Leaping in the dark

Are you afraid of letting God get a grip on you? Do you stand at a distance, too scared to let him get close? Do you fear what he might do with you, or ask you to do, if you handed over your life to him?

In one sense, we should all be afraid of God. We should never underestimate his power and awesomeness. It is a dreadful thing to fall, unprepared, into the hands of the living God.

But it's not this reverent fear which holds many of us back from putting ourselves fully in God's hands. Our fear comes from other sources.

Some fear losing control. They've had unpleasant experiences of being controlled and manipulated by others. Perhaps they've been through a time where life was chaotically out of control and they've vowed (often subconsciously) never to let that happen to them again. They want to believe God can be trusted, but there's a dreadful emotional barrier in the way.

Some would like to be closer to God, but they're already committed to serving someone or something else - their career, their reputation, their parents or spouse, an ideology, an organization or a secret society. They're unwilling to depose their idol, and God allows no rivals.

Half-heartedness is sometimes a mask for laziness. While I continue to serve God on my terms, I can set limits to how much time and effort I give him. Being a paid servant is one thing, becoming a slave of Christ is quite another. But fear can also cause half-heartedness - what if God asked me to do more than I could cope with? What if I never achieve the things I want to achieve because I'm too busy doing God's work?

Satan uses our fears to keep us at a distance from God. He tells us God doesn't have our best interest at heart. He keeps the word "fanatic" fresh in our minds. He holds us over a dark abyss and whispers "This is faith. Do you really want to jump?"

Jesus calls to us, "Follow me". But where? What will happen along the way? Putting all our trust in him can seem like a leap in the dark, until we understand how he proved his trustworthiness on the cross. If you are afraid to trust your life to God, or know that he's asking you to trust him more, talk to another Christian about it and ask them to pray with you. The only truly safe place in the universe is in God's hands.

Photo by Mitchell Hartley on Unsplash

Help me, Lord

Where do you go when life hurts? Who do you turn to when your health falters, when relationships sour, when things happen which leave you feeling sad, angry, weary or frightened? As Christians we know the answer: "Take it to the Lord in prayer."

Unfortunately, despite the old song, many of us have learned that it's selfish to pray for ourselves. Ignoring the ache in our hearts, we methodically work through praise, thanksgiving and praying for others before we bring our own problems to God. It's as though, somehow, we must earn the right to talk to him about ourselves.

Imagine a child coming to her father and saying "Dad, you're the greatest. I'm really grateful for all the things you've given me. Please look after my sister Mary, who has a sore thumb. And Dad, I've broken my wrist and it hurts."

I'm not suggesting that we shouldn't regularly praise and thank God. Nor should we be selfish and demanding children who ignore the needs of others. Sometimes praying for others can lift us out of a mood of self-pity. 

But it's easy to fall into the subtle temptation to use praise, thanksgiving and intercession for others as a means of twisting God's arm. We may seem to be honouring God. Yet what we're really doing is showing a lack of trust in him and probably feeding our own pride as well. ("See how unselfish I am, praying for Mary before I pray for myself".)

The psalmists often poured out their hearts to God, before reminding themselves of his goodness to them in the past. Praise frequently followed their laments, but not always. Their prayers sometimes seem quite abrupt and self-focused. Yet it would be difficult to accuse the psalmists of not trusting God or not taking him seriously.

Jesus taught his disciples to begin their prayers with worship (Father, hallowed be your name) and a commitment to God's kingdom (Your will be done) before asking him to meet their own needs (Give us this day). This is how we should pray most of the time. 

Yet it's not the way that Jesus prayed in Gethsemane or on the cross. Nor did he ever turn anyone away because they failed to worship and thank him before they asked for healing. The very fact that they came to him for healing showed that they recognised who he was and put their trust in him. We can do the same.

Image by Steve Bidmead from Pixabay

Precious gifts

Imagine that a friend gives you a present, rather clumsily wrapped. You know that your friend has very different tastes to yours, in fact, if you were quite truthful, you'd say that they have poor taste. So you unwrap the parcel with some trepidation. Inside you find a plain white candle in some sort of glass candle holder. You try to look impressed, but the thing is unattractive, hideously old-fashioned,and not at all in keeping with your decor. You thank them politely, and as soon as they've gone you put it away in a cupboard and forget about it.

A few weeks later there's a power failure. Stumbling around in the dark, you look for a candle and find your friend's candle holder. Gratefully you light it and at last you have a little light. And now you realise that when the light shines through the glass, the candle holder is exquisitely beautiful. There are colours and patterns in the glass that you couldn't see before.

Sometimes when we try to tell people about Jesus and the gospel, our words are like that candle holder. They seem clumsy and we wish we knew how to present them better. Those listening receive them with polite indifference, even embarrassment, because what we say seems so out-dated, and doesn't at all fit in with their personal "interior decor". Next time we meet them, they seem to have forgotten everything we said. We may be tempted to stop speaking to them about Jesus altogether.

We can pray, though, that one day, in a dark moment in their lives, they will remember our words. When they do, they will discover that with the light of the Holy Spirit shining through them, they are a most precious gift.

Holding on to faith

Most of us have probably wondered at some stage whether we can really go on being a Christian until the end of our lives. Our faith seems so weak and wobbly at times.

Perhaps we’ve struggled with doubts about certain doctrines, or felt puzzled and disturbed by something we've read in the Bible. Maybe we’ve tried to share the gospel with others and found ourselves flummoxed by their questions or their negative response.

Or perhaps we’re disheartened by our own lack of discipline in Bible reading, prayer and service. We determine to do better, but soon we get distracted by other things. Some distractions we have no control over, like illness in the family, but sometimes we’re way-laid by trivia. We begin to fear that we’re back-sliding so fast that soon we’ll be unable to hold on to our faith.

Christians in many parts of the world face much harsher threats to their faith. Their fear is that they may denounce Christ under torture, or hide their faith in order not to lose their livelihood. In comparison, our fears seem pathetic. But they are real, nevertheless. We’ve all met people who once were Christians, who now disclaim their faith. We don’t want to become like them.

The fact that we do fear losing our faith is actually reassuring. It’s a sign that the Spirit is still at work within us, otherwise why would we care? But how will we remain faithful?

It’s humbling, yet also heartening, to realise that in the end we remain in Christ because he who called us, and gave us faith to believe in him in the first place, continues to call us and give us faith. He gives us the faith to read, to understand, to pray, to act. He holds onto us when our thoughts are scattered or dreadful, when our reading and praying seem hollow, when we’re weary of doing good. (Phil 1:6)

And he provides faithful people around us to pray for us, and encourage us to keep going. The greatest prayer we can pray for another Christian is “Lord, preserve their faith”.

Blinded by prejudice

But to this day the LORD has not given you a heart to understand or eyes to see or ears to hear.
 (Deuteronomy 29:4)

Two sorts of people never change their mind - those suffering from delusions caused by mental illness, and the prejudiced. Mental illness can often be treated, but prejudice has no treatment. 

A person whose mind is open to the truth may have very strongly held beliefs based on false information, but once they have better information, they are willing to change their beliefs. No amount of new information will change the mind of the prejudiced because they have already “prejudged” whatever they see and hear.

Perhaps this is what scripture is describing when it speaks of God ‘hardening the heart’ of Pharaoh (Exodus 7.3), or blinding the eyes and shutting the ears of those who have rejected the truth (Isaiah 6:10, John 12:38). To us that may sound unfair. Doesn’t God want people to change their minds? Yes, he does.

Their unbelief is not caused by God, that is their own choice. But once someone has made up their minds not to see or hear anything that contradicts what they believe, only God can change that. Nothing else will. God doesn’t literally close their minds, but only he can soften their hearts and open their eyes and ears. In a sense, it becomes his choice.

This has implications for evangelism. When we share the gospel, we also need to pray that God will open our listener’s ears and eyes and hearts. But it also has implications for ourselves. None of us is free of prejudice of some kind. We need to pray that God would show us where we are blind and deaf to the truth, and that he would heal us. 

Praying for your enemies

Jesus said..“But I tell you, love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you and pray for those who mistreat you.” (Luke 6:27)

When I originally planned this series I intended that the next article after “Pray for one another” should be “Pray for your enemies.” It is no co-incidence that it has taken me so long to get around to writing it. Obedience to Jesus’ command that we pray for our enemies and do good to those who hate us is surely one of the most difficult tests of our discipleship.

Who is my enemy? As a child I naively thought that all Christians were ‘nice’ people, and nice people should not have any enemies. I’ve since discovered that sadly neither of these are true. While it may be true that inoffensive people don’t make many enemies, we are not called to be inoffensive. We are called to follow Christ. If Jesus, the best person who ever lived, had many enemies, we should also expect to have enemies. Those who hate Christ will hate us too.

What’s more, it’s not just the rampant atheist and other fanatics who may wish us ill. Our enemies may be those closest to us.The psalmist speaks of “friends” who soothe us with insincere words before going out and slandering us. (Psalm 41:6-9). Jesus said our worst enemies would come from within our own household (Matt 10:36). He himself was betrayed by a disciple and sent to his death by the leaders of his own people.

We should be careful, however, not to label as ‘enemies’ those who simply irritate us, annoy us or let us down. In The Cost of Discipleship Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote “Our enemies are those who harbor hostility against us, not those against whom we cherish hostility.” Certainly we should pray for the well being of those we find difficult to love, but our lack of love and patience towards them is our problem, not theirs. Jesus bore no hostility towards the disciples who deserted him in his trials.

Why should we pray for our enemies? Quoting Proverbs 25, Paul wrote that by praying for our enemies we would “heap burning coals on their heads.” This is sometimes taken to mean that our purpose in praying should be to make our enemies uncomfortable and shame them into changing their behaviour. (The Good News Bible even translates this phrase as “you will make him burn with shame.”) Yet there seems to be a subtle sense of revenge-seeking about this that contradicts Paul’s previous statement that revenge belongs to God. And in practice, how often is an enemy shamed by a Christian’s prayers? It happens, but by no means consistently.

Perhaps Paul’s next sentence “Do not let evil defeat you, instead conquer evil with good” suggests that he has in mind the purifying coals of the temple or the transforming coals of the smelter. In a chapter that deals with our own inward transformation, praying for our enemy’s transformation would certainly be evidence of our progress towards this goal.

We face two obstacles in praying for our enemies. The first is that we simply don’t want to do it. It goes against our human nature, which prefers to seek revenge whenever it’s safe to do so. We need the sort of inward transformation that Paul speaks about.

The second obstacle is that, if we do pray for our enemies, we can become smug about it. Like the Pharisee in Jesus’ parable, we can imagine that we’re somehow gaining favour with God when we pray. “Lord, I thank you that I’m not like this enemy of mine - look, I even pray for her.” Again, an inward transformation is required.

The source of this transformation, this change of heart, is our recognition that we too were once enemies of God, yet he has not dealt with us as we deserve. Jesus calls us to treat our enemies as we ourselves have been treated by God, with love, compassion and forgiveness. In this way we will become sons and daughters of God. Such a transformation is not merely the result of reflection, but a work of the Holy Spirit upon our spirit.

Praying for others

Jesus compared praying for the needs of others to a man coming to a friend's house at midnight. After waking the whole household with his knocking, he pleads for the loan of three loaves of bread to feed the visitor who has just arrived at his house. (Luke 11:5-8) If such audacity and persistence gets results on earth, says Jesus, you can be assured that it will be just as effective in heaven.

Our 'visitor' need not be aware of our midnight door-knocking. For instance, we might pray silently for the physical and spiritual needs of the people around us as we travel to work, as we meet people during our day, as we watch the news on television or read the newspaper. Such prayers can strengthen our faith when we see answers to our private prayers that can only come from God himself since no-one else knows about them. Even if we never get to know, this side of heaven, how our prayers were answered, bringing others' needs to God in prayer is a wonderful way of ministering to people. (Obviously, if we have the means to provide for their needs out of what God has already provided to us, we should do that too.)

Sometimes, though, we might let our 'visitor' know that we're off to get some bread for them. In other words, we will offer to pray for them. Saying "I'll pray for you" can sometimes be a cop-out from actually doing what's needed, whether that's providing a meal, spending time listening or whatever. But knowing that someone is praying for them is often a great encouragement to the person who is struggling. Even some non-believers appreciate such an offer, though we need to be aware that there are others who will be offended. (We can still pray privately for such people, of course.)

When should we invite our hungry 'visitor' to come with us to our generous friend's house to get bread? That is, when should we offer to pray with someone? In my experience, people are much more eager to have someone pray with them than we are to offer. If the other person is a Christian, asking "Would you like me to pray with you?" is unlikely to cause offense, even if the answer is "No, thanks." We need to be sensitive to the situation - not everyone wants their most intimate problems aired aloud in prayer in public. Some Christians are happy to be prayed for, but are not comfortable about praying out loud themselves. It's probably better not to offer to pray with a non-believer until we know them reasonably well, unless we're prompted by the Holy Spirit to do so.

The advantage of praying aloud with someone is that they hear what we're praying, and can then see how our prayer is answered. The words we use in prayer can be an encouragement, if they remind the person we're praying for of the goodness and faithfulness of God. The disadvantage is that we can slip into the temptation to move from genuine prayer to words as therapy or a form of intimacy. For this reason, it is better in some situations to invite another person to join you in praying for the person in need.

The more we're aware of our own dependence on God, the better we will be at praying for others. The man in Jesus story knew he had nothing to offer his visitor, but he knew he could depend on his friend to provide it. Jesus tells us to keep on knocking on God's door because it will be opened.