You’re So Vain, You Probably Think This Prayer Is About You

Earlier this year I wrote about “vain repetitions” and how when we persist in repeating the same thing over and over, our efforts are in vain. I want to revisit the topic of “vain repetitions”, but this time I want to consider a different definition of the word vain. Vain can describe something that is of no effect or useless. But vain can also describe someone who has an excessively high opinion or excessively proud of oneself. When we repeatedly ask something of God in prayer, especially when God has already provided us with an answer that we may not like or agree with, we are in danger of vain repetitions - that is, repeating our request because we have an excessively high opinion of our own judgment and needs and thus vainly assume that we know better than God what we need and therefore His earlier answers to us must have been wrong. The Bible Dictionary defines prayer thus: “Prayer is the act by which the will of the Father and the will of the child are brought into correspondence with each other. The object of prayer is not to change the will of God but to secure for ourselves and for others blessings that God is already willing to grant but that are made conditional on our asking for them.” When we forget that our purpose in prayer is to unite our will with our Father’s and especially when we attempt to wrest God’s will from Him by praying again and again, then this is what the Savior meant by vain repetitions. Then our prayers cease to be the humble and submissive harmony between Father and child and instead become the prideful and willful pestering of a self-centered and tantrum-throwing child. If we have received an answer to our prayers, but we keep praying for a different answer, we are acting in much the same way that a young child will keep screaming “mom, mom, mom, mom” as a way to dominate and bend the parent’s will to the tyrannical whims of the child. When Joseph Smith asked a second and a third time for permission to show the plates to Martin Harris, he was engaging in vain repetitions, believing that his fears and insecurities to impress or appease a man whose approval he sought were more important than the wisdom and goodness of God’s plan. Prayer ought to be the ultimate act of humility. It is our willingness to submit to the will of the Father that gives prayer all of its power. When we seek to gratify our pride and our vanity, we rob our prayer of any of its virtue and render it useless. Approaching the Lord with a vain spirit ensures that our prayers will be in vain, mere empty words repeated into the unlistening and uncaring air. Only our faith and our humility and our willingness to submit to our Father’s will gives our prayers the strength to reach our Heavenly Father and open up the windows of Heaven to pour out the exact blessings and answers that He has prepared for us. Christ said that our Father will not give us a stone if we ask for bread, nor a serpent if we ask for a fish. If we are humble, everything the Lord gives us will be as sweet and life-nourishing as bread. If we are vain, everything the Lord attempts to give us will seem as hard and unyielding as stone.