St. John Studies

This is my last post on the topic of “Can Prayer Change God’s Mind”. W.Bingham Hunter* has some excellent pieces of advice for all who try to pray in God’s will. He says that praying in the will of God is not a special magical formula as much as it is an attitude: “the petitioner’s willingness to admit that the Father’s knowledge is more complete than His children’s. It expresses the child’s wish to learn to want what God gives” [Hunter, 62]. If you have not seen this main point emerge in recent posts, here it is again: “God hears us (grants our petitions) only when we ask according to His will” [Hunter,63].

You may wonder now [and Hunter anticipates your questions] how can I know the will of God?

This is a piece of advice that tells you what not to do to know God’s will. Pay attention to the media. In our country, we are constantly being sold products which are designed to transform our lives.   Buy this car and you will have the image of success.   Purchase this watch to look rich or wear this sports coat to look   like you have “fashion consciousness.” We are persuaded into desiring things and God is not impressed with our materialistic desires. James 4:3 addresses praying for wrong motives and the desire for pleasures. God won’t respond.

A positive move is to read your Bible. The more you do it, the more God’s words remain in you. The Bible can lead all of us to a greater knowledge of God and prayer. James 15:7 “If you remain in Me and My words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you.” The Bible can indeed be your gateway to better prayer.

Commit yourself to doing God’s will.   We are talking about Christian obedience here, the kind of obedience that is reflected in the words found in Romans 12:1-2: “ Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship. Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—His good, pleasing and perfect will.”

Remember that every one of us is unique.   We don’t need to think we can determine God’s will by looking at others.   We all have positive Christian role models around us, but the best resource is the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit will guide your thoughts, goals and aspirations. When we turn to others, we can think we are “further along” with our Christian walk or we are “way behind.”   Our society is horrible about constantly trying to establish who is “on top”; don’t fall into that trap.

If you do seek help from others, seek help from mature Christians who have gone through things.   I am an intercessor at my church and there is another intercessor who exhibits the strength of a woman of faith.   She not only prays in God’s will; she prays as if the victory is won.   She knows that God will triumph and she prays that way.   I have listened to her prayers and talked to her about praying.   Needless to say, she is not a “baby” Christian; her life has been full of trial and tribulation and yet she still stands. She stands strong for herself and many others.

Learn to pray for others and ask others to pray for you. When we ask for prayer from others, give them enough detail about the concern and the time you need for them to pray.   Don’t just say “pray for me” and leave them.   In the past few months, I have learned to pray for others and I have learned to ask others to pray for me. I know it helps.   In fact, I have had so many people praying for me that I have been overwhelmed.

All this advice can give you a posture toward prayer that can be so helpful but the most helpful thing to have is the right attitude. God may not give you your petition. Instead of getting disappointed, crushed or even grieved, pray again. Hunter states “Prayer problems are usually not intellectual but volitional. In praying effectively, the submission of your will is directly linked to finding God’s will. Prayer which God answers is always offered with an attitude of submission” [Hunter, 65].

The close of the chapter on “Can Prayer Change God’s Mind” is too good not to repeat here…

“Are you willing to say when God’s response to your own urgent prayer is not the one you wanted: ‘have thine own way Lord.’”

*author of The God Who Hears

We had it all. You know the story of Adam and Eve. God created man and woman “in His image” to reflect God’s character and represent His rule on earth and harness the potential of God’s creation.

Man and woman were truly blessed, but they did not seem to know it. The snake appeared one day and told them the tale of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil and despite God’s urging to not eat from the tree, they were tempted to do so. The Tree of Life and trusting God was not good enough. They believed the snake when he said they could eat the apple and become like God. Weren’t they already created “in His image”?

Instead of becoming like God, they disobeyed God and ruined their relationship with their Father.   They exercised their free will and chose autonomy over trusting the words of God.

God gave them that free will and it back-fired. The first man and woman were punished.

This succinct summary of the Adam and Eve story relates to prayer because many of us still want autonomy when it comes to prayer. We think we can pray for what we want God to accomplish but can we?   We like to think we are free agents. No one wants to be a puppet. But what are we?

Free agent or puppet?

Some people believe that God has absolute control. He can even rule our hearts and action. But others think, like Adam and Eve, we have the ability to choose and sometimes we make bad choices. [The absolute control people feel God knows what we are going to do before we do it]. Since the focus is on prayer, let’s assume that we have free will to use the language we use to address God; language that we are morally responsible for.

To help us understand how a person would think pray is under God’s control, we will look at two analogies W. Bingham Hunter uses.   Some may gain some insight from this.

For the praying person who feels God is in total control, Hunter uses the image of a mother cat and her kitten. When a mother cat wants to take her kitten somewhere, she merely grabs the kitten by the back of the neck and moves the kitten. The kitten is passive.   I have always had cats as pets and I have tested this repeatedly.   Grab a cat by the skin on the back of the neck and the cat doesn’t fight you as you move it. Humans [the kitten] is not in control. They are not powerful compared to the mother cat [representing God]. The words of prayer are even pre-ordained.

Contrast this to another image of a mother monkey jumping from branch to branch.   I have seen this in the zoo and on television. The mother monkey does all the work associated with mobility but the baby monkey is taught to cling to the mother in order for this to work.   If the baby does not exercise the muscles associated with holding onto the mother, the baby does not get a ride.

What is the basic difference between these two animal examples? The kitten is passive and the baby monkey is an active participant.

I know it may be a stretch to think of yourself as a kitten or baby monkey, but I prefer to think of myself as the monkey.   God’s spirit is within me and I am glad it is.   It is my Helper in times of trouble and indecision but I have the power to exercise my “muscles of participation” or not.

Quoting T.C. Hammond, Bingham writes “The awakened soul cries unto God as naturally as the infant cries for food. When the cry is lacking, there is danger of death. As the cry brings the answer because the mother heart is turned to the wail of the babe. Dare we say that God also creates in us this yearning after Him and His will, and is under compulsion of His own nature to answer the call which is of His own creation.

When Adam and Eve ate of the apple in the garden, they hurt their level of intimacy with God. For me that is what prayer is.   It is my effort to be intimate with my Creator.

My prayer is my interpersonal contact with God, it is not mechanical and it shows the love between me and God. I believe He cares enough to listen.

Bottom line: If I did not think He loved me, why would I try to talk to Him?

The answer is, I probably wouldn’t. But…

He does…

And I pray.

Exodus 32:9-14   “I have seen these people,” the Lord said to Moses, “and they are a stiff-necked people. Now leave me alone so that my anger may burn against them and that I may destroy them. Then I will make you into a great nation.” But Moses sought the favor of the Lord his God. “Lord,” he said, “Why should your anger burn against your people, whom you brought out of Egypt with great power and a mighty hand? Why should the Egyptians say, ‘It was with evil intent that He brought them out, to kill them in the mountains and to wipe them off the face of the earth’? Turn from your fierce anger; relent and do not bring disaster on your people. Remember your servants Abraham, Isaac and Israel, to whom you swore by your own self: ‘I will make your descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and I will give your descendants all this land I promised them, and it will be their inheritance forever.’” Then the Lord relented and did not bring on His people the disaster He had threatened.

How did Moses pull this off? God was going to destroy the Israelites but Moses got Him to change His mind.

How can we explain this change of heart?

First of all, to change one’s mind or to change one’s heart means that God has human characteristics and many theologians just don’t want to go there. God is spirit; He does not have a physical existence. God does not have a body so a change of mind or heart is impossible. Want to learn a fifty cent word: giving God human qualities is called anthropopathism.

Also in the Exodus passage, God threatens to destroy the Israelites but would God really do that? The kings and the Messiah came through the line of Moses, not Judah. Moses did not change God’s mind. God was never going to destroy the people in the first place. He would be destroying the ancestral line of Jesus.

Ok, you may be thinking that it is fruitless to pray. God is going to do what He wants despite our petitions. Yet in both testaments God commands His people to pray. It is not fruitless at all.

First of all, God’s ways are not our ways.  In Job 11:7-8 Job admits“Can you fathom the mysteries of God? Can you probe the limits of the Almighty? They are higher than the heavens above—what can you do?   They are deeper than the depths below—what can you know?”  In Isaiah 55:8-9 we see that God’s thoughts are beyond the thoughts of man:   “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,” declares the Lord. “As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.” I have come to believe that God is the Great Orchestrator working things out from a big picture point of view that we can never understand as mentally deficient humans. How could we know what God is up to? We might think that prayer X = response Y but that is far too simple for God.

Prayer is a free will act of humans. God is not dependent on our prayer or limited by our prayer, yet He is pleased to bring His purposes into reality by responding to prayer. Proverbs 16:9 says “In their hearts humans plan their course, but the Lord establishes their steps.” Philippians 2:13 declares “for it is God who works in you to will and to act in order to fulfill His good purpose.” The key phrase is “His purpose”. We must remember that God is sovereign and He acts for the sake of His holy name. Note what God says in Ezekiel 36: 37-38: “This is what the Sovereign Lord says: Once again I will yield to Israel’s plea and do this for them: I will make their people as numerous as sheep, as numerous as the flocks for offerings at Jerusalem during her appointed festivals. So will the ruined cities be filled with flocks of people. Then they will know that I am the Lord.” The key phrase here is “know that I am the Lord.”   God is to be glorified. He is accomplishing His purposes despite man’s efforts while He is being petitioned by man.

Jesus taught us all to pray in the Lord’s Prayer: “‘Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us today our daily bread. And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.”

Key phrase, “your will be done.”

Pray: if His will and your request coincide, a prayer will be answered.

“Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives. He who seeks finds. To him who knocks it will be opened” [Matthew 7:7-8].

I know this scripture is out of context but it is from Jesus’ teaching on the Sermon on the Mount. When we ask, seek and knock we are engaged in the act of prayer.

The title of Chapter 4 in The God Who Hears intrigues me to the point that I want to comment on the idea “Can Prayer Change God’s Mind?” before we turn to the content of the chapter. In Matthew, Jesus implores us to ask, seek and knock but why do that if God has made up His mind about your situation already?

I think many Christians feel that changing God’s mind is the reason they need to pray so they reply “I hope so” when you ask them “Can Prayer Change God’s Mind?”.   Maybe they don’t have what they want in their life [for whatever reason] and they need something.   They pray to change God’s mind so God can take care of what they lack.   Who better to ask than a sovereign God? I have to admit that prayers like this may seem like praying to the divine gift-giver but that is how some people conceive of our Lord and Savior. I knew a man once who did not believe much in work, yet from time to time he would get help from other people. He never referred to a gift from another person as merely a gift; these tangible items were all “blessings from God”.   The problem is that prayer like this may have some very negative effects: the praying person is centered on material possessions too much, if they don’t get what they want, their relationship with God may suffer and they are not praying for others at all. They are praying for personal gain when maybe they should be praying for the friend who has just been admitted to the hospital. They are generating a lot of self-centered prayer.

Would it hurt your prayer life if you thought you could not change God’s mind? What if God knows what you need more than you do?   Can you admit that? You may be praying for a new car but God knows you need to save your money and invest it for the future.   If God knows all, maybe the investment route is the one you should take. Will that make you happy or will that make you frustrated?   Many times I find myself praying this phrase to God: “If it be thy will.”   I have to admit I put that in because I think what I am praying for may not be in the will of God. In short, I can admit that my will and God’s will may be disconnected. God may know what I need more than I know.

This leads me to the final point: do we need to have the power to change the mind of God at all? I suspect we do not. I think back over the times in my life when I have had colossal failures. Most of those times were when I did not consult God about my desires.   I knew what I wanted and went after it like a “dog after a bone”.   I know that “positive motivation gurus” may disagree with me but all of the motivation and hard work in the world won’t yield the best results if your goal is something out of the will of God.   At times in my life when I prayed for His help and His guidance, I have had my biggest successes and the work toward my goal was easier instead of harder. It was almost as if He were guiding me down the path He wanted me to take, otherwise known as “flowing in the Holy Spirit.”

“Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you.”

These words sound like an open and shut case.   Open the door and go in and there you will find your heart’s desire. How many times is that true? Have you always been given what you asked for? None of us gets what we want all of the time and that may be good.

There is an old saying: “Happiness is not getting what you want; it is appreciating what you have.”

What that means to me is that we should be content with what we have, appreciate what we have and admit that what we have is probably what we need.

God’s true gifts to us.

Hope…

We have discussed wholeness regarding God and prayer, the idea that God cares about anything and everything we do.

We have discussed honesty regarding God and prayer, the idea that God’s omniscience leads us to an honest relationship with our Father.

I posted several days on the holiness of God and how we need to approach the unapproachable Holy God.

But let’s not forget hope…

Hope comes from prayer and maybe hope is the best aspect of a vibrant prayer life.

I have had a devotion book for many years, Streams in the Desert by L.B. Cowman.   I have read it over and over, making notes on the pages as I have had events in my life, you know, the victories and defeats that we all have.

After breaking my pelvis, soon after I arrived home after two weeks in the hospital, I got a visit from my pastor who brought me another devotion book by Sarah Young. It is entitled Jesus Always. Of course I was appreciative but wondered if I should shift to a new devotion.

Then I read the introduction by the author: “I have been contending with impaired health for many years—since August 2001. In my quest to find healing, I’ve gone to a number of doctors and tried a variety of medical treatments. I continue to have significant limitations in my life, yet I have found joy in my journey.”

Well, what a perfect devotion for me as I have to go through recovery; I have a chance to read the words of someone who has suffered health impairment and still has hope.  Bingham Hunter* says that hope is a word that must be linked with God’s omnipotence. God “knows enough to do what is both right and best. Because we are so limited, much of what happens will, until it happens, be unknown…as children of God, we never face the unknown alone.”

Think about it when you pray. We don’t understand what God is up to; why some prayers are answered the way we want them to be answered and some prayers are denied.   When the future is so unsure and times when there seems to be no future…God is there.

This concept allows Sarah Young to write [taking on the persona of God] “I have good intentions for you. They may be radically different from what you hoped for or expected, but they are nonetheless good. I am light; in Me there is no darkness at all” [June 16].

“I am your Joy! Let these words reverberate in your mind and sink into your innermost being. I—your companion will never leave you….Refuse to use the label “a bad day,” even when you’re struggling deeply. I am…holding you by your right hand” [June 4].

“Thank me for all the challenges in your life. They are gifts from Me—opportunities to grow stronger and more dependent on Me….You were designed to walk close to Me as you journey through your life” [May 25].

Sarah Young has page after page like this, exploring the hope that the Christian has, even in trying circumstances. For you see, she knows God is always there for her.

Even though all of us are limited in our ability to comprehend the mind of the Lord, we know that God loves us and if we know the love of the Lord, shall we want for anything more? First Corinthians 2:29 states “No mind has conceived what God has prepared for those who love Him.”

At times, I have felt lonely and depressed as I have been limited to life in a hospital room, then the bedroom on the first floor of my home, unable to drive and function as I normally do. But during these times, I have seen so many signs of God’s love.

Like Sarah Young, I have trust, which leads to faith and eventually hope…hope which I see in the pages of her book, hope which I see in my journey to recovery from my accident.

For where there is love, there is hope and I have seen love in my Lord as I have traveled from the day of my fall until today. I have seen His love in the many people who care for me and I have seen His love in the expressions of concern from the people who know me.

What opportunities have sprung forth from a trying circumstance?

It all leads to hope.

*Author The God Who Hears

Western culture, sometimes equated with Western civilization, Western world, Western society or European civilization is a term used very broadly to refer to a heritage of social norms, ethical values, traditional customs, belief systems, political systems, and specific artifacts and technologies that have some origin or association with Europe.

The term Eastern world refers very broadly to the various cultures or social structures and philosophical systems, depending on the context, most often including at least part of Asia or geographically the countries and cultures east of Europe, north of Oceania.

The term “Middle East” is generally recognized today to refer to a region that stretches from the Atlantic Ocean in the west to Afghanistan in the east, a distance of approximately 5,600 kilometers. It has a total population of around 300 million people.*

Why would I start a post with this “dry” cultural information when my topic is prayer?

Well, defining Western Civilization and Eastern Civilization [including the Middle East] can give us some insight on what our Bible means when we ask pray to an omniscient God.

Western logic works like this regarding prayer and omniscience. What can I tell a God who knows everything anyhow? From our point of view, you can tell Him nothing. For many Christians this logic is not very encouraging for our prayer life.

But…

The Bible is fundamentally an Eastern book written by Semitics [Semitics are speakers of Hebrew and Arabic languages].   They were not slaves to Western logic. When Jesus spoke of God’s omniscience, He thought it would encourage His Semitic disciples to pray.

While the logical response to praying to an omniscient God may be discouraging from a Western point of view, the opposite is true from an Eastern point of view. W. Bingham Hunter says a disciple of Jesus was encouraged to talk to God about anything. There is nothing that you can tell God that will change His feelings for you. He is a “loving Father who hugs His children—even when they have jam on their faces” [Hunter, 42].

Is there any sin you can commit that can shock God?   The answer is no. Instead of wondering how to approach God with our sin, we know that God knows it already and we can be liberated. We can be who we really are.

How many times, when you are having an awful day, do you lie to people when they ask “How are you doing?” You say something like “I am doing just fine.” We think that is perfectly ok but it is not really being honest about how we are. It is not liberating at all. We are putting on a façade.   With God, Jesus was saying share your anger, joy, fear, frustration, endless struggles with sin, hurt, loneliness—our real selves.

In our Western way of thinking, we may be too image conscious. We would rather present a perfect image that is unrealistic than be honest. Hunter says “If we do this long enough we become a split personality—a kind of spiritual schizophrenic. Our relationship with others becomes increasingly unsatisfying and we often end up trying to tell God, ‘Just fine thanks’” [Hunter, 44].

But God knows all and He cares about all. Luke 12:6 says “Are not five sparrows sold for two cents? And yet not one of them is forgotten by God.”   The thought is completed in Matthew 10:30-31 when Jesus says “But the very hairs on your head are numbered. Therefore do not fear; you are of more value than many sparrows.”

He knows that you are not speaking the truth when you say “Just fine thanks” and He knows why things are not going well.   Don’t worry that the problems seem small. They are not small to God. “God loves you more than you will ever know. Not your image, not your happy face, not your spirituality—but you. The real you. The one you think nobody knows about. No, real love is not blind. Because His eyes are open, He can see what you cannot. And He felt what He saw in you was worth dying for. So when you pray, be honest. Tell Him everything” [Hunter, 44].

Don’t be afraid to approach God with jam on your face. It won’t matter to Him. He will hug you and love you over and over again. You can be who you are. It is ok.

Just talk to Him about anything…He is waiting to hear from you.

The real you.

The book we are studying now is about prayer: W. Bingham Hunter’s book The God Who Hears.

I ask your forgiveness as I post my thoughts about how prayer has helped me so much in my life.

You see, I believe in the power of prayer.

Let’s lay aside the ideas about why people don’t pray [the barriers to prayer], how to approach an unapproachable God, our personal honesty about sin and praying to an all-knowing God and let me tell you about the results of prayer in my life—right now.

I am on the verge of returning to Vanderbilt University to see my doctors about the healing that has taken place in my body since I broke my pelvis. I realize I am such a blessed man. I have never had any experience with severe pain, a serious bone break, surgery, long hospital stays, total dependence on other humans for the basics of life, disability, etc.

Until now.

I don’t know what my doctors will say on this day…December 5, 2016, but I can say this: I know I have had people praying for me.

And it matters.

It has been amazing and humbling to receive the phone calls I have received.   Of course, many have been local people, but some have not been. People from distant places have called me to tell me they have me in their prayers.   I have received countless emails from people telling me I am in their prayers.   The cards from my church have flowed in, and they have all said the same thing: “You are in my prayers.”   I am a member of the prayer group at my church and I have been prayed for there by strong fellow prayer warriors who know me very well.   The night of my fall in the emergency room, three pastors came to pray for me.   Their words were so comforting. The pastor of my church followed the ambulance to Vanderbilt and spent the night with my wife. She knew my wife was too scared to drive alone in Nashville so she drove her.   She stayed all night in the waiting room with my wife and visited with me several times in the night. I could not sleep but her prayers did so much to calm me in those early hours.   The day of my surgery, I had an unknown visitor named Doug who came to talk to me as I was in the surgery recovery room.   He told me his story of trauma [much worse than mine] and how he knew I would recover. He did this with God in his heart.   I connected with him immediately and felt that he was sent by God to give me hope.   He prayed over me and I felt every word.   He imparted such peace to me about my future. Then there is that church on 5575 Dick Pond Road. The Socastee United Methodist Church in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. Every week they have sent me a letter telling me that they are praying for me.   The day they prayed and the time they prayed.

“As you were lifted up in prayer we asked God to let the Holy Spirit comfort and strengthen you.   We also prayed that the Lord would richly bless you and provide for your every need during this time in your life. We will continue to pray for you during the coming week.”

Then nineteen people signed the letter. Nineteen people I have never met.

I know how this contact was made.   I have a good friend in my church who lives in Hopkinsville, Kentucky part of the year and then Myrtle Beach the other part. He has put me on the Socastee prayer list.   Every week I have received their letter.   It means so much.

I have a special friend in my church’s prayer group. She believes in stepping out in faith. She is well-known as a person who does not just ask God; she claims God’s blessings before she receives them because she believes they will come.   She has faith that her Father is on her side and the “evil one” will not win. She has worked with me, trying to get me to step out in faith.

I can hear her now: “David you will receive good news on Monday. God cares for you and He is taking care of you. He has knit your bones back together. He wants you to be whole again. Thank Him for the wonderful things He will reveal to you on Monday.”

I know she is right.

But before I leave for my Monday meetings, I want to thank all of you who have prayed for me.

I have felt those prayers. They have resulted in my body healing. I don’t have to have a doctor tell me how far I have come since October 18. I know that I have come a long way. I still have a ways to go but I have come a long way. PRAISE GOD!

Let’s give credit where credit is due:

I don’t believe I would have come this far…without those prayers.