Praying is pretty common. There are times when most people want the help of a supernatural being. They may not even believe that God exists. They are just shooting off a prayer in hopes that someone or something will respond. As such, I do not expect that most prayers do get a response. Not a yes or a no. While God with His divine ability to know all things would know about any prayer and could opt to respond, we do not really have the right to speak to God without the gift of Jesus atoning for our sins. God is holy and normal humans are not. Sin has separated us from our Creator.
But once we are connected to Jesus through our baptism, prayer becomes both a right and a responsibility. We are invited like children to speak to our Father. We are exhorted like co-workers to strategize with the boss about the work of the Kingdom of God. Prayer matters.
But what are we really asking God to do? God does not rigorously control the events that happen on this planet. God doesn’t produce human sinfulness. There is also cause and effect that God allows without modification. The world is a mess because God doesn’t control it. But He can.
Adam and Eve’s disobedience was a much larger watershed event than we probably appreciate. First, it didn’t just mess them up. It modified their DNA so that every human is messed up. Then, somehow, it impacted the way all of Creation behaves. The story of the Garden of Eden includes a simplistic and heavily understated explanation of how things will be for the duration of the current universe.
“Because you have listened to the voice of your wife
Genesis 3:17b-19 (ESV)
and have eaten of the tree
of which I commanded you,
‘You shall not eat of it,’
cursed is the ground because of you;
in pain you shall eat of it all the days of your life;
18 thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you;
and you shall eat the plants of the field.
19 By the sweat of your face
you shall eat bread,
till you return to the ground,
for out of it you were taken;
for you are dust,
and to dust you shall return.
Cursed. The Book of Revelations states that someday there will be no more “curse”. We can make a list from Genesis 3 of the results of the curse. We can also look beyond the Bible and attribute more things to the curse. But what exactly is the curse? Is it God forcing certain things to happen or God just not stopping them? I think it is the latter.
So when it comes to prayer, we are asking God to change things that would be the result of natural cause and effect. We are asking Him to step inside His normal policy of allowing things to proceed as they would because of sin and the curse.
Let’s consider a common example of something for which we pray. How about healing? Some claim that God doesn’t want people to be sick, so all we have to do is have enough faith and illness will be healed. I disagree. The passages used to support this belief apply to healing from sin, not healing of illness. Nonetheless, God obviously can heal illness. He can do it through means like medicine, doctors, or our immune system; or He can do it by superseding the laws of nature in miraculous fashion. Either way, if God is changing or guiding something, He is stepping inside the curse. Why would He do that or why would He not?
God is a being who believes in justice. We can infer that the curse is the result of God’s law in some way. It is not an arbitrary act by God. God is also a merciful being who responds to human need within certain boundaries. We increase the likelihood of God interceding by asking for His intercession. This asking (via prayer) has some conditions.
First, we need to really be extended the right of prayer. Being connected to Jesus does that. Next, God wants to be trusted. It is not so much a matter of believing “hard” enough. Do you believe that God can and does do what you are asking? The prayer is not an experiment. That is sufficient. Then there is a matter of your obedience to God’s commands. It is like a parenting situation. If you are being willfully disobedient, don’t expect intervention from God. We are all sinful, but if we acknowledge this and live with a repentant heart, then God will not be internally convicting us of being disobedient.
Finally, could intervening be at cross-purposes with God’s plans? This could be complex. God’s intervention with cause and effect will necessarily also change future interactions of cause and effect. In the long run, though healing may seem like a slam-dunk request, it may not be the best thing for everyone involved. This may be hard to accept. Persistence in prayer may get a different answer, but there are times we must accept an answer like the one given to Paul. He had an illness, which he called “a messenger from Satan” and this is what happened:
7 So to keep me from becoming conceited because of the surpassing greatness of the revelations, a thorn was given me in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to harass me, to keep me from becoming conceited. 8 Three times I pleaded with the Lord about this, that it should leave me. 9 But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me.
2 Corinthians 12:7-9 (ESV)
Despite the conditions, there are many times that God can and will grant a prayer for healing.
In the upcoming blog entries for Giving Christ, I will write about other types of prayer requests and what we are asking and what we can expect.
Giving Christ 