Bruce Almighty is actually a story that comically reveals some of our deepest (and most tragic) issues – hugely relevant for counseling - in wonderful style - one of the most important being why and how we pray.
Why We Don’t Pray
As the story of Buffalo news reporter Bruce Nolan’s experience unfolds, we're helpfully shown why he doesn’t trust conversation with God. The evening anchorman position (the “Walter Cronkite” job of his dreams) seems finally in his grasp – only to be given to a undeserving schmuck (a hilarious Steve Carrel). Anger at God – the One who gives life and work and can also take it away - seems perfectly justified. Life isn’t working out as Bruce planned, so God can’t be good, can He? Capricious, mean-spirited? Probably. Certainly not worth trusting! So why not take matters into our own hands?
Invited by God (Morgan Freeman) to his "Omni Presents" company, Bruce is given the chance to do just that - a fascinating opportunity because its essentially how we we want to live anyway. But as the world begins to fall apart - the natural outcome of a such a choice - Bruce learns the obvious truth: he is not wise, nor can he bring about what is really best through his selfish choices.
Most of us know only too well how disappointment easily morphs into bitterness and neglect of others (including God), replaced by the “golden calf” that now fills our thought-life and desires. Wrapped up in our self-referential focus, as evidenced in our quest for self-esteem, approval, or penchant to live in self-pity (all powerful narcotics), we stop believing that His way is actually best for us. So why have conversation with Him? Playing God seems a much better option.
What Prayer Can Show Us
At first glance, it's easy for me to think how foolish this scenario seems. But isn't every selfish choice a small attempt to "play God" in my life too? So, what if I could learn to stop – before my life completely unravels like Bruce’s – and learn to push the “pause-button” on my heart to examine closer (as David Powlison wisely says) what I might be missing? Could part of the purpose of prayer, even in the seemingly mundane details of everyday life and work, actually be to bring me “face-to-face” with the real God – so that I also begin to see me and my experience in a new light? (John Calvin was one who famously noted this important “knowledge of God/knowledge of myself” connection in the first paragraph of his Institutes.)
Prayer – even one where we wrestle like Jacob to know God’s blessing - immediately ushers us into some new realities that we desperately need to see. Let’s consider two which also come through in a wonderfully insightful way in the story of Bruce Nolan.
1.) Father, your grace alone is what holds us up…
I love the fact that Bruce’s love-interest in the film (played appealingly by Jennifer Anniston) is named Grace! While Bruce rants and is preoccupied elsewhere, she loves and supports him anyway, just as the grace of God supports us through all our wanderings. And while most of us aren’t so bold to believe we can walk on water (at least, not all of the time!) as Bruce does at one point in the film – and inevitably runs into God – somehow it seems easier to believe we are the ones holding ourselves and our family up in the mundane, everyday stuff of life.
Remember Jonah’s prayer when he sank down into the deep, seaweed wrapped around his head? "Salvation belongs to our God,” he finally cried (see 2:9), safe in the belly of a great fish we could also call “Grace.” God would later use him to extend grace to a ruthless people (the Assyrians), a disappointing fact that Jonah hated. Of course God doesn’t need us one bit, but by His grace He is pleased to use us – and our prayers - to bring Himself glory in His great redemption plan and ongoing transformation of sinners.
Prayer then is an opportunity to pierce the “forgetfulness of the mundane” with the light of the Divine, showing us how even the small things matter (just as Grace serves the small children in her daycare) and to confess who really holds us up. We are here for love, and only can do so by His goodness, wisdom, and grace.
2.) …and You, the Wonderful Counselor, can bring real change.
Particularly relevant to counseling, prayer is also the intentional “giving of another” (as John Eldredge puts it) to God to do the changing. Just as prayer reminds us of who God really is – a reality that Bruce and we so desperately need - we ask God in prayer that He would do what only He can, and that is turn stone hearts into soft flesh. Recognizing this, we must ask ourselves, “Is there a part of me (even a secret part) that thinks I can control or “effect” change in another by my own force of will, fine theological arguments and precise counsel?” Do I ever act as if throwing a Bible verse at a person and saying “just do it” will bring change? If so, I have begun to play God (or a warped version of Him) like Bruce – instead of seeing myself as a fellow beggar and an instrument to bring others to Him and His transforming Gospel of grace.
There's a great scene in the film along these lines, and it comes when Grace weeps a prayer on her bed to God to “Help me to let him (Bruce) go.” She realizes she doesn’t want to attach herself to a life with him as any kind of false savior. Yes, she still loves him, but loving him now means “letting him go” to reap what he sows, just as the Father does for his rebellious child (Luke 15:11-32) who once tasted of His grace. This scene reminds us that entrusting another ultimately to God is a vital posture toward the whole relational process of change, remembering who the real Holy Spirit is – (and it’s not us.)
Finally then, with the recognition of the centrality of grace, and reliance on the Sovereign work of God in human hearts and in counseling, let us finish the prayer….
“You, our Father, promise to be close to the broken-hearted. Help us trust you, the real God. Show yourself strong to save, show yourself the lover of our souls, even as you have already in the Gospel of the cross and resurrection – the triumphant defeat of sin and death through your Son, and the glorious redemption, new identity, and transforming power you give as a gift of grace to those who simply believe. Help us to know how wide, and how long, and how high, and how deep your love for us really is. Amen."
(Note: It’s worth mentioning that, unfortunately, many Christians avoided Bruce Almighty completely, wrongly surmising they couldn’t relate to the idea of blasphemy. They must have forgotten that the redemption of blasphemers – which is what the film demonstrates so creatively and well - is precisely what Jesus came to do. Did they also forget that the entire Bible is chock full of characters who do ugly and blasphemous (not to mention just plain laughable) things – from lying Abraham to adulterous David to murderous St. Paul?) For more insight on these things, see a great interview with the film’s director Tom Shadyac at http://www.hollywoodjesus.com/bruce_almighty.htm)
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