Our Hardest Prayers

Could you pray for God to take your life?  Or your child’s life?  Or pray for cancer? 

 

Our gut says no.

 

How do we pray for something that we *don’t* want to happen?

 

Everything in us resists.

 

But sometimes the prayers God desires are the prayers we do not want to pray.

 

Surrender is necessary.

 

What do I mean?

 

Is God so vindictive and manipulative that he would want me to die? Or take the life of a child?  Or give someone cancer?

 

Honestly, those are deep theological issues that we all struggle with and I do not have a solid answer for you. 

 

Seriously, I don’t know.

 

I think that the answer is no.  I know that God is a loving God and I know that before the world was corrupted, Adam and Eve weren’t supposed to die.  Death and disease and suffering are abnormal.

 

But on the other hand, in our world, these things exist and while God doesn't give us these things, sometimes, for his own reasons, God chooses not to take hardship away from us.

 

And so the question is, when trouble comes, when we experience hardship, and suffering, pain and even death… how should we pray?

 

Our natural reaction is to pray for God to rescue us from our trouble, to take away our pain, and to save us from death and most of the time, that is exactly how we pray.  Unfortunately, that is not the model that we have been given.

 

In John 12:27-28, shortly before Jesus was arrested, he said this to his disciples:

²⁷ “Now my soul is troubled, and what shall I say? ‘Father, save me from this hour’? No, it was for this very reason I came to this hour. ²⁸ Father, glorify your name!”

    And later that night Jesus prayed two times saying, “My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me. Yet not as I will, but as you will.” (Matthew 26:39) and then later, “He went away a second time and prayed, “My Father, if it is not possible for this cup to be taken away unless I drink it, may your will be done.”

    Knowing that God has sent him to die, Jesus prays that the Father will use his suffering to bring glory to God.  Jesus lives as an example to us that our prayers might not always be for God to rescue us from our troubles, but that, if God has prepared that trouble for us, or has chosen to allow it into our lives, that our suffering would somehow bring God glory.

    The crucifixion of Jesus meant the death of God’s own child but God allowed it, even planned it, because, in the grand scheme of things, in God’s master plan, that pain, that suffering, that death, made the entire world, and the future of everyone, better.

    God brought glory to himself when Jesus was lifted up on the cross because that action pointed all of humanity toward Jesus and toward God.  So we know, that whatever we do that points others toward Jesus, likewise brings glory to God.

    And so when we experience hardship, and suffering, pain and even death, even though our natural reaction is to pray for God to rescue us, we must remember that is not the model that we have been given. 

    Praying for rescue isn’t a bad thing.  Before his arrest Jesus was praying for exactly that when he said, “My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me.” But he didn’t stop there.  Jesus continued by saying, “Yet not as I will, but as you will.”

    It is okay for us to pray that God would rescue us, in fact, it’s normal.  But we always need to remember that rescue might not be a part of God’s plan.  And so, as we pray for rescue, we should also remember to pray that if God chooses not to rescue us, that our trouble, our suffering, and yes, even our death might, somehow, bring glory to God and point others toward him.

And those are probably the hardest prayers we will ever pray.

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Excuses, Excuses

 “I could never be a _______ because I once heard about a really stupid _______.”

    This kind of statement is all too common on social media.  It has been said about almost every possible group.  I have heard it said about Republicans, Democrats, pro-lifers, pro-choicers, Christians, Atheists, and everything in-between.

But those aren’t arguments, they’re excuses.

And it is unfair to everyone.

    Sure, it’s funny to point at the Republican that didn’t know that Tehran is the capitol of Iran.  Or the Democrat who thought the island of Guam would capsize if we sent too many Marines there.  But it isn’t really fair to say that these people represent all Republicans or all Democrats.

And the same is true for Christianity.

    I admit that sometimes Christians say really dumb things.  There are some Christian leaders who make me cringe almost every time they open their mouths.

But that seems to be true of people from any large group.

    I have heard people with Masters and Doctorate degrees say dumb things but that doesn’t mean that education is stupid.  We shouldn’t give up on education because we once met an educated person that did, or said, something dumb.

    Just because someone in Hollywood made a bad movie (and there have been some really awful ones) is no reason to give up on movies forever.

    Just because we saw a stupid driver on the highway (and there are plenty) is no reason to give up on driving. 

    Our opinions about education, politics, morality, religion, or anything else, should be built on the truth and on the merits of their arguments, not simply on whether or not we once heard one of “those people” say something stupid.

    If you want an excuse to stay away from a political party, or church, or anything else, that’s up to you. But don’t say that it’s because a few people said, or did, something dumb.

Don’t judge an entire group by the actions of a few.

Because that would just be stupid.

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Good News, Bad news

    This week I got a card in the mail reminding me that it is time to make an appointment with John, the audiologist that programs my cochlear implant.  It hardly seems like six months since I have seen him.  Once again, I am uncertain how things will go.  On the one hand, because whatever changes are happening in my head are incredibly gradual, I don’t really notice that much has changed.  And yet, other people tell me that they can tell that I am hearing better.   

    One of the few places that I notice a difference is in meetings.  Whether it is in a small meeting, or in youth group, or in a large room like the fellowship hall, I notice that I can hear more than I used to.  Not that long ago, I could barely make out anything in our youth meetings and almost nothing at all in a big room like the fellowship hall, but lately I can hear enough to keep up with some of the conversations.  I still am not where I would like to be, but I can tell that things are better than they were.

At least until last week.

    Right around Ash Wednesday, I noticed that it was suddenly harder to understand the people around me and discovered that my hearing aid was acting up.  No problem.  Since receiving a cochlear implant, I have two hearing aids and only one ear to wear them in, so I have a spare.  In fact, at one of my last visits my regular audiologist, Walt, reprogrammed them both to fit my right ear.  So when my hearing aid went on the fritz, I just switched over to the spare.  Things were kind of busy at work so I figured that I would just make an appointment after things calmed down a little.

That worked for two weeks.

    But after two weeks, my spare hearing aid quit.  I emailed Walt on a Thursday and got an appointment the very next Monday.  One hearing aid didn’t work at all and the other works as long as the ear mold isn’t attached.  Even Walt thought that was pretty weird.  In any case, both of them have been sent back to the factory.  That means that the only things that I am currently hearing are coming through my cochlear implant.

And that is my good news, bad news thing divides.

    The bad news is that I really can’t hear anything on my right side without hearing aids.  But the good news is that since I have an implant I can still hear something.  If I didn’t have the implant and both hearing aids quit, I would be in deep weeds.

    The other good news, and really sort awesome, is that even hearing only through my implant, I am doing fairly well.  I can hear reasonably well in most situations and have even been listening to the radio (a little) in the car.  Of course, any place with a lot of ambient noise is almost impossible, and conversation around the dinner table at home is pretty difficult to follow, but I am relatively functional.

Six months ago, I’m not certain that I could have done this well on my implant alone.

So I guess I’m a little excited to see John and have my implant reprogrammed again. 

Who knows how much better things might get?

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Join the Adventure!  

Earlier posts about my hearing adventure can be found here: My Hearing Journey.
Read them all or just catch up on what you've missed!

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Six Ways to Get Unfollowed on Twitter

    People follow one another on Twitter (and unfollow) for a lot of reasons, but in my book, these six things will get you unfollowed pretty quickly.

1)      Post too many times a day -  My general rule of thumb is that most people can post five times a day.  Even ten is acceptable if you have something really good to say, or if there is some special event that you are live tweeting.  But once you start crowding my feed, you are a target.

2)      Post too many times in a row – Some people post five or ten tweets in a row.  Sometimes it is a bunch of separate things all sent at once, and other times someone strings a long post into five or ten tweets.  If you want to blog, write a blog.  Either way, if you do it very often, I’m probably not going to follow you.

3)      Post too many pictures – I know everyone says that pictures attract attention, but if all you do is post a bunch of pictures, posters or memes on my feed, I’m probably not going to follow you.

4)      Post Off topic – I generally follow people because I am interested in what they post.  I completely understand that we are all human and a little “human interest” is fine.  The occasional post about your kids, or your nice dinner is okay, but if you say that your posts are about science, religion, business or whatever, and spend most of your time posting about something else, your days on my list might be numbered.

5)      Post ads – I understand that many of us are on social media to promote our place of business, books, or even ourselves.  But if all I ever see are ads instead of useful content, I’m probably not going to follow you.

6)      Post “click-bait” – We all have a variety of interests and occasionally we find interesting things that we want to share, but if the majority of your posts are links to “click-bait” advertising that looks like “Wow! Look at this Crazy Stuff!”  I’m probably not going to follow you.

    

I'm sure that  missed a few.

What have people done that made you unfollow them?

I tweet primarily about church, faith and religion, but also science, technology, the space program and the human condition.  And of course, a few about my kids.  Follow me @PastorPartridge

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