It is easy to conclude that God answers prayers, but often with 'baffling unpredictability' (as Ronald Goetz puts it). We wrestle with this, but hopefully we don't lose faith when our prayers are left unanswered.
The challenge for all of us is that sometimes God expects us to partner with him in answering prayers. Yancey writes:
"In answering prayers, God normally relies on human agents."
So, when the persistent widow eventually got her bread at midnight (Luke 11), was it God who answered her prayer or her friend? Well, both actually. The friend needed to be God's partner in physically giving over the bread. Of course we believe that God could have made the bread appear from 'heaven' (as God did with the Manna in the desert), but this time God relied on a 'human agent' to help. The same applies to the widow in Luke 18.
Is there a prayer that God wants us to partner him in answering? It is a scary thought, but God will help us in all that we need.
Grace and peace,
D3LM3
No comments:
Post a Comment