How God answers prayer

Now that my arm is fully able to type, i have no excuses for not posting. Yesterday, there was an interesting lesson on how God answers prayer. The answer is that He is fond of answering us in ways we don't expect.

I talked with our music leader about the subject, and the example of Elijah at the brook, when the brook dries up, and he is thirsty. We would expect he asked God which rock to strike (ala Moses) for more water. Simple prayer request. "Lord I thirst. Which rock?". God tells him: "Go to Zarephath...I have ordered a widow to give you food." Not a simple answer. For the full story read 1st Kings chapter 17. The widow has nothing when Elijah arrives, yet they are provided for. When Elijah arrives, the situation seems hopeless, God has sent him to someone with nothing.

This is not the way we expect our prayers to be answered. When we need a job, we expect God to provide. When we are sick, we expect to be healed, and if we are not we wonder if we have done something wrong, or go to the wrong church. Perhaps that church down the road with that strange looking steeple has more powerful prayer warriors able to convince God to heal.

We talked about how often God's answers are not what we expect. For many when God doesn't answer the way we expect, we think our prayer has failed, not seeing that often God's answers are far more complex than we realize.

The next addition to this theme was from a woman who is also a poet. She told me of praying for new people to come to an AA meeting, wanting someone with experience to teach her. The ones God sent were not the ones she was expecting.

Three of the most miserable drunks, down as far as it was possible to go, showed up. Not what she asked for, yet God had sent exactly who she needed to meet. Like Elijah at Zeraphath, God's plan was far stranger than she had imagined. She saw God at work there, and she joined God ,in a prayer answered in a far different way than she had imagined.

Another take on this theme came from a friend without a job for two years, still looking, but loosing hope. Prayer seems to have had no effect on God.

Reading Psalm 74, the author starts "Why have you rejected us forever, O God?"...
It seems this writer of the psalms, also had this problem with God. Why did he seem asleep? In verse 10 he continues "How long will this enemy mock you O God?"

For many Christians, when God doesn't answer our prayers the way we demand, not healing, not providing a job, we are disheartened. We lose hope. It's easy to fall into that pit. What do we do when God is silent? Do we still trust Him? Read Job for a man who has God take all from him, family, money, health, any yet will not curse Him. Will you trust when God doesn't answer your prayers the way you demand?

A poem from God heard on 9-11-2001

This poem was written on that awful day 10 years ago. I knew nothing of who was guilty. I heard this question from God. I now know much more about the danger of Islam. We face an economic abyss that could make the “Great Depression” of the 30's look like a minor bump. So this question from God seems even more timely. “Will you trust Me...?” Will we “find joy in midst of suffering.”?

Being a disciple isn't easy. Never has been. Never will. This strange gift. God inviting us to join Him in the fellowship of His suffering. Can you “drink My cup”. Knowing we can trust Him. Knowing He loves us, yet He offers this most strange gift. Why do you offer someone you love the gift of suffering? Yet this is exactly what Jesus did for us. He not only died for us, but more amazingly, He suffered with us.

Today's question. What does it mean to be a disciple?
The rest is exactly as it was written on that dark day 10 years ago. A question from God. A poem from God. I just take dictation.

Suffering, God’s Gift

I offer gift to you
suffering, pain & woe.
All stronger than you
can stand or endure.
Will you trust Me
when I offer this gift?
Will you still follow
as you bear your cross.

Cross too heavy
to carry on your own.
Will you join martyrs
ready to die for Me?
In midst of senseless death.
Death of innocents
death unexplained
pain to no purpose.

Will you seek My purpose?
Will you follow Me?
Will you drink My cup
offered James & John?
Will you find joy
in midst of suffering?
Feel My love
in midst of tears?

© Presbypoet, 1: 15 PM, September 11, 2001, still in shock at unknown, awful, pain and loss.
Loss that served no good purpose, yet death planned by unknown killers. Lord, help us see you in this pain.
Help us see you in such awful death.
Help us say, forgive them, they know not what they do.

Dangerous Certainty

Dangerous Certainty,.
We like certainty. I want to be certain of the truth. This seems a good thing:
“Is this who I'm to marry? I want certainty.”
“Is this the best investment for retirement? I want certainty.”
“Is this the right job? I want certainty.”
“Is this the right religion? I want certainty.”
“Is this the best place to put solar lights for my path? I must be certain.”
The list goes on, and on, as we seek certainty.

Certainty seems essential. When we decide, we want to be right.
But, certainty has a downside, expressed by the paradox:
The more certain I am, the harder it is to find the truth.

When I am certain of a political party, I can be blind to it's faults. Make excuses when it makes a mistake. Ignore a mistake, because my enemies made the accusation.

To hear God, and yet be both certain and uncertain, at the same time, is a hard paradox of being a disciple. Like a bad radio trying to pick up a station just at the outer limits of reception. What did He say? Did I hear correctly? How to confirm? A life of bewildered certainty.

Thus, certainty is both goal and temptation. Our goal to hear God, yet also verify. To know it's God we hear. Like that special forces soldier in enemy territory, ready to throw away assumptions. Always alert. Ready to discard certainties.

Finding peace in the midst of suffering

An encounter with a pastor's daughter.

Sitting down to eat a hot dog, I didn't expect a divine appointment. I asked a 20 something woman, “Was this seat taken?” What ensued was a serious discussion about church, pastor's kids, divorce, unwed mothers, pain, pastors, forgiveness, being a real church family, and a very good hot dog.

As we talked, she reveled a horrifying story. Her married sister, is being threatened and stalked by her husband, who just served her with divorce papers. This sister has three close non-Christian friends. They say, “one thing they see in her is peace.” We saw how her sister's peace was an example of real peace available to Christians. Not peace in absence of pain, but peace in midst of pain. We pondered if pain is God's plan, or consequence of sin, and agreed it seemed a mixture of both. I told her how suffering I've gone through has refined. How God asked me. “What will you do when I allow it to rain.” Yet sin has consequences.

Then her story got even more interesting. It also included her. A reason her sister's looming divorce wasn't causing problems in their father's church, was the sister I spoke to, got pregnant when only 18. This horrified many in the church, who blamed her father for not keeping her from getting pregnant. As though being a pastor is a substitute for abstinence or contraception. She said, “I felt a need to rebel.” She estimated 250 people left the church over the issue. She thought the church was better for it. The church now was more of a family, where anything could be discussed, not a place people pretended to be nice. We agreed how dangerous it was, when people pretend they are nice.

I said, as a Calvinist, I was fully aware of the depravity of man, particularly men. How hard it was to forgive pastors. This story, an example how people look for perfect pastors. They will never find them.

She dismissed getting married. She didn't want to make another mistake, to hide the first one. It is interesting how her obvious “sin”, led to a more open church, no longer pretending perfection.

We seem to focus on visible sin. A guy gets away with it, (except for paternity suits). He can sit in church looking “innocent”, while she sits, exposed to all. Baby bulge impossible to ignore. We focus on visible sin, forgetting sins of omission are twice as bad. Easy to gossip about sin, indifferent to courage to keep a child, and not take the easy road of killing it to hide her sin. We all sin, it's just some are more visible.

Driving home, I thought how her getting pregnant, could be a consequence of her innocence. Not aware how passion's power hobbles women, she is tempted, then overwhelmed by feelings, her control center shut down. How can you know what it is like until you do it? It only takes one time to get pregnant. A lesson on sin's danger. So easy to be trapped by temptation.

Truth found with a hot dog. Another divine appointment,
and:
A question from Jesus
Why do you pretend to be perfect?
Refuse to admit that you sin.
Who do you seek to fool?

Don't you know I forgive sinners?
Don't you know I died to free you?
Confess your need. Let me heal you.
© Presbypoet August 23, 2011

To Be a Disciple

Jesus said “Follow Me.” to those He chose and Chooses. Follow Jesus. What does it mean? Simple answer? Just do what Jesus would do. The WWJD thing. Life as, ”Imitation of Christ”. Learn as much about Jesus as possible, and obey his teachings. The problem: This simple answer is wrong. This is why.

First, being a disciple doesn't flow from what you do, but from being intimate with Jesus. To walk with Him. Be filled With Him. When and IF you take communion, think...If I take Jesus within me, not as memorial for an amazing thing that happened around 1,981 years ago, but as a paradoxical blessing of power, Right Now, if it doesn't change me, calls into question if I truly took Him in.

It seems a paradox, if you don't believe you took him in, you don't. If you believe you took Him IN, then you do. So somehow, in the same way that an observer seems to effect what happens to electrons and slits or Schrodinger’s cat in quantum mechanics experiments, do we influence what happens in the mass? (as Catholics are fond of calling it).

I prefer to call it communion, because if lowly unworthy me somehow takes God within me, and this somehow transforms me, communion seems as close as we can to describe this amazing concept. I commune with God. Not in a master-servant thing that seems like getting scrapings from the table. Instead, this is the story of the Prodigal.

Son comes back. Father kills the fatted calf. I come to communion. I offer myself. Nothing more, nothing less. My best just filthy rags. Emptied, I can be filled. As Jesus promised, those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, “Will Be Filled.” This is the amazing gift of the table. God invites me, an inconsequential being on the third planet from a mid-sized star, in a backwater galaxy, far from the center of said galaxy, TO BE FILLED. God threw a party for me. He killed the fatted calf for me. All I do is show up.

This is why following is misleading. You don't have to chase God. Seek to know “mysteries”. Study for 40 years to learn “All he commands.” All you do is show up. Offer to be emptied to be filled.

Ah, here is one major problem. We know we must surrender, but get it slightly wrong. We think it's about what we give up. We try to earn a gift. “Lord, look what I gave up for you.” As though that was of slightest importance. Remember pearl beyond price, or treasure in the field.

Or we tell God. “Look what I don't do.” I don't drink. I don't smoke. I don't dance. I don't go to parties. I don't swear. I don't.”..The “I don't” list is far too long to be contained in any book short of a Steven King opus, another don't... “I don't read Steven King.”

God is like the father, he doesn't care what you gave up, anymore than the father cares his son gave up feeding pigs. His son is present. Back from the dead. God offers to throw the most wonderful party for US, the amazing party is communion. Come celebrate. Come join the party. Be filled.

This is being a disciple. Just show up, to be filled. Hunger for righteousness. A disciple of Jesus, ready to embark with Him on a journey of intimacy. Learn to hear his voice. Learn to be still and listen, then learn to hear Him in the midst of chaos.

This journey is a lifetime commitment. An infinite trail of sanctification, suffering, refining and divine appointments. Like a special forces soldier dropped deep into enemy territory, totally alert to all around. Mindful. Seeking to join God in His plan, to Be a disciple of Jesus.

For those committed to communion as memorial service, ask yourself if the remembering might be to remember that you have taken Jesus within you. This is the memory to remember. Not just the amazing event of nearly 2K years ago, but that Jesus is present in you now.

Revelation 3:19 &20 points to Jesus telling us that He stands at the door and knocks. If we let Him in, He will sup with us. This is at the heart of discipleship. We take God within. We are His. We sup with him, or better still, we have a feast of joy with Him.

Three words sum up a journey with Jesus. Three words, all at the same time, in a triple paradox: Fearless, Joyful, Obedience. Simple words to meditate on and to live in a life of intimate discipleship. So simple. So hard. Each one an infinity. Together a trinity of infinity. So join with me and Jesus on a journey into infinity. The journey of joy that is true discipleship.