More on prayer
Posted by tom | Jul 15, 2005Picking up the topic of prayer. . . here's an excerpt from a brief presentation I gave on prayer to an undergrad audience a few years ago. My thoughts are more fully developed at this time, but I came across this on the desktop and thought it was provoking. Feel free to send me your reflections:
But what about when life just plain sucks -- when Elise Faith [note: our first child, born at 22 weeks and lived for 8 days] died on March 8, 1999. Our request was good, the timing had passed and we could not go back, our lives were right before him. Every day, godly people are stricken with deadly diseases or rocked by tragic mishaps. Praying parents die without having seen their wayward children return to the fold. Ungodly parents abuse innocent children -- causing distress and dysfunction for years to come. The righteous suffer and the innocent perish. In the time of Jesus and the disciples, a tower fell and killed many (Luke 13:1-4), John the Baptist lost his head, Jesus was crucified, the apostle James was also beheaded, Paul was stoned, shipwrecked, and imprisoned for the gospel. Why would an all loving, allpowerful God deny valid requests from faithful believers? We can understand why God doesn't answer requests from those that are trying to use him like a Pokeman card, but what about the faithful?
