Part II - Chapter Six: Why Pray?
This chapter addresses many of the questions we have about unanswered prayers. And if God is in control and always knows best, why go to Him with our petty requests? The best answer Yancey gives is that Jesus thought prayer was important and devoted much time to it. If Jesus, "...knew above any of us the wisdom of the Father," yet still flooded heaven with requests, we should recognize the necessity of prayer in our own lives.
Yancey writes about how Jesus responded to different situations by praying. When Satan asked to sift Simon Peter like wheat, Jesus prayed Peter's faith would not fail. But Peter's faith did fail. He betrayed Jesus three times. Would we consider this an unanswered prayer? No. As Yancey points out, "The twelve periodically surprised and disappointed Jesus with their petty concerns and their inadequate faith. In the end, all twelve failed him at the hour of his deepest need. Eventually, however, eleven of the twelve underwent a slow but steady transformation, providing a kind of long-term answer to Jesus' original prayer."
Another passage in this chapter that I will never forget is where Yancey quotes Haddon Robinson's words:
Where was it that Jesus sweat great drops of blood? Not in Pilate's Hall, nor on his way to Golgotha. It was in the Garden of Gethsemane. There he "offered up prayers and petitions with loud cries and tears to the One who could save him from death" (Hebrews 5:7). Had I been there and witnessed that struggle, I would have worried about the future. "If he is so broken up when all he is doing is praying," I might have said, "what will he do when he faces a real crisis? Why can't he approach this ordeal with the calm confidence of his three sleeping friends?" Yet, when the test came, Jesus walked to the cross with courage, and his three friends fell apart and fell away.
Yancy goes on to ask the questions we have all asked, such as why suffering is distributed so randomly and unfairly. Why does God miraculously intervene so rarely? Yancey's answer to that question is God's unfathomable respect for human freedom. My answer would be God's sovereignty and providence in all of creation. Yancey believes God allows things to play out "naturally." I believe that to those who love God and are called according to His purpose, all things work together for good. This applies even to those areas of our lives where it seems as if God is not answering our prayers. He always hears us and there is always a response. But sometimes it is God's will for us to suffer or go through a difficult experience. Not understanding why is a part of trusting Him.
I loved the ending paragraph: "When I betray the love and grace God has shown me, I fall back on the promise that Jesus prays for me -- as he did for Peter -- not that I would never face testing, nor ever fail, but that in the end I will allow God to use the testing and failure to mold me into someone more useful to the kingdom, someone more like Jesus."
Early in the chapter Yancey confronts the irony of a God who provides a parking space but allows Auschwitz and Hiroshima. As I read this, I recalled some of my own painful memories concerning prayer over twenty years ago. As some of you already know, I lost my mother to colon cancer when she was barely 49 years old and I was just 28. We discovered she had terminal cancer in November of 1986 and she died in June of 1987. During those seven months, I helped to care for her and everyone in our church prayed fervently for her healing. Our pastor had shared with us that God had told him it was His will for my mother to be healed and that she would not die. The whole church took those words to heart and believed God for her healing. Many had their own personal experiences confirming that she would be healed. Yet she steadily declined.
My mother prayed for parking spaces and emphatically claimed God provided them for her. But He did not prolong her life here on earth.
My mother told me that if it was God's will for her to die and not be physically healed, she accepted that. But I know that she was robbed of some of the peace she could have had in facing death if she had not been having to question whether or not it was her own lack of faith that was preventing her healing; the healing everyone kept insisting was God's will. It obviously was not God's will and nobody had truly heard from God on this. That was a very powerful event in my life. It was through witnessing this that I began to put less faith in "experiences."
Several years later, I asked my former pastor why he thought my mother was not healed if he still believed God had told him that it was His will that she not die. My pastor blamed her death on the sin of the people in the church. He talked about the Old Testament story of how the Israelites were supposed to be victorious, but they were defeated because of "sin in the camp." I remember having the strong impression that God didn't necessarily even want me to challenge his thinking, but He did want me to hear these words and remember them. I knew I was supposed to question this in my own heart.
There has always been sin in the camp. If his explanation had been true, then there would never be any miraculous healings anywhere. And the most obvious response to his explanation would have been, "Then Christ's blood was not enough to pay for their sins. My mother's blood was required."
Reading this chapter brought back all of those memories. I believe this was the beginning point of deeper questioning and my eyes being opened to the false teachings I had been raised in. But, even so, it was the beginning of a long process of deliverance. God did not fully deliver me until many years later. I am not only thankful for the full deliverance, I am thankful for the long process. I know God answers prayer outside of time. I don't believe the lack of immediate intervention is so much about God's respect for my personal freedom. I believe I belong to Him. He has purchased me with the blood of His Son. And He knows, much better than I, what it takes to complete His work in my life. HE is the author and finisher of my faith.
Yancey writes about how Jesus responded to different situations by praying. When Satan asked to sift Simon Peter like wheat, Jesus prayed Peter's faith would not fail. But Peter's faith did fail. He betrayed Jesus three times. Would we consider this an unanswered prayer? No. As Yancey points out, "The twelve periodically surprised and disappointed Jesus with their petty concerns and their inadequate faith. In the end, all twelve failed him at the hour of his deepest need. Eventually, however, eleven of the twelve underwent a slow but steady transformation, providing a kind of long-term answer to Jesus' original prayer."
Another passage in this chapter that I will never forget is where Yancey quotes Haddon Robinson's words:
Where was it that Jesus sweat great drops of blood? Not in Pilate's Hall, nor on his way to Golgotha. It was in the Garden of Gethsemane. There he "offered up prayers and petitions with loud cries and tears to the One who could save him from death" (Hebrews 5:7). Had I been there and witnessed that struggle, I would have worried about the future. "If he is so broken up when all he is doing is praying," I might have said, "what will he do when he faces a real crisis? Why can't he approach this ordeal with the calm confidence of his three sleeping friends?" Yet, when the test came, Jesus walked to the cross with courage, and his three friends fell apart and fell away.
Yancy goes on to ask the questions we have all asked, such as why suffering is distributed so randomly and unfairly. Why does God miraculously intervene so rarely? Yancey's answer to that question is God's unfathomable respect for human freedom. My answer would be God's sovereignty and providence in all of creation. Yancey believes God allows things to play out "naturally." I believe that to those who love God and are called according to His purpose, all things work together for good. This applies even to those areas of our lives where it seems as if God is not answering our prayers. He always hears us and there is always a response. But sometimes it is God's will for us to suffer or go through a difficult experience. Not understanding why is a part of trusting Him.
I loved the ending paragraph: "When I betray the love and grace God has shown me, I fall back on the promise that Jesus prays for me -- as he did for Peter -- not that I would never face testing, nor ever fail, but that in the end I will allow God to use the testing and failure to mold me into someone more useful to the kingdom, someone more like Jesus."
Early in the chapter Yancey confronts the irony of a God who provides a parking space but allows Auschwitz and Hiroshima. As I read this, I recalled some of my own painful memories concerning prayer over twenty years ago. As some of you already know, I lost my mother to colon cancer when she was barely 49 years old and I was just 28. We discovered she had terminal cancer in November of 1986 and she died in June of 1987. During those seven months, I helped to care for her and everyone in our church prayed fervently for her healing. Our pastor had shared with us that God had told him it was His will for my mother to be healed and that she would not die. The whole church took those words to heart and believed God for her healing. Many had their own personal experiences confirming that she would be healed. Yet she steadily declined.
My mother prayed for parking spaces and emphatically claimed God provided them for her. But He did not prolong her life here on earth.
My mother told me that if it was God's will for her to die and not be physically healed, she accepted that. But I know that she was robbed of some of the peace she could have had in facing death if she had not been having to question whether or not it was her own lack of faith that was preventing her healing; the healing everyone kept insisting was God's will. It obviously was not God's will and nobody had truly heard from God on this. That was a very powerful event in my life. It was through witnessing this that I began to put less faith in "experiences."
Several years later, I asked my former pastor why he thought my mother was not healed if he still believed God had told him that it was His will that she not die. My pastor blamed her death on the sin of the people in the church. He talked about the Old Testament story of how the Israelites were supposed to be victorious, but they were defeated because of "sin in the camp." I remember having the strong impression that God didn't necessarily even want me to challenge his thinking, but He did want me to hear these words and remember them. I knew I was supposed to question this in my own heart.
There has always been sin in the camp. If his explanation had been true, then there would never be any miraculous healings anywhere. And the most obvious response to his explanation would have been, "Then Christ's blood was not enough to pay for their sins. My mother's blood was required."
Reading this chapter brought back all of those memories. I believe this was the beginning point of deeper questioning and my eyes being opened to the false teachings I had been raised in. But, even so, it was the beginning of a long process of deliverance. God did not fully deliver me until many years later. I am not only thankful for the full deliverance, I am thankful for the long process. I know God answers prayer outside of time. I don't believe the lack of immediate intervention is so much about God's respect for my personal freedom. I believe I belong to Him. He has purchased me with the blood of His Son. And He knows, much better than I, what it takes to complete His work in my life. HE is the author and finisher of my faith.
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