Day 18: Does God Answer Prayer
Does God answer prayer?
If you were expecting a Yes or No answer, you don’t know me very well. And if you do know me, you might suspect correctly that it’s a trick question.
First, it’s not a good question. It’s not a well-framed question because it is based on assumptions that lead people astray rather than help them understand God.
It assumes that prayer is always a request and that those requests are reasonable. You might as well ask, “Do parents give their children what they ask for?” The answer would be, “It depends.” It depends on what the children are asking for. Are we asking God reasonable requests?
It assumes, if prayer is a request, that we know how to ask and what to ask for. It’s the difference between “Give us this day our daily bread,” and “Give me a big fat juicy steak.” The first concerns itself with humble primary needs, and the second with over-stimulated taste buds. We need to ask ourselves, “What should we be asking (praying) for?”
The question, “Does God answer prayer,” is an unfair proposition. It limits prayer to a one-sided understanding — the Yes/No model where God stands on the other side of wall, curtain, or impenetrable barrier. We stick our prayer requests under the door or through latched door, and he hands back his answer, “There!” Or he doesn’t answer at all.
When we make these assumptions, when we reduce God to a Yes/No question, we limit the infinite, indescribable, inconceivable person of God. In the Old Testament, Job and his friends try to explain why Job suffers, who God is, and whether God answers when people cry out . After more than 30 chapters of talking around God, God himself lays into them:
1 Then the LORD answered Job out of the storm. He said:
2 "Who is this that darkens my counsel
with words without knowledge?
3 Brace yourself like a man;
I will question you,
and you shall answer me.
4 "Where were you when I laid the earth's foundation?
Tell me, if you understand.
[Job 38:1-4]*
God has answers beyond human understanding that make Yes/No propositions look stupid — stupid in the sense that they are without the intelligence, appreciation of the complex, wisdom, caring and love that differentiate humans made in God’s image from all the other creatures of the earth.
So now what? We begin by changing prayer from a question into a conversation, a dialogue, a dynamic relationship, dare I even suggest a dance.
We need to see the path of prayer – that what may seem like a binary answer: 1 or 0, yes or no — is really more like binary code, a series of 1’s and 0’s that act upon one another to produce a far larger, elegant masterpiece.
What may be No at one juncture may be Yes a little further down. What we hear as negatives and positives are simple redirection of our path to an ultimate outcome that we could not have imagined if we just stuck with a solitary Yes or No.
In Isaiah 1:18, God invites us:
"Come now, let us reason together,"
says the LORD.
"Though your sins are like scarlet,
they shall be as white as snow;
though they are red as crimson,
they shall be like wool.
He says that sin or wrong doing or feeling guilty or the worst that we are — do not have to stay that way forever. God overwrites the presumptions that block us from engaging with Him in meaningful relationship. God himself calmly sits us down and invites us to not so much negotiate a settlement as learn about the deeper matters of the heart with Him as our counselor.
Does God answer prayer? In short yes, always yes if we with him look for the answers together.
If you were expecting a Yes or No answer, you don’t know me very well. And if you do know me, you might suspect correctly that it’s a trick question.
First, it’s not a good question. It’s not a well-framed question because it is based on assumptions that lead people astray rather than help them understand God.
It assumes that prayer is always a request and that those requests are reasonable. You might as well ask, “Do parents give their children what they ask for?” The answer would be, “It depends.” It depends on what the children are asking for. Are we asking God reasonable requests?
It assumes, if prayer is a request, that we know how to ask and what to ask for. It’s the difference between “Give us this day our daily bread,” and “Give me a big fat juicy steak.” The first concerns itself with humble primary needs, and the second with over-stimulated taste buds. We need to ask ourselves, “What should we be asking (praying) for?”
The question, “Does God answer prayer,” is an unfair proposition. It limits prayer to a one-sided understanding — the Yes/No model where God stands on the other side of wall, curtain, or impenetrable barrier. We stick our prayer requests under the door or through latched door, and he hands back his answer, “There!” Or he doesn’t answer at all.
When we make these assumptions, when we reduce God to a Yes/No question, we limit the infinite, indescribable, inconceivable person of God. In the Old Testament, Job and his friends try to explain why Job suffers, who God is, and whether God answers when people cry out . After more than 30 chapters of talking around God, God himself lays into them:
1 Then the LORD answered Job out of the storm. He said:
2 "Who is this that darkens my counsel
with words without knowledge?
3 Brace yourself like a man;
I will question you,
and you shall answer me.
4 "Where were you when I laid the earth's foundation?
Tell me, if you understand.
[Job 38:1-4]*
God has answers beyond human understanding that make Yes/No propositions look stupid — stupid in the sense that they are without the intelligence, appreciation of the complex, wisdom, caring and love that differentiate humans made in God’s image from all the other creatures of the earth.
So now what? We begin by changing prayer from a question into a conversation, a dialogue, a dynamic relationship, dare I even suggest a dance.
We need to see the path of prayer – that what may seem like a binary answer: 1 or 0, yes or no — is really more like binary code, a series of 1’s and 0’s that act upon one another to produce a far larger, elegant masterpiece.
What may be No at one juncture may be Yes a little further down. What we hear as negatives and positives are simple redirection of our path to an ultimate outcome that we could not have imagined if we just stuck with a solitary Yes or No.
In Isaiah 1:18, God invites us:
"Come now, let us reason together,"
says the LORD.
"Though your sins are like scarlet,
they shall be as white as snow;
though they are red as crimson,
they shall be like wool.
He says that sin or wrong doing or feeling guilty or the worst that we are — do not have to stay that way forever. God overwrites the presumptions that block us from engaging with Him in meaningful relationship. God himself calmly sits us down and invites us to not so much negotiate a settlement as learn about the deeper matters of the heart with Him as our counselor.
Does God answer prayer? In short yes, always yes if we with him look for the answers together.
posted by Pam Chun at 10:40 PM
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