April Fools’ Day is often celebrated (in many countries) by playing practical jokes on friends and family members. Famous “April Fools” hoaxes include a 1957 BBC television program that showed Swiss farmers harvesting spaghetti from trees and the 1996 announcement by The Taco Bell Corporation that it had bought the Liberty Bell and was renaming it the Taco Liberty Bell.
Most April Fools’ efforts, however, are much simpler than that, like putting salt in the sugar bowl or filling someone’s car hubcaps with rocks. But April Fools’ Day is not a good day—nor is any other—for praying foolish prayers.
What qualifies as a foolish prayer? I can think of three:
1) The Foolish Vow
You may know the story of King Saul’s hasty vow when Israel was fighting the Philistine army at Mikmash. He had forbidden his troops to eat that day, saying, “Cursed be anyone who eats food before evening comes, before I have avenged myself on my enemies!” (1 Samuel 14:24, NIV).
But his son, Jonathan, was unaware of the vow and so ate some honey. At that, Saul was prepared to kill his own son, until the people intervened and saved Jonathan’s life.
It is a foolish prayer to make a vow—even to God—without carefully considering its consequences and planning for its fulfillment. As the Bible says, “God takes no pleasure in foolish gabble. Vow it, then do it. Far better not to vow in the first place than to vow and not pay up” (Ecclesiastes 5:4-5, The Message).
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2) The Foolish Boast
Jesus once told the story of a Pharisee who went to the Jerusalem Temple to pray. He stood apart from a despised tax collector and said (loudly, we may infer), “God, I thank you that I am not like other people—robbers, evildoers, adulterers—or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get” (Luke 10:11-2, NIV). Jesus made it clear that the man’s foolish prayer got him nowhere with God.
It is foolish to pray in any posture other than the humblest. That is why some people bow their heads to pray, or kneel, or even—like the tax collector—beat their chest as they pray.
3) The Foolish Suspension
The patriarch Abraham once hosted a trio of divine visitors on their way to destroy the wicked cities of Sodom and Gomorrah:
“But Abraham remained standing before the Lord. Then Abraham approached him and said: ‘Will you sweep away the righteous with the wicked? What if there are fifty righteous people in the city? Will you really sweep it away and not spare the place for the sake of the fifty righteous people in it? Far be it from you to do such a thing—to kill the righteous with the wicked, treating the righteous and the wicked alike. Far be it from you! Will not the Judge of all the earth do right?’” (Genesis 18:22-25, NIV).
The Lord agreed to withhold judgment for the sake of fifty righteous souls. So Abraham pressed the negotiations, like the Middle Eastern tribal chief he was. He bartered for forty-five. Then forty. Thirty. Twenty.
And, finally, Abraham heard the Lord say, “For the sake of ten, I will not destroy it” (Genesis 18:32, NIV). But there it stopped. As you may know, however, there were not ten righteous people in that city, and so it was destroyed.
Why didn’t Abraham keep going? Why did he stop at ten? Why didn’t he keep asking as long as the Lord kept answering? Could lives—souls, even—have been saved if Abraham had kept asking?
It is a mistake many people make. Jesus said, “Keep on asking, and you will receive what you ask for” (Matthew 7:7i, NLT). Yet we sometimes stop asking before the Lord is done answering. I wonder how often we give up for lack of a quick answer when God wants us to persevere for the sake of a long obedience—or a deeper relationship.
So on this April Fools’ Day, try to avoid foolish prayers and pray instead something like, “Lord, please help me to pray wisely, humbly and perseveringly, in all I ask, in Jesus’ name, amen.”
