Prayer Amid Suffering
Integrated Study Guide, Session #6
This session is part of the multi-post Study Guide titled "Learning to Pray with C.S. Lewis." You may find it helpful to refer to the introduction and session one to understand the nature of the project as a whole. There will be 10 sessions in all.
"Some people feel guilty about their anxieties and regard them as a defect of faith. I don't agree at all. They are afflictions, not sins. Like all afflictions, they are, if we can so take them, our share in the Passion of Christ." - C.S. Lewis, Letters to Malcolm
Primary Readings:
Letters to Malcolm, Letters 8, 9, 10, 12
C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity, Book 4, Chapters 9-10: "Counting the Cost" and "Nice People or New Men"
Theological Context: The Crucible of Communion
In these letters, Lewis confronts prayer in the most challenging context—communication with God amid suffering and doubt. His approach is existential rather than abstract, and it remains grounded in his own journey through grief. Lewis situates prayer amid suffering within what he calls "The Grand Miracle"—the Incarnation's "pattern of descent, down, down, and then up again" that forms the fundamental theological framework for Christian prayer amid suffering.
Importantly, Lewis articulates a careful understanding of divine omnipotence where God's power includes "all that is intrinsically possible," acknowledging both divine sovereignty and the logical impossibility of contradictions. This philosophical clarity prevents both fatalistic resignation that renders prayer meaningless and magical thinking that treats prayer as technique for manipulating reality. To borrow language from Mere Christianity,
“The terrible thing, the almost impossible thing, is to hand over your whole self—all your wishes and precautions—to Christ."
Prayer amid suffering becomes not merely petition for relief but the crucible where self-protective barriers dissolve, allowing genuine communion to emerge.
Key Concepts
1. Divine Omnipotence and the Nature of Possibility
Lewis's foundation for understanding prayer amid suffering is articulated in his careful distinction between types of impossibility in The Problem of Pain. He distinguishes between ordinary impossibility that depends on circumstances ("unless some friends carry me") and intrinsic impossibility that "carries its impossibility within itself" and "has no unless clause attached to it."
This philosophical distinction informs our understanding of prayer amid suffering by establishing that divine omnipotence means God can do everything intrinsically possible, not anything we might imagine (such as creating square circles or contradicting His own nature). Applied to prayer, this means we should neither expect God to violate intrinsic structures of reality nor resign ourselves to fatalism. Instead, prayer operates within the genuine contingency that God has built into creation.
Lewis further explains how suffering may serve necessary functions within creation's rational order:
"A great deal of what we call 'natural evil' is not in itself evil at all; but only evil from our present point of view."
This prevents treating God as either arbitrary magical power or impersonal cosmic principle, revealing instead a God who operates according to rational necessity grounded in His own nature.
2. Prayer During Crisis: Participating in Christ's Gethsemane
In Letter 8, Lewis responds to news of Malcolm's son George's illness with profound theological reflection on prayer during crisis. Rather than offering platitudes, he acknowledges how theoretical discussions about prayer can seem hollow when faced with real threat:
"What froth and bubble my last letter must have seemed to you! I had hardly posted it when I got Betty's card with the disquieting news about George."
What makes Lewis's response remarkable is his immediate theological move—rather than offering mere comfort, he draws a parallel between human anxiety and Christ's experience in Gethsemane:
“Some people feel guilty about their anxieties and regard them as a defect of faith. I don’t agree at all. They are afflictions, not sins. Like all afflictions, they are, if we can so take them, our share in the Passion of Christ.”
According to Lewis, human dread and uncertainty become not obstacles to prayer but opportunities for deeper communion with Christ, who has hallowed these experiences through His own incarnate participation in them. The "counting the cost" of suffering becomes the pathway through which supernatural transformation occurs.
3. Divine Response and the Pattern of Vicariousness
In Letter 9, Lewis addresses how divine omniscience relates to human petition, suggesting that our prayers are "taken into account" by God from all eternity:
"We have long since agreed that if our prayers are granted at all they are granted from the foundation of the world. God and His acts are not in time. Intercourse between God and man occurs at particular moments for the man, but not for God."
This perspective changes the way we think about whether God changes his mind in response to prayer. Lewis suggests that divine immutability doesn't render prayer ineffective but rather situates it within God's eternal wisdom. Our prayers don't inform God of what He doesn't know or persuade Him to change His mind, but they are genuinely efficacious within His eternal purposes.
In "The Grand Miracle," Lewis introduces the concept of vicariousness as central to both the Incarnation and the natural order:
"In the Incarnation we get, of course, the idea of vicariousness of one person profiting by the earning of another person. In its highest form that is the very center of Christianity."
He observes that this pattern is woven into creation itself:
"It is a law of the natural universe that no being can exist on its own resources. Everyone, everything, is hopelessly indebted to everyone and everything else."
This framework highlights intercessory prayer's theological foundations. When we pray for others or ask others to pray for us, we participate in this fundamental vicariousness that reflects Christ's redemptive work. Our prayers for others are not mere psychological exercises but genuine participation in reality's vicarious structure established in the Incarnation.
This vicarious participation transforms our understanding of suffering as well. Rather than viewing prayer merely as a means of escape from difficulty, it becomes a channel through which we enter Christ's redemptive pattern. As Lewis writes in Mere Christianity: "The Church exists for nothing else but to draw men into Christ, to make them little Christs." Prayer amid suffering becomes one way we embody this calling, participating in Christ's redemptive suffering rather than merely seeking escape from it.
4. Beyond Mechanical Causality to Personal Relationship
In Letter 10, Lewis challenges what he calls “Pope’s maxim” - the notion that God works only through general laws, arguing instead that "everything is providential and every providence is a special providence." When we imagine that the universe is governed by impersonal laws rather than divine wisdom, we diminish both God and creation:
"What soul ever perished for believing that God the Father really has a beard?"
Behind this somewhat humorous remark lies a profound theological insight—anthropomorphic language about God, while inadequate, is often less misleading than abstract philosophical concepts that reduce God to impersonal principle.
This critique challenges mechanistic understandings of causality that reduce prayer to either magical manipulation or psychological exercise. Lewis proposes instead that prayer involves personal relationship with a God who relates to each creature with specific intention rather than merely through general principles.
In Mere Christianity Lewis adopts a Trinitarian understanding of prayer that is worth quoting at length:
"An ordinary simple Christian kneels down to say his prayers. He is trying to get into touch with God. But if he is a Christian he knows that what is prompting him to pray is also God: God, so to speak, inside him. But he also knows that all his real knowledge of God comes through Christ, the Man who was God—that Christ is standing beside him, helping him to pray, praying for him. You see what is happening. God is the thing to which he is praying—the goal he is trying to reach. God is also the thing inside him which is pushing him on—the motive power. God is also the road or bridge along which he is being pushed to that goal. So that the whole threefold life of the three-personal Being is actually going on in that ordinary little bedroom where an ordinary man is saying his prayers."
We should consider the implications of this Trinitarian perspective as we think about prayer amid suffering – God is not a distant principle but very personally present from beginning to end.
5. Eschatological Hope in Prayer Amid Suffering
Lewis's reflections on prayer amid suffering are fundamentally shaped by his eschatological vision. In "The Grand Miracle," he describes how Christ's resurrection establishes a pattern that will eventually transform all of creation:
"Christ has risen, and so we shall rise... the day will come when there will be a remade universe, infinitely obedient to the will of a glorified and obedient humanity."
This eschatological hope doesn't trivialize present suffering but contextualizes it within a larger pattern of redemption:
"It feels wintry enough still: but often in the very early spring it feels like that. Two thousand years are only a day or two by this scale."
Present suffering and seemingly unanswered prayers are situated within this "cosmic spring" that has decisively begun with Christ's resurrection but has not yet reached full summer. When we pray amid suffering, we join our voices to creation's groaning (Romans 8:22-23), participating in both the present reality of Christ's resurrection and its future consummation.
As Lewis writes in Mere Christianity: "Every Christian is to become a little Christ. The whole purpose of becoming a Christian is simply nothing else." For Lewis, prayer amid suffering becomes one crucial way we participate in this transformation, not despite our suffering but through it.
Questions for Reflection
Lewis connects human anxiety during crisis with Christ's experience in Gethsemane, suggesting that "every movement in the Passion writes large some common element in the sufferings of our race." How might this Christological perspective transform your understanding of prayer during times of suffering? How might it challenge both stoic suppression and therapeutic indulgence of anxiety?
Consider Lewis's description in "The Grand Miracle" of the Incarnation as "this whole, huge pattern of descent, down, down, and then up again." How might understanding prayer as participation in this pattern transform your approach to prayer amid suffering? How might it help you find meaning in experiences of spiritual darkness or divine absence?
Lewis suggests that Christ's knowledge of His coming death "must somehow have been withdrawn from Him before He prayed in Gethsemane." Do you agree or disagree with this statement? Please explain either way.
In "The Grand Miracle," Lewis identifies vicariousness—"one person profiting by the earning of another person"—as "the very center of Christianity." How does this principle illuminate the practice of intercessory prayer? How might it transform your understanding of praying for others and asking others to pray for you?
Lewis challenges the idea that God works only through general laws, arguing instead that "everything is providential and every providence is a special providence." How does this perspective transform your understanding of God's engagement with the world? How might it affect your approach to prayer amid seemingly random suffering?
Consider Lewis's eschatological vision in "The Grand Miracle," where he compares Christ's resurrection to early spring: "Two thousand years are only a day or two by this scale." How might this cosmic perspective affect your approach to seemingly unanswered prayers? How does it balance the tension between present suffering and future hope?
Lewis writes in A Grief Observed that pain and suffering can become a "megaphone" through which God speaks. Reflect on experiences in your own life where suffering has revealed aspects of divine character that might have remained hidden in more comfortable circumstances. How might this perspective transform prayer amid ongoing suffering?
Practical Exercise: Praying Through Uncertainty (2-3 days)
For two days, practice prayer that embraces both genuine petition and honest uncertainty:
Identify a situation in your life characterized by uncertainty, concern, or suffering.
Begin with acknowledgment of your actual feelings about the situation—including anxiety, confusion, or doubt. As Lewis writes in Letter 8, prayer must begin with where we actually are, not where we think we should be.
Express your desires honestly, making specific requests related to the situation while recognizing the limitations of your perspective. Allow yourself to ask for what you truly want, not just what you think you should want.
Conclude with submission that echoes Jesus's prayer in Gethsemane: "Nevertheless, not my will but yours be done." Let this be not reluctant capitulation but an expression of trust in divine wisdom that transcends your understanding.
After each prayer time, briefly note:
How did expressing honest emotion affect your sense of connection with God?
Was it difficult to balance specific petition with submission to God's will?
Did you notice any resistance to either honest request or genuine submission?
At the end of this period, reflect on how this practice has affected your approach to prayer amid uncertainty. Has it helped integrate thought and feeling, petition and trust? Has it provided a more sustainable approach to prayer during difficult circumstances?