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.

The benefits of praying together

Most of what I've written on this site about personal prayer has been applicable to corporate prayer, but I've assumed that we need a healthy personal prayer life before we can pray effectively with others. Yet the reverse is also true. If we're not spending time praying with other Christians, our own prayer life is likely to suffer.

Praying with other Christians, whether in twos and threes or with a larger group, has many benefits. I've already mentioned one - it helps us to be disciplined in prayer. It would be sad if the only time we prayed was when we were together with other people, but being in a group does mean that we have a commitment to pray for which we are accountable to others.

Praying with others helps to move our focus away from our own needs and onto a wider perspective. It will depend on the size and nature of the group whether that means praying for local issues or the work of God worldwide. It can be helpful to pray with groups of different sizes - a prayer triplet with a couple of close friends, and the church prayer group, for instance.

In corporate prayer, we learn more about how to pray from others. I was intending to write "younger Christians learn from more mature Christians" but the reverse is just as true. None of us knows everything there is to know about prayer. We can observe and learn much about styles of praying from those who are from a different background or temperment from ourselves. We can also learn about how others deal with problems in prayer, such as prayers that seem to go unanswered.

Praying together helps to create and preserve unity amongst people. One of Satan's purposes is to divide and destroy the church. When we pray together, agreeing on what we pray in the name of Jesus, we thwart his purposes. It may take quite an effort to find this unity. Prayer groups aren't always harmonious. But the necessity of coming to agreement on what to pray can help to overcome other differences.

We tend instinctively to ask others to pray with us when we have some urgent need - a critical illness, for instance, or an important up-coming event. Perhaps sometimes this is motivated by the (wrong) idea that God will be moved by numbers. God can hear and answer the prayer of just one person. But the unity created by many people praying in Jesus' name for the same thing is important.

When we pray together, we are able to remind each other of answered prayers. We can share our hopes and longings, our disappointments and difficulties in prayer. Other people's prayers may become the vehicle for God speaking to us about something we need to hear.

When we're struggling to pray, just being with others praying can help to keep us faithful, even if we don't add our own prayers to theirs. For those who are isolated by geography, ill health or imprisonment, knowing that others are meeting together to pray for them is a great encouragement.

Your temptations and mine

Temptation is a peculiarly personal thing. What seems enticing to one person can be quite neutral or even repulsive to another. Some temptations are common to everyone. But our genetics, upbringing, education, experience and culture all have an impact on what temptations we will find most difficult to deal with.

For example, I like a glass of wine with dinner. Maybe even a couple of glasses sometimes. But the idea of drinking the whole bottle in one sitting never enters my head. In fact, I so dislike the feeling of being intoxicated that the idea seems quite repugnant. I don't have to fight the temptation. It just doesn't exist for me.

Yet I know people who can't have one drink without being tempted to go on drinking until they're unconscious. The temptation is all but irresistible. The only way to overcome it is to avoid drinking alcohol altogether, which is not an easy thing to do in our society.

On the other hand, failing to speak up when I should is an ever-present temptation for me. Being naturally timid, and brought up not to say anything that might cause offense, I have to fight against this temptation every day. I wonder sometimes what it would be like to be one of those people who say whatever is on their mind without fear.

That is not to say that we can excuse certain sins because we are particularly prone to some temptations. Each of us still has to resist temptation when it occurs. But we need to be careful in how we judge others when they're struggling against temptations that we ourselves do not face. What do I know of how it feels to resist drinking alcohol to excess?

I've been thinking about this recently in relation to the attitude prevalent amongst some Christians towards homosexuality. Those who teach have a duty to explore what the Bible says about homosexual activity. But I've never heard a speaker confess that they have struggled with this temptation themselves. Usually no help is offered to people who are trying to deal with the temptation. It is simply condemned.

What's more, it's often not just the activity that is condemned, but being gay per se. I suspect this is sometimes just a careless choice of words. How can we condemn someone for being attracted to people of the same sex? None of us chooses what we find attractive. ("Let's see - yesterday I chose to find red cars attractive, so today I think I'll be attracted to green ones instead.") It's only in what we do with our attractions that we have a choice.

The Bible is quite clear that it is giving way to temptation, not being tempted, that is the problem. Jesus himself was tempted, yet did not sin. And notice that Satan chose temptations that were particularly potent for Jesus but probably quite meaningless to most of us. The writer to Hebrews tells us that because Jesus has faced the anguish of being tempted, he is able to help those who are tempted and deals gently and sympathetically with them (Hebrews 2:18, Heb 4:15).

Whatever our own particular weakness, we all know what it feels like to be tempted, and how difficult it can be to resist. If we've never faced the temptation to get into a sexual relationship with someone of the same gender, we need to be very careful in how we talk to, and about, those who have. Who knows, there may even be Christians struggling with homosexual temptation in our own congregations. Does what we say encourage them to go on resisting, and keep seeking forgiveness and grace when they fail, or does it drive them away?