Therefore let everyone who is godly offer prayer to you at a time when you may be found; surely in the rush of great waters, they shall not reach him. ~ Psalm 32:6
In the last post, I discussed an episode of one of my favorite podcasts, Hidden Brain with Shankar Vedantam, called “You 2.0: Befriending Your Inner Voice.”[1] In that episode, Vedantam and his guest Dr. Ethan Kross examine the topic of what inner voices do to a person. They talk over several facets of the issue, including positive aspects like how our inner voice helps us reflect, introspect, and remember things like items on a list. However, primarily they analyze the inner voice’s negative attribute, which attacks our self-esteem and allows negative world-circumstantial perceptions inside our head-heart whether the perceptions are accurate or not. Therefore, I biblically showed where Vedantam and Kross are correct and where they miss the mark, and I mentioned that this post would expound upon one of the tools they suggest, which was off-target, prayer.[2]
In “You 2.0: Befriending Your Inner Voice,” Vedantam and Kross rightly states that prayer is good when the inner voice attacks. Interestingly, they do not focus on whom the prayer reaches. They explore the different religions that use prayer but not the gods of those religions. They discuss high anxiety situations in which prayer helped people like women in a war zone. In their conversation, they indicate prayer’s helpful element is its ritual. In other words, they make prayer a self-focused tool that one controls. For Vedantam and Kross, when the inner voices are messing with you, and you cannot get out of your head, you can turn to prayer because it is a ritual that you control, you allow yourself to take your focus away from the inner voices, and you determine how time-consuming it will be.
Prayer is good. The Bible tells us to pray without ceasing (1 Thess. 5:17). Paul says we should be praying at all times in the Spirit, with all prayer and supplication (Eph. 6:18a). So, we must ask, does God want us unceasingly to pray for praying sake? Is it the act of praying that He says keeps the negative inner voices at bay? Clearly, that is not the case. Covenant children understand there is more to prayer than ritual. We do not give off “good vibes” or “release negative energy” around us. That concept is worldly thinking. Instead, Godly Wisdom teaches there are three aspects of prayer that help us overcome the inner voices that attack us.
First, unlike Vedantam and Kross, God’s Word tells us that prayer is good because of the object of our prayer, the Triune God. Paul tells the Philippian church, Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God (Phil. 4:6). Is Paul saying prayer is effective because of ritual? No. It is effective because a Christian knows there is a real, true God who listens to those prayers. In the dire situation that the prophet Micah found himself, he believed this when he said; therefore I will look unto the LORD; I will wait for the God of my salvation: my God will hear me (Micah 7:7). John tells us this is an excellent means of grace when he states, And this is the confidence that we have in him, that, if we ask any thing according to his will, he heareth us (1 John 5:14-15). So, prayer is not an inward-focused, self-help tool. It is an outward-focused grace given to us by an all-powerful God who loves to hear from us—inner voices and all.
Second, prayer is efficacious because the God who hears it is a God who does something about it. John tells us something Jesus states, If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you (John 15:7). Notice John does not say if you ask, it will take your mind off what the inner voices are telling you. Nor does he say that prayer will fill up the inactive time slots of your life when the inner voices attack. What he does say is ask, and it will be done for you because God will hear it, and He will do it.
Now, this second aspect of prayer has two portions as well. The first is the covenant child must believe God is real and hears our prayers. I like what Andrew Murray says, “Believer, come and truly be a believer. Believe that God is showing you how completely the Lord Jesus wants to have you and your life for Himself and how He is willing to take total charge of you and work all in you. Believe how entirely you can even now commit your trust, surrender, and faithfulness to the Covenant, with all that you are and are to be, to Him who is your Blessed Surety.”[3]
Also, the covenant child praying must be in Christ …if you abide in me, and my words abide in you, Jesus says. Mark records for us another admonition from Christ; therefore I tell you, whatever you ask in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours (Mark 11:24). The puritan John Flavel reminds us, “Christ bounds and terminates the vast desires of the soul. How hungry, empty, and straightened on every side is the soul of man in the abundance and fullness of all outward things till it come to Christ: the weary motions of a restless soul, like those of a river, cannot be at rest till they pour themselves into Christ the ocean of blessedness” (emphasis mine).[4] Therefore, God hears our prayers and does something about them because of our complete trust in His fulfillment of Covenant faithfulness in Jesus Christ and Jesus Christ alone. It is because of our abiding in Him that it will be done for you.
In addition to the existence of a genuine, sovereign God, and He hears our prayers and does something about them in His divine plan, the covenant child knows prayer is beneficial because this One, but Triune God, helps us to pray. Jesus teaches us that prayer is addressed to our Holy Father; pray then like this: “Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name” (Matt. 6:9). While incarnate upon earth, He prayed, And he said, “Abba, Father, all things are possible for you. Remove this cup from me. Yet not what I will, but what you will” (Mark 14:36). Paul teaches that because we are adopted sons of God, our hearts cry, “Abba, Father” (Rom. 8:15, Gal. 4:6). Jesus, Himself, mediates for us to the Father when we pray (1 Tim. 2:5). Also, it is through Christ that we have access to God’s presence (Heb. 4:16). And then the Holy Spirit intercedes for us when we do not know what to pray and does so in the language of God to God. Paul wrote; likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words (Rom. 8:26). Praying in the Holy Spirit is a part of our sanctification (Jude 1:20) and walk with God (Gal. 5:16-17).
As Christians, how then do we respond to Vedantam and Kross? We give thanks to God that they recognize the importance of prayer in the spiritual battles we face (2 Cor. 10:3-5, Eph. 6:12), which includes the inner voice’s negative attacks on our souls. However, it is not the ritual that cures us. Their program only places a band-aid on the symptom. To overcome the damaging inner voices, one must rely on the Triune God—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—because He is near to all who call on Him, to all who call on Him in truth (Psa. 145:18), hears them (Jer. 29:12), and gives them peace (Phil. 4:6-7).
[1] Shankar Vedantam and Ethan Kross, “You 2.0: Befriending Your Inner Voice,” on Hidden Brain Podcast. Accessed on August 03, 2022, at 11:00 AM. https://hiddenbrain.org/podcast/you-2-0-befriending-your-inner-voice/.
[2] Mark Horne, “Inner Voices,” on the Purify and Elevate blogpost. Accessed on August 09, 2022, at 10:18 AM. https://andrewspcalife.com/2022/08/04/inner-voices/.
[3] Andrew Murray, Covenants and Blessings (New Kensington, PA: Whitaker House, 1984), 90-91.
[4] John Flavel, The Method of Grace: How the Holy Spirit Works (Grand Rapids: Baker House Books, 1977), 241.
Andrews PCA 