Paul said it was like looking through a glass darkly...
In other words: we catch glimpses of what is going on, what is happening in the world and in the "world" around us.
Through the other posts, we have discovered that there is more going on than what we see...more than we could possibly know or understand.
Evil exists for many reasons...for many other, hidden, reasons God can't stop the evils from happening. Nor can he stop the suffering.
Evil is easy to see when it happens to other people, suffering is harder to explain when it happens to you.
But we know it is NOT God's will that evil exists, and persists, nor suffering.
There is much at work, causing and effecting much of what goes on in the world, and whether we can point it our or not - we too, add to this confusion...especially when we stray off our path of following Jesus.
But, in the midst of all this confusion, ambiguity, and darkness is there anything we can do? Do we even make a difference?
The answer is: YES.
And it's so simple, we overlook it more often than not.
Boyd puts it like this, "There is one more extremely important variable that conditions God's activity in any particular situation."
When I first read this, I almost poo-pooed it right off. Prayer? Really? I know I should pray and I do...but then I began to think...why should I pray?
Just to talk to God? Tell him my wants and needs? (like new tires) To learn His will for my life?
While they are good, they aren't IT as it comes to prayer.
Prayer has been touted as something that helps us, change us.
God doesn't need our prayers...we need do.
After all, would a truly all-powerful God need anything from us? Most of us would answer: no.
But Boyd states that this, "variable is about the kind of world God decided to create."
In the previous posts, we only skimmed the surface as to what kind of world this is, the world He created.
Boyd continues, "Scripture teaches that God created a world in which he has significantly bound himself to the prayers of his people."
Jesus seems to agree to this point. He does teach us a certain prayer: the Lord's Prayer.
In the Lord's Prayer we pray to God that his will be done "on Earth as it is in Heaven."
This would seem to imply, or only make sense, if God's will WAS NOT being done on a consistent basis.
Not only that, but as Boyd points out, Jesus wants us to pray as if God doesn't want to answer our prayers. (Luke 11:5-13; 18:1-8)
Obviously God wants to hear our prayers, but to command it, there must be a good reason...evidently, we might hold a bit more sway than we first thought.
But, we might then ask, why would God created such a world that prayers effect what he can/can't do?
Boyd explains it as this: "Prayer is simply the spiritual side of our morally responsible say-so."
In other words, what we can physically change through our actions (free will) we can spiritually effect as well through prayer.
Does that mean that all our prayers will be answered as we wish?
Of course not...in fact, the prayers God seems to answer seems again...arbitrary at best.
But why?
Why would, does, God answer one prayer over the other. More to the point, why does God seem to answer flippant prayers by non-pious, non-church going folks, yet won't answer a heart felt, knee-bent, crying out prayer of say...me?
This is another unanswerable questions in terms of specifics. In general, it is because of all the other variables taking place...all the other prayers, the other people, the other angels, the other demon, the other you-name-it.
There is much going on in this cosmic war.
But through the authority of Jesus, we can and should have faith that prayer, ALL PRAYER moves God's will further along.
However, we may never see this either.
Perhaps our prayer WAS answered, just not in the way that we would like it to be answered, or expected it to be answered.
Again, specifically, for a certain situation we may - most likely won't - ever know.
But, for me, that is a hard pill to swallow. Not because I don't believe it, but because I don't like it.
Yet, this is the world that God created. A world full of risk...and love. And reluctantly I would agree that it is worth the risk.
Boyd goes on to list 9 variables as it pertains to prayer. I won't go into them, but I will list them.
1. God's will.
2. Faith of the person being prayed FOR.
3. Faith of the PEOPLE praying for.
4. Persistence of prayer.
5. Number of people praying.
6. Human free will.
7. Angelic free will.
8. Number and strength of spirit agents.
9. Presence of sin.
Most of these, I'm guessing, you can immediately see how they might affect our prayers. Others are a bit more complicated.
But we must always remember: this sea of ambiguity that we are living in, this dark glass we look through is NOT completely because of our fallen world, but because our of FINITE knowledge.
That is: our knowledge while here on earth, does have limitations.
Perhaps on the other side, we'll get a clearer picture...at least, we can pray for that.
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