Monday, 15 August 2011 05:15
For the first time since Noah's Ark landed on Mt. Ararat, it rained in Texas over the weekend. We are in the midst of the worst one-year drought in our state's history. Temperatures in Dallas hit 100 or higher 39 straight days before scattered rain broke the string on Friday.
July was the hottest month ever recorded in Texas. Farmers and ranchers stand to lose $8 billion, double the losses from droughts in 2006 and 2009. Churches are calling people to pray for rain. At Gov. Perry's gathering in Houston a week ago, rain was one of the prominent topics of intercession. More and more Christians in the South are gathering to pray for divine intervention as we face a natural disaster of historic proportions.
Here's my question: What's the logic of such intercession? I can think of four answers to the question, none of them positive. One: Our prayers tell God something he doesn't already know, as though he can't look out his heavenly window and see lakes drying up and crops withering. Two: Our intercession convinces him to do something he would not otherwise have done. Three: Our prayers earn the help which God withholds until we satisfy his requirements. Four: Our intercession demonstrates faith which requires God to act. The first answer challenges God's omniscience, the second his love, the third his grace, the fourth his omnipotence.
Some people say that prayer doesn't change God—it changes me. Fine, but why do I need to change for it to rain? What does God do when a farmer prays for rain at the same time a home builder prays for clear skies?
Here's the answer that makes the most sense to me: Prayer positions us to receive what God wants to give. It doesn't inform our Father, convince him, earn his favor, or force his hand. He honors the freedom he has given us and will not force us to receive what his grace seeks to give. When we pray, we open our hands to the One who gives us what we ask or whatever is best: "This is the boldness we have in him, that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us. And if we know that he hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we have obtained the requests made of him" (1 John 5:14-15).
Why would we need to position ourselves through prayer to receive rain? Perhaps God intends to use the drought to show a self-sufficient culture our need of his provision. Perhaps he wants to answer our prayers so as to show a skeptical world that he is real and that prayer is powerful. What are your thoughts? I don't know all the reasons why it is essential that we pray for God's favor, but that's because my finite, fallen little mind cannot comprehend his infinite wisdom and purpose.
I don't have to understand my laptop to write this essay, or understand the Internet to transmit it to you. Martin Luther King, Jr. explained that "faith is taking the first step even when you don't see the whole staircase." What step is your Father waiting for you to take this morning?
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IF our requests are within his will, we will receive? Does that mean when we pray we must always ask that it be in His will first? I can say this, he has always been merciful to me and my prayers have been answered, sometimes in a manner that wasnt reflective of what I prayed for, never the less, what knows what is best for me. He knows me better than I know myself, so that is why this topic confuses me on occasion. To God be the glory!
In science (my field) we recognize systems that operate under rules we call "chaos". In this context "chaos" does not mean out of control or non-causal it means a system whose final conditions is extremely sensitive to initial conditions. Most complex systems exhibit this behavior. We are developing models to predict these out comes in the general sense, i.e. the probability of rain, but have made no progress in predicting the final state of the system in a specific sense, i.e. the location and speed of a single raindrop in a thunderstorm.
I see and analogy. God can see/knows the final state of the chaotic system we call our lives but we do not and cannot. He alone knows what subtle changes in the initial condition of the system will produce the product of his will.
The drought in Texas may cause someone to cancel a fishing trip that leads him to a store where they meet a person and build a relationship that brings that person to a point of salvation. That person might become the most effective evangelist of all time.
I guess that sounds far fetched but you never know. We must remember that even though we are told to pray for the desires of our hearts that comes with two assumptions.
1. Our hearts must be right with and seek God’s will.
2. We must sincerely pray and be willing to accept "Your will be done"
1) Silence before Him. Psalm 46:10.
2) Worship his holiness. Psalm 99:9.
3) Remember his mighty works of the past. Psalm 24 (as an introductory exclamation.)
4) Humble one's self. 2 Chron 7:14.
5) Consider God's priorities. John 15:7.
6) Be specific. Matthew 7:9.
7) Wait patiently for his response. Psalm 27:14.
Our focus should not be so much on "what we need" but "what God wants to give us." And the conditions we find ourselves are merely indicators to us that we have a need that God wants to address in such a way as to make himself more real and vital to our own lives.
But, if he simply was content to be a "secret agent," he could just always give us what we need without asking, and not care whether we know who is giving it to us.
So, "prayer' is that outward indication from us that we know who we are dealing with: a living, holy, powerful, righteous, generous, detail-conscious, no-nonsense being.
Tow things we need to bring to the forefront of our thinking; especially in this generation of Americans:
1) Learn to really put God first in our thinking and seeking, and
2) Learn to WAIT confidently on Him.
We have been so trapped by the "I want it and want it now" mentality in recent years/decades that WE LOST GOD almost completely. He only comes to mind as a LAST RESORT.
Gpd answers prayer in ways we can't even fathom.
That's what I believe with all my heart,
Thanks for these daily devotionals which help us think.
I confess that this issue has truly troubled me ever since I first read it. In the Old Testmament, the prophet states that God said: "IF my people, who are called by my name, ... will humble themselves and PRAY, THEN I will HEAR from heaven AND will heal their land." {My emphasis.] Is there not a condition to His healing their land? In the New Testament, we are told "In ALL things, with prayer and supplication, bring your petitions to God." When asked how we should pray, Jesus said, in part, "give us this day our daily bread, forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us." I accept that I can do nothing to change God, but are not there different consequences to whether I seek (ask) His forgiveness or whether I ask Him to show me His will for my life? Is my plea for healing my sister an act which can gain my sister nothing? As I do pray so often: "I do belive, Lord, forgive my unbelief."
Thanks for your down to earth Spiritual insight that helps me kick off every morning. It helps me prevent a drought in my spirit--Frank
Also Calvin, in his Institutes, is very helpful on the role of prayer: "To know God as the master and bestower of all good things, who invites us to request them of him, and still not go to him and not ask of him - this would be of as little profit as for a man to neglect a treasure, buried and hidden in the earth, after it had been pointed out to thim." And "to us nothing is promised to be expected from the Lord, which we are not also bidden to ask of him in prayers."
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