Last night we focused on Luke 17-20 in our discussion time. The passage that we spent the most time on was Luke 18:1-8. This is the parable of the unjust judge--basically a rude and obnoxious guy who didn't care about anyone. A woman came to him asking for a judgment in her favor. He put her off, but she continued to pester him until he gave her the judgment she wanted just to get her off his back. The reason for this parable? "Then Jesus told his disciples a parable to show them that they should always pray and not give up." Luke 18:1
The trouble with this is it sounds like Jesus is saying, "If you just bug God enough he'll eventually give you what you want just to get rid of you." Michelle said she had a pastor explain this passage once by saying he envisioned God having a big jar, and every time we pray for something he puts a marble in the jar. Eventually the jar fills up and then God answers the prayer. What?!? So God is playing a game with us where he could answer our prayers anytime but he'd rather make us fill up a jar? And he won't even do us the favor of telling us how big the jar is? That doesn't seem to fit with the characterization of God as good and caring.
To make sense of this seemingly negative characterization of God I think we have to apply what Jesus says in Luke 11:11-13. Basically that human parents know how to give good things to their children, so how much more will God give good things to his children. So in this case, if an unjust judge will eventually give in to someone who is persistent, how much more will God, who is just, answer those who call to him for justice.
Last night just reinforced that this issue of unanswered prayer, and how prayer works, is an important one. Cory noted how our usual way of dealing with prayer is to celebrate when God answers and not talk about it when he doesn't. That just doesn't seem to do the issue justice. For more thoughts on some of the issues that play into unanswered prayer you can listen to last week's podcast called Wrestling Prayer.
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2 comments:
Hey there - just discovered your blog and am excited to follow along as a source of stimulating thought while we're living down here in Peru. This topic of prayer is huge, and I agree we never seem to talk about the prayers God doesn't answer. It's almost like we don't want to taint the record, or feel like we're not praying enough or in the right way to have it answered. For years I gave up on praying for specifics and just to the general themes I knew were part of God's will - justice, provision for those in need, etc. But you miss out on so much of the personal relationship with a loving God when you pray that way. It's risky to ask for specifics and then not see them come about, but I think it's evidence that the process is more important than the result for God.
I agree that not praying for specifics takes away from the whole process of prayer. And at least for me, my hesitance to pray for specifics sometimes is indicative of my faith.
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