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by Nathan Buck

When I was recruiting to help staff a telecom company, they would interview with an age-old sales question. They would put a pen on the table in front of a candidate and ask them to, “Sell me the pen.” The candidate would then struggle on the spot to come up with ideas of how to demonstrate their best sales skills, in relationship to making this hiring manager want to buy this pen.

I will never forget one candidate who picked up the pen, thought for a moment, and then proceeded to describe the pen to the managers as if it were a woman. He described its curves, it exterior features, and its ability to smoothly communicate whatever needed to be said. After completely exhausting the analogy and almost losing the Hiring Manager to hysterical laughter over a very straight and very simple Bic Stic type pen, the interview was over. The candidate did not get the job, but I certainly admire his creativity.

In our relationship with God, prayer is often overcomplicated (or oversimplified) depending on how you look at it – by having a similar “sales” like attitude. We start to think of prayer kind of like that interview, where we have to “sell” God on why our request is important and why He should respond. All the while, we miss the fact that we have painted ourselves into a corner. When prayer is just a transaction, then we expect to put in something and get something out. We put in creative words and petitions, or try really authentic begging and justifying, and expect that if we do that well enough, we will get what we want from God.

The next few weeks, some of the Worldview Warriors bloggers are going to be writing about prayer. I encourage you to read these posts and explore the topics from each writer’s perspective this month.

In the meantime, read Psalm 1 and ask yourself how the pictures in that Psalm change your thoughts about what prayer does.

And read Romans 12:1-2 – consider if prayer is an act of worship, and if it is, how do these two simple verses change your view of what prayer is?