A Can of Worms
Well. I gone and done it. I said what I didn’t want to say. I stepped on (my) toes and spoke too directly. But worms out of a can are able to now live and care for the soil…as they were intended. Or put on a fishing line to get a fish.
It’s easy to say that those who pray for a Ferrari are not praying as they intended. It is more difficult to say that someone who prays “Please heal my friend” is not praying the right way. SO how do we know if we are praying “according to God’s will or not? Here are some principles I see in Scripture that can help guide us:
1) God’s will is mysterious. Because God is infinite, he has infinite reasons for why he does what he does. Why he permits what he permits. We don’t know God’s mysterious will until we look behind us. Then we are able to understand…but still only in part. Therefore, we pray at the end of the day: Not my will but yours be done.
2) God’s will is clear. It is not as though we have been left without a witness and we are left to figure out life on our own. All Scripture has been given so that we are readily equipped to live how we were intended. God is clear that we re to remain celibate until married. He is clear that we are think of others more highly than ourselves. He is clear that murder is wrong. He is clear that lying is wrong. Therefore, we pray that righteousness would reign and wickedness in all its forms would languish.
3) The Fall of our first parents introduced a whole host of brokenness into our world. That is, we live in a fallen world where death is our destination. Sickness and pain was not God’s intention. Death and sickness and pain will be no more when the end of all things comes. For now, he permits it to persist so that we have time to seek his face. So we might admit our shortcomings as a people and turn to him. Therefore, we pray against sickness and death and trust that God can and might heal. He might not (see #1).
4) God desires that everyone be saved. We do not know who will respond, so we preach indiscriminately and pray in that same vein. Therefore, we pray for the salvation of those who do not follow Jesus to repent and believe in him.
5) Our vision is often short-sighted and clouded. We can get so overwhelmed by life that we forget the bigger purpose and meaning for life. We have forgotten the grand culmination of the end of time where God will subsume all in all under his benevolent Triune kingship. Therefore, our prayers are directed toward that great Day.
It is not that God doesn’t care about whether you get that parking place near the front. But that he wants so much more for you. All our concerns matter to him. He listens intently and cares deeply for our growth. He wants us to be so enamored by the great vision of fellowship with him, that the parking place isn’t just another reason why you’re having a bad (or good) day. Rather, he wants to draw you into fellowship with himself.
Imagine a child born in poverty is adopted by a billionaire. The child is amazed by the food in the fridge. The soft sheets. The turn of events. Each day his father is in his office waiting for his son to wake up from sleep. And the son simply asks him for things. He longs for the day when his son will simply sit in the chair next to him and enjoy his presence.
So it is in prayer. We have the glorious opportunity to commune with God and we often minimize it to simply stuff or comforts or conveniences.
We can easily slip into a sanitized version of a prosperity gospel that encourages you to settle for so little. What would it profit someone to gain the whole world but lose his soul?
See the worms have dug. And if we will let the pain and struggle do its work in our inmost parts, then we would experience a healthy garden. Or a nice big fish.