains with God, we’ll often laugh about how immature these bargains were: The stuff we offered him, already belonged to him! Everything was a gift from God; anything that wasn’t, needed to go. And in the End, everything goes into the fire.
So after a certain point of Christian maturity, the bargain with God can’t work. We’re beyond that. Which is just as well.
By this point, we oughta have way more faith in God to answer prayer. We oughta be way better at hearing him. We shouldn’t have to resort to desperate behavior so often. Okay, sometimes there will be slip-ups, like mine. But we can easily slip right back into place once God snaps us out of our panic. No bargaining necessary.
