God is Free

One of my hopes as a pastor is to increase the expectations we have on God responding to our prayers.

I’ve indicated that I strongly believe that we are changed through prayers, and that is one way that God responds to us. That our relationship with God is nurtured, and our faith can grow as we bring to God our requests. I also would strongly suggest that God responds to our prayers for others and other situations.

I know this is nothing novel, simply because I know a great many Christians pray for many many people and situations both personal and global. However, I’m not always certain that we expect to God to answer the way we have prayed. I am sensitive to the reality that we often have experienced enough tragedy and loss in ways that seems that God didn’t respond as we hoped. And we can be left wondering why God didn’t respond the way we asked..

What I don’t have in view, is a sense that God is just waiting for me to pray before He can or will act. Furthermore, at least in my experience, God doesn’t always respond to my prayer requests the way I would like or in the time frame I would most desire either. I stand with 20th century theologian Karl Barth, who affirmed that God is the One who is truly free!

I believe that what we try to do is pray for God’s will be done. To seek out what God’s will through listening, searching Scriptures, all the means at our disposal, and pray for those things that we believe are God’s will. I believe that is what the Lord’s prayer teaches, to pray God’s will be done on earth as it is in heaven. I believe God’s will is healing.

Not that we always get the prayer answered the way we want or hope. I have no explanation for why some prayers are answered the way we ask, and others are not. Most people that have healing ministries can not guarantee that their prayers for specific healing will be answered, they have faith that they will, yet not intellectual certainty. Praying for healing means taking risks, and the nature of faith is to take risk; to believe in what can not be otherwise seen. Faith is described Scripturally as “the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen” (Hebrew 11:1). However that is not the same as intellectual certainty grounded in ourselves and our own ability to reason.

Where our abilities lie is in the gifts God has given the church to offer healing and hope. This is where we now turn.