Editor’s Note: This Clergy Project member shares his heart wrenching experience dealing with his daughter’s cancer and the powerlessness of prayer.

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By Dave Warnock

I spent over thirty years believing in a God who was personal – a God who listened to my prayers and answered them. I cannot count the hours I spent in prayer and in the study and teaching of scripture.

I believed that being a Christian meant that I had a personal relationship with a God who was present- a “very present help in time of need” as the song goes. Another New Testament passage tells us that without faith it is impossible to please this God, because

“he that comes to God must believe that he is; and that he rewards those who diligently seek him.” (Hebrews 1:16)

I diligently sought God for most of my adult life. I must confess that it is rather shocking and disconcerting to finally admit to yourself that this personal God never really did meet with you and reward you with anything. At. All.

Now I would give anything at all- indeed my own life – if there were a God who could and would answer prayers. I wish beyond anything I can describe that this God cared about his children and would “move mountains” (Mark 11:23) for any one of them that asked him. That is, in fact, what Jesus said many times that he would do. For me, this is beyond theology; this is personal.

My daughter has cancer.

She is 31. She has three young kids. She has a very rare, aggressive form of cancer – stage IV Choriocarcinoma. It’s not good. She is undergoing a very rigorous schedule of chemotherapy and full brain radiation. The doctors have said that her dosages are the strongest they can give.

There are a lot of people praying for my daughter. Almost without exception, anyone who has heard about this has said,

“She’s in our thoughts and prayers.”

And when people tell me they are praying for my daughter, I just thank them. I’ve pretty much stayed off Facebook. You know why.

But this is what I want to ask them:

“What exactly are you praying for? What are you asking God to do?”

I don’t see anyone praying for God to take the cancer away. If they do, they don’t really expect it to happen. That would be a miracle, and miracles rarely happen. In fact, if God did perform a miracle for my daughter, he would have a lot of ‘splaining to do to a lot of other folks who had asked him for the same kind of miracle and didn’t get it. For instance,

Marc , an energetic father of four little ones. By the time they found his cancer, it was so far advanced they just closed him back up and sent him home to die.

, an energetic father of four little ones. By the time they found his cancer, it was so far advanced they just closed him back up and sent him home to die. Marcy , a young mother in her thirties with cervical cancer. She left behind two young boys.

, a young mother in her thirties with cervical cancer. She left behind two young boys. Tom , burned in an explosion at work. He died after three months in a hospital burn unit, also leaving behind two young boys. His wife died from cancer a couple years later.

These are just a few people I knew personally. I could name many more, as could anyone reading this. They were all Christians. They all believed, just as I did, that this personal God was interested in every detail of their lives. He has the very hairs of our head counted (Luke 12-7). And they all had many people praying for them to be healed.

But they weren’t healed. People don’t get better from cancer- except via surgery and medicine. People get better because medical science has advanced and we have learned how to treat it. Cancer still wins more often than we’d like, but there are ways to combat it, so that’s what we do.

But people also pray. Why pray? I contend it’s because praying makes us feel better. It comforts us. It helps us feel like we are doing something. We want to do something – anything! But there is no god listening to and answering our prayers for the cancer to be taken away. So instead of asking for that, some of us ask for god to give the doctors wisdom and clarity. We ask god to guide the surgeon’s hand. We ask for our daughters and sisters and mothers to be able to rest and not be in pain, to heal quickly, for the medicine to have minimal side affects. In other words, people ask for things that could and do take place without any assistance from an invisible deity. We ask for things that are likely to happen anyway.

This god has been reduced to an impotent deity who is able to give rest to a cancer victim after surgery, but is not able to take the cancer out of the body, except by assisting a trained surgeon at the operating table. He can give the doctors wisdom to determine what it is that is invading my daughter’s body, but he can’t prevent its spread except with very strong and dangerous treatments.

God is like an old lion at the zoo with his teeth and claws removed, who lies around all day while people stare at him.

He can do some minor tricks when prompted – like roll over or stand on his hind legs – if that will gain him a treat.

Christians don’t speak of their god as though he’s a tired old lion. They want to champion him as the mighty and awesome creator of the universe. They want to exclaim that he does many wonderful things for those who serve him. They worship him as the omnipotent ruler of the heavens and the earth.

I wish that were true. I really do. I’d give anything if that were true. But it’s not. I can and do hope for the best; that the treatment will do its job and not hurt my daughter too much. She is strong and otherwise healthy, which hopefully will work in her favor.

I won’t ask people what they are asking god to do for my daughter. I know they mean well. I wonder, though, if any of them ever stop to think that they have reduced God to an impotent old lion in a cage, only capable of doing what will most likely happen anyway. I guess that is what prayer has become. I guess Jesus was just tossing words around when he said:

“Therefore I say to you, all things for which you pray and ask, believe that you have received them, and they shall be granted you.” (Mark 24:11) ====================

Bio: Dave Warnock was a Christian for 30 plus years in the Evangelical/Charismatic movement, in active pastoral ministry most of that time. He left the faith about four years ago after gradually realizing he had run out of reasons to believe. He is 60 years old and lives near Nashville, TN, where he works in the insurance business.

>>>Photo Credits: “Duerer-Prayer”. Licensed under Public Domain via Commons – https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Duerer-Prayer.jpg#/media/File:Duerer-Prayer.jpg

“MOLITVA” by Sergei Frolov, http://sfrolov.livejournal.com – Own work. Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 via Commons – https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:MOLITVA.JPG#/media/File:MOLITVA.JPG

“Sultan the Barbary Lion” by Nelson Robinson – https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Sultan_the_Barbary_Lion.jpg#/media/File:Sultan_the_Barbary_Lion.jpg

“Creation of the Sun and Moon face detail” by Michelangelo – Unknown. Licensed under Public Domain via Commons – https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Creation_of_the_Sun_and_Moon_face_detail.jpg#/media/File:Creation_of_the_Sun_and_Moon_face_detail.jpg