Why should Taylor Swift get well and not homeless Joe just because 10M people would pray for HER and only three for Joe? Is popularity how prayer works?
If prayer by the numbers for one person really works, this means that God will more likely grant a miracle to the most popular Instagram stars rather than to those with only 40 followers.
Popular athletes and entertainers will get healed because they’ll have millions of fans praying for them, while everyday housewives and mill workers will succumb to the same disease or injuries because only their families and close friends prayed for them.
Does this sound fair? Does God play favorites based on stardom?
The power of prayer is often predicated on the amount of people praying for one particular individual.
This is why ministers and pastors will tell the entire congregation … at a service and through email … to pray for a sick congregant, as though numbers matter – even though an omnipotent power such as God would already know that person is sick.
Prayer “chains” exist for this very reason: numbers matter.
This assumes one or more of the following:
#1 Prayer is a popularity contest. The lonely widow in a small town who’s in a coma doesn’t stand a chance against Taylor Swift or some other mega star who are also in a coma at the same time and have 10 million people praying for them.
#2 God is hearing impaired. He can’t hear a single prayer, but the more people who pray for a single cause, the “louder” the prayers will be — and hence, the more likely God will “hear” them.
#3 God created an entire universe. Yet He has NO idea that the family members of a sick or injured individual want that person to recover unless they pray for that person.
So God already knows Ben was mangled in a car accident, but He’s waiting for his family to start praying before He begins healing him because He’s not sure if they want Ben to heal.
So it’s #1, #2 or #3, or two or all three of these? Which is it?
Really, are celebrities with over 100 million Instagram followers, such as Beyoncé, Jennifer Lopez, Kevin Hart, Dwayne Johnson and Taylor Swift, more deserving of receiving a miracle from God than is someone who has only two friends and eight followers?
I grew up in the Catholic faith. All the time in church I’d hear the priest tell the congregation to pray for a particular member. According to that premise, prayer IS a popularity contest.
That lonely widow or that introverted nerd would have a darned time getting more than 10 people to pray for them.
But all that Shawn Mendez or Ariana Grande need do is post one line with an Instagram post, “I’m undergoing major surgery; pray for me” — and the entire world will be praying for them.
And not just fans of their Instagram account, but non-Instagram users all over the planet who worship these celebrities and, upon catching wind of their illness or injury on the evening news or an online outlet, will begin praying … millions of them.
What’s the point of this, if prayer isn’t a popularity contest?
What about the so-called prayer chains?
These, too, are predicated on the assumption that God has some kind of cut-off amount or threshold amount, under which He will not grant the prayers’ request.
And what IS that threshold? Is it a hundred? Is it only 20?
Another weird thing about prayer is the idea that God won’t get involved unless someone prays.
This assumes that God has NO idea that Anne wants her husband John to beat cancer. Or that God has NO clue that Beth and Pete want their two-pound newborn to pull through.
If God is all-knowing, all-wise and all-powerful, does He really need to hear Beth begging Him to make her frail sickly newborn strong and healthy?
If God already knows our thought processes, we shouldn’t have to pray.
And if He wants to save a premature baby or a man with advanced prostate cancer, it stands to reason that He’d just do it — regardless of how many mere, flawed mortals are sending out prayers — including strangers who’ve never met the prayer recipient in person.
Otherwise, it makes me ill to think that God would more likely perform a medical miracle for Billie Eilish — or Cristiano Ronaldo, who has like a trillion Instagram followers.
Imagine how many prayers he’d get if he posted one day, “I’ve just been diagnosed with a brain tumor. Pray for me.”
Why should HE get a pardon from his illness by God any more than that awkward guy who lives in a rural town with little social contact? Aren’t all men and women created equal?
Nevertheless, we all know that if we were in a plane that was going down, we’d all be praying.
God knows the plane is going down, but we’d pray anyways for a miracle.
Now, some would be praying for forgiveness, while others would surely be praying for the plane to make a safe landing.
Prayer is comforting for people who feel totally out of control in stressful circumstances.
But if it really worked … we’d see more than just cancer going into remission, people emerging from comas, gunshot victims surviving multiple bullet wounds and tiny premature babies finally leaving the hospital plump and strong.
We’d also be seeing severed limbs growing back, people with completely severed spinal cords soon regaining full use of their legs, and the skin of third-degree burn victims spontaneously regenerating.
We’d see bodies that are literally spread all over the road after being run over by a dump truck magically getting pieced together whole again. That has yet to happen.
We’d also see people beating Huntington’s disease (has never happened) and people with Angelman syndrome carrying on a conversation (has never happened).
People even go as far as praying for their favorite football or basketball team to win.
On what basis does God choose the winner? The number of people praying? The number of times per day a prayer is made for a particular team? The number of athletes themselves praying?
Or is it the team with the perkiest cheerleaders?
According to the basic tenets of how prayer works, it IS a popularity contest.
But we all know that Kim Kardashian, Meghan Markle and Lionel Messi are no more deserving of a medical miracle or any answered prayer, any more than is the isolated bearded man who lives in a log cabin in the Alaskan wilderness. After all, in God’s eyes, we are all equal.
