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.

Falling short

"All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God" writes Paul in Romans 3.23. But what does it mean to "fall short of the glory of God"?

The analogy often used is of people attempting to swim the Atlantic Ocean (or perhaps the Indian Ocean for those of us who live on Australia's west coast). Some will barely make it past the surf. Others will swim a few hundred yards. The great heroes of the faith may struggle for several kilometers (out to Rottnest Island perhaps). But no-one will come anywhere near reaching the other side of the ocean, which represents the standard which God requires of us.

Another analogy (used by Gordon Cheng, author of the The Free Gift of Life study guide to Romans 1-5) is of an exam. Everyone knows what's in the exam and has access to the material they need to pass. Some (the Jews) have been given extra tuition by the examiner. But in the end everyone fails. No-one pays enough attention or puts in enough effort to pass.

The problem with these analogies is that they make the standard which God sets seem rather arbitrary and impersonal. Who would ask us to swim across the ocean and what would that achieve? They could suggest that God is unreasonable or even cruel in the standards he demands. If every student fails an exam, it's usually the teacher who has some explaining to do. It seems to me that we need another way of explaining what God requires.

As Gordon Cheng points out, it is "the faithfulnesss of Jesus Christ" rather than "faith in Jesus Christ" which reveals God's righteousness, despite how most modern translations translate Romans 3:22. In Jesus we have not an analogy but a living demonstration of sinless obedience. He has literally "fleshed out" what it means to live life in such a way that humanity doesn't fall short of the glory of God.

I'm not suggesting that the primary purpose of Jesus' incarnation was to show us how to live. His primary purpose was to die for us so that we could be reconciled to God despite our failure to live his way. But Jesus death could only be effective for us because he was both human and sinless. His death was the ultimate expression of living in perfect obedience to God. We can point to his life and say "Look, this is what pleases God."

What we see in Jesus is not rigid adherence to a set of rules, but loving obedience to a person. That included obedience to what was revealed of God's will in scripture, but also obedience to God's moment-by-moment directions for his life. The Pharisees were scrupulous to obey God's written instructions, but deaf to his present word. Jesus lived constantly listening.

Jesus shows us that a life of sinless obedience doesn't mean a life of impassivity. He experienced and expressed all the human emotions but in a way that was attuned to God's view of things. He wept over the things that grieved his Father, he was angry at those things that angered his Father, he loved as his Father loved.

Jesus shows us that the life God call us to is an active life in which obedience will sometimes bring us into conflict with others. Sometimes it will require getting our hands and feet dirty and mixing with 'sinners'. God doesn't call us to be nice, but to be truly good. It is a life lived courageously.

Jesus shows us that weakness is not sin. He knew hunger and tiredness. At times he grew weary and needed to withdraw from the crowds to be alone with his Father. He knew what it was to be tempted, and to feel hesitant, even resistant, to obeying God's will for him. His perfect sinlessness came through overcoming rather than spurning weakness.

In Jesus we see sinless obedience expressed in a life that was attractive and winsome to those who were seeking God. When we look at him and how he lived we immediately recognise that we are not like him. We all fall well short of what is pleasing to God. But we long to be like him. He is "the glory of God" revealed.

God of all comfort?

Richard Beck, author of the Experimental Theology blog, recently ran a fascinating series of essays on why people believe in God, evaluating the theories of Sigmund Freud and William James.

Freud, in his book "The Future of an Illusion" described faith as a sort of psychological narcotic, a way that some people deal with the pain and futility of existence. James, on the other hand, argued in "The Varieties of Religious Experience" that not all those who have faith find it a comfort. For some, faith creates as many problems as it solves, and yet they continue to believe. Thus faith cannot simply be the product of wishful thinking.

Since I can't do justice to Beck's arguments, I recommend you read the articles for yourself (or at least the conclusion, which summarises the whole series.) I'd like to pick up on just one aspect of his essays. In what way is knowing God a comfort and consolation? While not in any way denying that evil and suffering are the direct result of human sinfulness and the work of Satan, I've often struggled with the question "But didn't God himself create human beings and Satan?"

God is good. I know this from scripture and from experience. But he is also the all-knowing creator of everything, including human beings and Satan. So isn't he ultimately responsible for the existence of suffering and evil? Didn't he know, before he began the work of creation, what human beings and Satan would become? Didn't he know in advance about every war, every famine, every disease, every disaster that would happen throughout history?

If he knew David and Jeremiah before they were even conceived, didn't he also know Hitler and Pol Pot? Didn't he see Auschwitz and the Cambodian killing fields before time began? Surely he must have known in advance about every unkind word, every abuse, every mean-spirited action of ours that would add to the store of evil and suffering in the world.

Yet he still chose to create this world. Which seems to leave me with three options. I can choose to ignore such questions and have a neat and tidy faith that says " Satan and sin are the source of all evil, God is the source of all goodness and comfort." This can lead to a form of dualism that glosses over many uncomfortable verses of the Bible about God's involvement in suffering and catastrophe.

Secondly, I can reject the whole idea of God and, like Freud, decide that faith is just a form of wishful thinking. Read Richard Beck if you want to see why this doesn't work.

Or I can try to come to terms with the fact that the God whom I know as good is nevertheless the one who permits the existence of evil and suffering. God is light, but he created a world which would become full of darkness. Such a God is not always a comfort and a consolation. Sometimes he's frighteningly unknowable, dreadfully distant.

When I read the Bible, and the Old Testament in particular, I encounter this God almost as often as the God of grace and peace. Think of Job. Think of Jeremiah and the other prophets. Think of Jesus in Gethsemane.

But perhaps there's another way to look at this, using my own experience as an analogy. When I chose to have children, I knew that no matter how good a parent I tried to be, those children would inevitably experience suffering, pain, grief, loss, and all the other evils that are common to human life. Sometimes I would even be the cause of their pain. How do you explain to a child the need for discipline? How do you explain that some painful medical procedure is being done for their good?

I also knew before they were born that they would surely cause me pain and suffering at some time, through their words and actions. Being a parent would be costly in many ways. Despite my best intentions, they might turn away from me and ignore me. They might even turn around and curse me for having given them birth.

Yet knowing all this, I still chose to become a parent because it was worth it. And perhaps in that is a hint at why God chose to create this world, despite knowing exactly how much evil and darkness would be mingled with goodness and light. Because, for some reason, it was worth it.

There's another aspect to being a parent that tells me a lot about God. Before I had children, I knew that if and when they suffered, I would suffer too, because love is like that. But knowing this wasn't enough to prevent me from wanting to share my love and the good things of my life with children of my own. Fortunately my children have been relatively healthy and happy, and have caused me little grief. Even so, I've come to know what it is to be in anguish with them and for them when they've been sick or distressed, disappointed or misused.

As a created being I don't and can't know why God created the world with all its attendant evil. But I know enough about him to know that his reasons were good and the cost to him was great. Faith is not denying the reality of evil, but trusting that God has his reasons for allowing evil to exist for a time and he will not let us be overcome by it. Faith is believing that one day we too will be able to say "It was worth it."

Questions about unanswered prayer

What should we do when our prayers seem to go unanswered? Sadly, we often just shrug our shoulders and get on with life. We forget about this prayer and move on to the next one. Our response suggests either that we didn't really care about what we were praying for, or that we don't really expect God to answer our prayers. Either way, we're not praying with the sort of faith that cries "Why, O LORD, do you stand far off?" (Psalm 10.1) or "How long, O LORD, must I call for help, but you do not listen? (Habakkuk 1.2) . Unanswered prayer ought to raise questions in our minds.

Another unhelpful response is to try to conjure up more faith in ourselves when we pray. We try to put ourselves into some state of mind where we're "just believin' that it's gonna happen." This isn't faith in God, it's faith in faith.

A third response is to rationalise. A while ago I read a piece by an atheist mocking Christian's who say "God's answer to prayer may be 'Yes', 'No' or 'Wait'." As he pointed out, you could pray to a bottle of milk and expect to get the same responses. If what you prayed for happened immediately, the bottle's answer is 'yes', if it happened later the bottle's answer is 'wait', and if it never happens, the bottle has answered 'no'. You haven't left any option for saying 'the bottle hasn't answered my prayer'. While there was a major flaw in his argument (no bottle has ever spoken and promised to hear and answer prayer) it has some truth in it.

Of course God does sometimes answer 'no' to our prayers. Sometimes we do have to wait. But I think we should only conclude that the answer is 'no' or 'wait' if God gives us some clear indication to that effect. Other rationalizations include "I'm not a good enough Christian" and "God must be testing me". Again, I think unanswered prayers should raise questions in our minds, but we rationalise when we think out answers to our own questions (or those of other Christians) rather than bringing our questions to God.

Asking "Why, O Lord, do you stand far off?" is not impertinent, if we're prepared to listen to the answer. So along with "Why?", we might prayerfully ask:

Is what I'm praying in line with God's will as he has revealed it in scripture?
Can I really say "In Jesus' name" after this prayer?
Am I doing anything that might be preventing God from answering my prayer? (Of course we're all doing things that are not what God desires, but let the Holy Spirit show you if there is anything specific.)
Is there anything I should be doing? (Again, be guided by the Holy Spirit. This has nothing to do with trying to think up ways to impress God.)
Do I trust that God loves me and has my best interest at heart, even if my prayer is never answered the way I'd like it to be?

The last question is probably the most difficult to answer, and ironically, one that becomes easier to answer positively as our experience of unanswered prayer increases.