Brief thoughts on prayer

A few days ago, someone complained to me of praying for something but with no results. I’m quite sure that all people of faith can relate to this person’s grievance and all of us will at times have experienced the disappointment of unanswered prayer. This is particularly difficult when, for example we are praying for the health of a loved one who is unwell, and for whatever reason they don’t recover. Doubtless there are other equally pressing difficulties which we have at times taken to God in our prayers, and to all appearances, the heavens are as brass.

These experiences of unanswered prayer are not unique to us. King David writes in the Psalms of his sense of isolation from God. Jeremiah the prophet (miserable so and so if ever there was one) writes a whole book of Lamentations. Saint John of the Cross, the 16^th Century Roman Catholic mystic writes of what he calls the ‘Dark Night of the Soul’ when God seems afar off. We can conclude from these, from many other authors and from our own experiences too, that very often, there are times when God seems to turn his ear away from our pleas.

This leads us to ask, ‘Is there any value in praying? What is the point if God ignores our requests?’

To address this, we need to think about what prayer is and what prayer isn’t. For the Christian, prayer is of course a vital expression of our faith in Christ and St Paul encourages his readers to ‘pray without ceasing’.

There are countless books available on ‘how to pray’, and whilst these can be very helpful, the general approach is to tell us that if we apply certain methods and techniques, our prayers will be more effective. The implication here is that if our prayers are not receiving the answers we are wanting, then we must be doing it wrong! This is somewhat misleading and we do well to remind ourselves that God is not some sort of benevolent giver-out of goodies if we do things properly. God cannot be bribed or manipulated by human effort, nor does he operate like some sort of delivery service whereby we order our goods and then they appear.

Prayer is about engaging with our heavenly Father. It is about expressing the relationship we have with God and spending time with him. This is very different from the ‘shopping list’ approach. This isn’t to say that God doesn’t answer prayer, because he does. His ‘ears’ are attentive to the cries of his people, and when we pray for others, we are bringing them into the flow of God’s love and compassion that is expressed through giving us his Son and that is mirrored in our thoughts as we lift our loved ones in prayer. Sometimes this may result in miraculous intervention. More often though people find a sense of strength and support that wouldn’t otherwise be there.

If prayer could change everything, then there would be no war, no famine, no ills in the world, but of course, this is not the case. God has given human beings control over our own lives and he doesn’t trample on that gift and remove it from us. This means that many of the things that we pray for are things for which we already have the answer. For example, pray for the poor by all means, but give to them too!

So why pray? We should pray because we are created to be in a relationship with God, and like any relationship this needs time and effort to be maintained. Prayer is primarily about ‘being’ about allowing the time to rest in God’s presence, and if we are doing that, we are becoming a conduit through which love can flow into the world from the Source of all love. It changes us and it impacts upon the world around us, and sometimes, perhaps often enough to be encouraging, the supernatural power of God is released into the world and into the circumstances for which we pray with sudden and dramatic results. This does not depend upon our faith or using the correct formula or anything else that comes from us, other than the love that God has put within our hearts. It is all about the grace of God revealed to the world through Jesus Christ, by the Holy Spirit.

Let us pray…..

From one place to another

Almost thirty-five years ago I discovered Christianity, or perhaps I should say that Christianity discovered me. In essence, I had an experience in which I encountered something of the love of God expressed towards me through his Son Jesus Christ. It completely changed my life and having accepted Christ, my life was set on a course which would impact on every aspect of my being thereafter and very much still does to this day.

Following this experience, I began attending a church which expressed Christianity in a particular way. It was an evangelical charismatic church, and through my involvement with that church and the passion and enthusiasm for Christianity that was manifest there, I quickly grew in my knowledge of, and understanding of the bible as they interpreted it. I read through the entire bible in various English translations numerous times and in due course I was preaching, leading study groups and fronting the worship band with my guitar. It was also in the church that I met my beautiful wife to whom, at the date of writing I have been married for over 25 years.

As much as I value very highly a great deal of what I received through that period, as time progressed, I found myself becoming increasingly uncomfortable with some of the basic tenets of faith which found expression in that particular interpretation of ‘what it means to be a Christian’. In essence, anyone who didn’t accept and embrace certain doctrines were ‘unsaved’ and were destined for eternal damnation. Think about that for a moment! In my case this meant members of my own family, friends, neighbours, work colleagues – jolly nice people, the lot of them and yet according to the faith that I had been taught, and sought to embrace, they were all going to hell. This is clearly horrific and for a time, I took this on board and became fervent in my efforts to ‘convert’ people and preach the gospel as I understood it. In addition to this, I couldn’t understand why all the people who professed to be Christians weren’t out there, banging on doors, preaching in the streets and relentlessly telling others of their need to be ‘saved’. If they really believed this stuff, then surely the effort to rescue as many as humanly possible from eternal torment should take total precedence over absolutely everything else! Instead, what I saw was Christians bolstering each other up with bible study meetings, conferences, lively services etc. Great fun much of it, but very insular.

This created a tension within me. What if we were wrong? How could I claim to be a spokesperson for a God of love and yet proclaim a message that had such a dark side to it, a message that sought to bring about change through a fearful threat of eternal punishment? I couldn’t do it. I had decided in my mind to believe certain doctrines, but in my heart of hearts, I couldn’t accept the horror of it. I believe that this is the same reason why many ‘evangelical Christians’ are not more actively engaged in mission, in proclaiming this message of an angry and judgemental God. They, in their heart of hearts cannot accept the notion and the contradictory nature of a God who is both loving and vengeful.

There are huge problems with this particular expression of Christianity. Among these are the fact that it tries to impose upon people who neither accept, nor understand, the concept of biblical authority. Quoting bible verses to prove an argument is counter-productive in trying to voice a message to people who have no comprehension or understanding of what some Christians claim the bible to be. Many people who hear such a message, will at best simply close their ears to it, and at worst, heap derision on those who are using the bible in this way. I speak from experience! Also problematic are those who never have, and never will have the opportunity to hear and experience the preaching of the ‘gospel’. How can Christians, in all good conscience, worship a God who breathed life into people and yet placed them in geographical locations and contexts where they will never get the opportunity to hear the ‘message of salvation’?

Another difficulty with certain expressions of evangelical Christianity is that it has boundaries. There are those who are walled in, and there are those who are walled out. If you are on the inside of the wall, all is hunky dory, and conversely if you are on the outside, then you are in a perilous position. Certain people, by default appear to have been placed on the ‘outside’ for the simple reason that by matters over which they have little or no choice, they are excluded by narrow doctrine, and it seems perfectly ok for those who are on the inside to lob stones over the walls at them! I’m thinking at the moment of LGBTQ people. Those who hold such excluding views seem to apply different standards when it comes to things within their own hearts and lives that are contrary to the doctrines they hold to. It is undisguised hypocrisy.

So where do we go from here? Well in my case, I reject a faith in a psychotic God who embraces some, and casts the vast majority into eternal torment for the fickle reason of not believing the correct theology and aligning their lives with it as such.

This will create enormous problems for some of my Christian friends. Doubtless the charge of ‘heretic’ and ‘backslider’ will be levelled at me, if it isn’t already. The thing is, I don’t consider myself to be a heretic, nor a backslider. I absolutely believe in a God of love, the source of everything, Trinitarian in nature, who physically extended himself into the physical universe in the person of Jesus Christ, and who continues to work in all of creation through the Holy Spirit.

I absolutely believe in transforming love that challenges and changes human beings, and that through our relationship with God, we can find fulfilment, and journey towards becoming everything that we are created to be.

I believe that through the suffering of the cross, Jesus Christ draws alongside us and alongside the suffering of the world, and that through the resurrection, we too can be raised up with him into a new beginning. The gospel is a wonderful message of God’s love for human beings, for you and for me, and for everything that he has made.

These thoughts are embryonic, and it is difficult to capture in words all that is in my heart, but I believe these things are better understood intuitively rather than with our minds. Love cannot be analysed but it can be experienced, it can be given and it can be received. I am aware too that there is much that I haven’t addressed in my words above. What about suffering for example? I don’t have a simple answer that a few theological words and bible verses can satisfactorily address, but I do believe that we are not alone in our brokenness. God experienced it too in the brutal murder of Jesus Christ, and in the context of eternity, God still experiences and shares in our brokenness. The heart of God is always inclined towards that which he has made. He never rejects it, after all, everything that he has made has come out of his own heart of love and self-expressive creativity and carries the mark of his image. For us, we can trust, and we can say ‘thank you’.

Love and peace.

What does it mean to love God?

I recently read an article online entitled ‘Are You in Love?’( http://www.faithwriters.com/article-details.php?id=166298). Whilst I agree totally with articles’ intent, which was clearly to encourage people into a deeper relationship with our loving Heavenly Father, there was a rather critical tone to some of its content and so I felt that I would like examine the same subject from a differen angle.

Are you in love? What a splendid question! A question that is of course very appropriate not only for the month of February when I first read the article and  in which many people celebrate Valentine’s Day, but also a good question to ask at any time of the year. In the context of Christianity though, the question needs to be a little bit bigger and perhaps would have been better phrased ‘What does it mean to love God?’  It is unfortunate in our modern society in which equality for all, irrespective of age, gender, race etc rightfully plays such an increasingly important role, that the article suggested that Christians should ‘submit to God like a wife submits to her husband.’ The author of the article, in using human relationships as a comparison makes a point that is completely irrelevant in our modern era. I am reminded that the marriage vows no longer require the woman to ‘love, cherish and obey’ her husband. A true loving relationship on human terms is not about domination, control and subservience, but about equality and partnership.

In asking ‘Are you in love?’ Perhaps we should also ask ‘What is love?’ Certainly the most important commandment, as Jesus said is to “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your mind and with all your strength”. The implications of this are enormous and they certainly do not include criticising those who come to church to offer their worship and making judgements about the sincerity of those who attend church services even if the intent is to encourage a greater and more active involvement in church services.

What does it mean to love God? Well, as I see it, love for God cannot be easily compared or paralleled with love on a human level in terms of our relationships. Whilst the analogy is there in the New Testament, unfortunately, like all analogies, it breaks down a little if it is stretched too far. The love of which the bible speaks is primarily about sacrifice.... the relinquishing of self in the service of God. This has nothing to do with the emotions and hormones which drive our physical attraction to other human beings and are the catalyst for the development of loving relationships between two people causing them to fall ‘madly in love’. If someone were to tell me that they are ‘madly in love with God’ I would think them to be a little bit odd. In contrast to this, if someone were to speak of being ‘totally devoted to God’ I find that this is a much more appropriate and reverent approach to our relationship with God... and whilst emotion and fervour can play a huge part in this, these things are very transient and can change according to our moods and circumstances.

True love of God is ‘sacrificial’ in nature. It is about putting ourselves in His hands and yielding ourselves to him. St Paul in the New Testament frequently refers to himself and other Christians as ‘servants of God’. This is what we should strive to be and it is expressed not just in the singing of hymns and ‘acts of worship’ in which we participate in our church services, but in the way in which we serve each other and the community around us.

The wonderful thing is though, that Jesus perfectly exemplifies this servant attitude... as he said of himself, ‘The Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many’ (Matthew 20v28). He is the example we should follow, giving ourselves to God and to our fellow human beings. As St Paul writes in Romans 12v1 ‘I appeal to you therefore, brothers and sisters, by the mercies of God, to present yourselves as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.’

Blessings

Carl.