One of the most disconcerting moments in a football game recently occurred when Damar Hamlin suddenly collapsed. For the next ten minutes, he received life-saving CPR before being rushed to the hospital. Though the scene was astonishing enough, a secondary event simultaneously occurred on the football field that Christians should note—an entire football team (and likely majority of viewership) knelt to pray. Even the next morning a football analyst prayed on live television as he and his coworkers bowed their head to God. In an increasingly secularized society that has all but removed prayer from schools and government, what are Christians to make of the instantaneous human response to pray? Why is it instinctive for humans to pray even when they don’t believe in God?
1. Tragedies Clarify
There’s a reason for the expression, “foxhole prayer.” All the inscrutable enigmas of life suddenly become surprisingly simple in the wake of great tragedy. When human life hangs in the balance, we are given clarity of what really matters, what we value, and what is truly real. After all, didn’t it take the awful loss of a first-born son in Exodus 12 before Pharaoh finally released the Israelites out of Egypt? Tragedy clarifies our values and exposes our true beliefs. The truly important things of life become clear in the face of tremendous loss and tragedy.
2. Humans Are Not God
Specifically in the situation of the aforementioned football game, I was struck how everyone on the football field instinctively knew to cry out to the Almighty. What is deep within us that causes us to bow our heads in desperation? The answer is simple—humans naturally know there’s Someone greater than us. As the priest in the film, Rudy, so powerfully declared, “I’ve only been able to come up with only two hard, incontrovertible facts; there is a God, and I’m not Him.” Paul observes as much, saying, “because that which is known about God is evident within them [humans]” (Rom. 1:19). God created humanity to naturally recognize the distinction between Creator and creature. Especially when tragedy strikes, we instinctively pray to the heavens, recognizing there is an Almighty, and we are not Him.
3. Humans Need Help
It stands to reason that if tragedies clarify our role as subordinate to the Almighty, then we consistently need his help. Our limitations highlight His infiniteness. We can’t; He can. When life hangs in the balance, whether laying prostrate on a football field or on a hospital bed, we ask for Divine help. This tendency in tragedy isn’t learned or conditioned; it’s innate. Trials teach us our need for help outside of us. While we don’t relish trials themselves, we ought to be thankful for anything that shows our need for God’s help.
So, what are we to make of this recent reminder that humans instinctively turn to prayer? Perhaps we should be hopeful that God is still at work in people around us. Maybe we should recognize that humans still have a desire to know and seek help from the Almighty. And maybe, just maybe, God uses even terrible tragedies to help Christians speak openly and freely of the wonderful God who hears and answers all prayers.