After two weeks away I am back from a relaxing vacation! Time spent in nature, in the woods and mountains of New England, has its benefits in refreshing the soul!
This
morning a friend asked a question about prayer. It was a question many
ask, since prayer is something that takes time to understand, even though we
will never fully comprehend the mystery of it. After all, there are so
many different views and opinions and approaches people have toward
praying. Therefore, I decided I would send out this "thought" on
prayer by Gary Thomas, entitled: "The Mystery of
Prayer." It is found in his book, "Sacred
Pathways." It does not address the question asked this
morning, but given the fact that most all people struggle at one time or
another in their prayer life, I thought some might find it helpful and
encouraging -- especially those who have encountered the often confusing
dilemma called "unanswered prayer." Enjoy.
The Mystery of Prayer
"Is there anything more mysterious than prayer? Prayer moves us to call on a Being we cannot see and ask him to altar that which we can see. Formulas do not work; rituals cannot guarantee success. Neither the length nor the form of prayer makes the prayer potent. This is why we need to create pockets of prayer in our lives, learning to trust God to come through in unexpected ways. There is an element of mystery, however, against which we sometimes rebel -- the mystery of unanswered prayer, or, perhaps more appropriately stated, prayers that receive the answer "no."
Because
God sometimes answers our prayers with a yes, it can become intoxicating, and
this intoxication can become so addicting that we begin to demand that God
answer every prayer with a yes When a prayer doesn't get answered in the way we
want it to be, we may mistakenly assume there must be hidden sin, lack of
faith, or some other buried obstruction, which then sends us into hours of
fruitless introspection. But to demand that God answer all our prayers
with a yes is to ask for his omnipotence (power) without having the benefit of
his omniscience (knowledge).
Looking
back, I'm thankful that God said no to some of my prayers. The mystery of faith
calls us to love and serve a God whom we can't always understand. We love this
when the result satisfies us and God answers in ways that make our knees weak.
It is much less exciting, however, when the mystery leads us to believe that
God is silent, indifferent, or even cruel. Mystery is mystery. It has its
exhilarating elements as well as frustrating ones, and we can't expect one
without the other.
The
pursuit if maturity will lead virtually every one of us through this canyon of
unanswered prayer, where expectancy runs dry and the only mystery seems to be
where God is hiding. Understand that this is a necessary avenue on the
destination to holiness and that it usually has an end -- in God's timing
however."
Some thoroughly enjoy prayer. Some struggle with snags and disappointments in prayer. And some have dispensed with prayer -- at least in the more formal sense -- though I do not believe it's possible for the true believer to dispense completely with conversational interaction with God. Few will go an entire lifetime without the "why's" of both answered and unanswered prayer, yet there is blessing in persevering. Just as a child passes through phases of equilibrium and disequilibrium in their trek to maturity, so also the person maturing in prayer goes through such phases. The key, in the famous words of Winston Churchill, is to, "Never, never, never give up."
With
you in what is often the struggle to find God, and the pathway to the throne of
His grace, in prayer, Pastor Jeff
