Spiritual/Political/Philosophical Blog on the Nature of Truth and Falsehood and Heaven
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| Sunny Days in Heaven Spiritual/Political/Philosophical Blog on the Nature of Truth and Falsehood and Heaven |
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Tuesday, June 18, 2002 The Problem of Prayer Many fellow Christians often suggest the remedy to any problem is prayer. In particular, we keep hearing calls to prayer about the RCC and the bishops and the situation. But when has prayer directed in this manner ever shown to be efficacious in the least. It's like the No-Nukes, Peace Now, Share the Wealth people. They keep asking but they aren't getting the Disney world they desire. Why not? Why doesn't prayer seem to work in this way? And how many prayers do we have to make? If I petition God once to see that my daughter arrives home safely from a trip, is it even more effective if I say the rosary until she actually arrives? The ancient Jews (maybe modern ones, too, for all I know) believed that if every Jew kept the Sabbath as he ought, then the Day of the Lord would arrive and carry them all away into the new heavens and earth in a flash. The reason the world was so screwed up was because of slackers letting down the team. Maybe this is true. If all the people became Christians and followed the Lord perfectly, all our big prayers might be answered. But today, we know that they aren't. We can't pray our way into essential social reforms because the hearts of men are not to be tampered with by God. We can't really ask God to soften others' hearts as I so often hear some asking. Asking God to change other people is nearly always a doomed request. (Note - I wrote nearly not absolutely.) It is our task to change, and not God's job to change others. God is rather an impassive being despite his great love for us. (Or maybe because of his great love for us.) The kind of childish and magical thinking is touching because we are rather helpless in so many ways - this "if only I wish hard enough, God will have to give it to me" kind of thinking. It's heartbreaking, indeed, to see this spirit crushed - but that's what God does. He crushes our hearts and our spirits and he does this on purpose: to build us up in faith, understanding, compassion, and love. It is through our broken hearts that we learn the depth of our emotional and spiritual resources, and the strength and persistence of our delusions. If we are to learn to think like God, we have to be stripped of ordinary perceptions and understandings. We are the Hell that must be harrowed and scoured. It is misery indeed. It is a terrible thing to fall into the hands of a living God. posted by Mark Butterworth | 12:49 AM | |
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