There in the shadows of this life. Your great grace.
It’s there on the mountain top. There in the everyday and the mundane.
There in the sorrow and the dancing. Your great grace. Oh such grace....
It’s there on a wedding day. There in the weeping by the graveside.
There in the very breath we breathe. Your great grace.
The same for the rich and poor. The same for the saint and for the sinner.
Enough for this whole wide world. Your great grace. Oh such grace...
There in the darkest night of the soul.
There in the sweetest songs of victory.
Your grace finds me. Yes your grace finds me." -Matt Redman.
In the Christian world, we have a lot of terms that we use.
"Christian-ese".
Like me, you may have been with a group when something like this was said: "We pray before every game & last night God really showed up! We won!"
"God answered, and we had a great turnout for VBS."
Now, we learn when we are very, very little, with the visual aid of a traffic light, that sometimes God says "Yes" and sometimes God says "No" and sometimes God says "Wait." (and that the 'wait' answer is usually the hardest)
And we learn to "pray without ceasing." (1 Thessalonians 5:17)
And we learn that "the effective prayer of a righteous man can accomplish much." (James 5:17)
And we memorize "you do not have because you do not ask." (James 4:2)
We certainly pray & we ask.
I remember when I was quite small, closing my eyes & praying so earnestly that when I opened them, there would be new Strawberry Shortcake dolls for me! I had no doubt that God was capable of doing that! I just didn't know if He would.
As I got older I learned to understand prayer better. The incredible closeness to God that comes with confession & thanksgiving & praise during prayer time. Of course, supplication too.
Like the person who proclaims that God has 'shown up', we pray before sporting events. Before nearly every meal. Before bed. When we get in the car to drive somewhere. When we're scared. When we're thankful. When we need something. When we've received something. The list could go on forever. Big, big things that are truly too big for us to handle. (..for we do not know how to pray as we should, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words. -Romans 8:26). I have certainly experienced these times of groanings. We pray for the little, little things: Baby chicks will hatch. Corn will grow. Little, scraped knees will feel better. And we all know that if God cares about a sparrow, the commonest of common birds, how much more must He care about me?
We begin to realize & experience that prayer is alligning our wills with God's will. Prayer is communicating with God. Prayer is drawing us into relationship with God.
But is prayer changing God's mind? Is it changing what happens? Is it working in that way?
Hezekiah's prayer was answered. Abraham asking God for mercy if 10 righteous people could be found. But we know that God knows the end from the beginning. (Isaiah 46:10) We know that God does not change. (Numbers 23:19).
Did God not 'show up' when Aaron died?
Were not enough people praying when Cheryl died of cancer?
If the house burns down and the business fails, does that mean that God didn't answer?
Does winning a soccer game indicate some kind of approval by God?
At the heart of this is what every Christian hears repeatedly from non-Christians; some version of the following: "If your God is a loving God, why do bad things happen?"
We know that "He causes His sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous." (Matthew 5:45)
Why pray then? Is prayer just some sort of communication that is psychologically comforting to us, but doesn't really mean anything? If the answer doesn't lie in particular wording or volume of prayers, what is the answer? How do we 'get' the answer that we want?
C.S. Lewis says:
Can we believe that God really modifies his action in response to the suggestions of men? For infinite wisdom does not need telling what is best, and infinite goodness needs no urging to do it. But neither does God need any of those things that are done by finite agents, whether living or inanimate. He could, if he chose, repair our bodies miraculously without food; or give us food without the aid of farmers, bakers, and butchers; or knowledge without the aid of learned men; or convert the heathen without missionaries. Instead he allows soils and weather and animals and the muscles, minds, and wills of men to co-operate in the execution of his will. “God,” said Pascal, “instituted prayer in order to lend to his creatures the dignity of causality.” But not only prayer; whenever we act at all he lends us that dignity. It is not really stranger, nor less strange, that my prayers should affect the course of events than that my other actions should do so. They have not advised or changed God's mind—that is, his overall purpose. But that purpose will be realized in different ways according to the actions, including prayers, of his creatures.
Melvin Tinker says:
God has the power and wisdom to use our prayers as he sees fit and to do what we could never imagine. If he weren't all-powerful, there'd be little point in praying. If he weren't all wise, it'd be dangerous to pray; after all, who'd want to ask an all-powerful but foolish person to do anything? But God is both perfectly wise and infinitely powerful, which is why you and I can pray with confidence.
If prayer was only 'good' for helping me understand God better, it would be enough. If prayer only accomplished a changing of my heart, it would be enough. However, prayer's power doesn't end there. My words are not bouncing off the ceiling. We are called to pray like Jesus did. We are told to pray. We are given the privilege to participate in the process.
"Having granted the human race a measure of self-determination, He would be hard-pressed to steamroller it when people misuse it...." -Gracia Burnham.
I wish we wouldn't say that "God showed up."
I wish we wouldn't say that God has 'answered' prayers, only when it was been a 'yes' in the way that we wanted, even in the way that seems good and right.
It's hard to understand.
So God knew, He knew, when my fiance was lovingly stroking my foot at our rehearsal, in the gorgeous yard of my great-grandparents, when my soon-to-be-husband was choosing a special verse for our wedding program, for our lives, (1 Peter 3:15, btw), he KNEW that 6 years later it would all be over!! That is painful.
It is painful & hard to understand how James could die. (Actually, I don't like to use the word 'die' anymore, for Christians. I prefer moved to heaven.) Well-loved. Well-prayed for. Serving our country. "To think that providence would, take a child from his mother while she prayed, is appalling..." -Natalie Grant.
I think remembering to have a correct view of God is important. Learning & knowing who He is.
- God shows up just as much when the soldier comes home and when he does not.
- God shows up just as much when the court results seem to be against all that God would want for families as when the results are 100% what we asked for.
- God shows up equally for the mom who has been given the joy of 8 babies to love & hold as it does for the mom who has deep, unrelenting grief over her empty arms.
- God has heard our prayers when our marriages stay together & when they fall apart.
He wants good things for me.
He can use all things for good.
I will continue to seek His face. I will continue to petition.
I will recognize that~ the situations that don't turn out like I had hoped, (and prayed), and the sad things that happen in life due to living in a fallen world, God can teach me so much through these!
