Today we start a new
sermon series. It’s called “Does God?”,
and it’s going to look at just who God is and what God does. Today, the question we’re going to look at
is “Does God answer prayers?”
Now, most of us would
probably say, “Well, of course God answers prayers.” That’s the answer Jesus seemed to give in our reading from Mark
for today, too. When we think about it,
though, the answer is a little more complicated than that.
The thing is that I’ve
had lots of times in my life when I prayed for things that did not happen. I’ll bet you have, too. When I was a kid, I prayed that the
Minnesota Vikings would win the Super Bowl.
That did not happen. In fact,
it’s forty-some years later and it still has not happened. Maybe this year.
As I got older, I prayed
for lots of things. Some of they
happened, some of them did not. When I
was in law school, I prayed that I would do well enough to graduate and become
a lawyer. I did. On the other hand, when I was in law school,
I also prayed that a young woman I was dating would marry me. She did not.
It continues. When Wanda’s grandmother was very ill,
several years ago, I prayed that she would recover. She did. A year later,
she became very ill again, and again I prayed that she would recover. She did not. It seems like, when I look at my prayer life, the record has been
that I win some and I lose some. I
suspect it’s probably the same for you, too.
Now at this point, some
of you are probably thinking, “Well, look, saying that God answers prayers is
not the same as saying we’re going to get everything we want.” That’s true, of course. It’s true for a lot of reasons. Sometimes it’s just not possible for God to
give everyone everything they want. For
example, if I pray for the Vikings to win the Super Bowl this year, and someone
else prays for the Green Bay Packers to win the Super Bowl this year, obviously
we cannot both get what we want, because there’s no way both of them can win
the Super Bowl this year.
Other times, the reason
we don’t get what we want is because God knows better than we do. I am much happier and much better off for
the fact that I’m married to Wanda rather than the woman I hoped to marry all
those years ago. Sometimes, too, the
reason we don’t get what we want is that we’re praying to stop the
inevitable. I would never have been
ready for Wanda’s grandma to die, no matter when it happened. Since she clearly could not live forever,
there was going to have to come some point at which things did not go the way I
was praying for them to go.
Asking God to give us
things or to do things for us is not the only reason to pray, of course, but
it’s a legitimate one. People did it in
the Bible all the time. In fact, Jesus
himself encouraged it. In our reading
from Mark for today, Jesus said, “Have faith in God…Truly I tell you, if you
say to this mountain, ‘Go, throw yourself into the sea,’ and you do not doubt
in your heart but believe that what you say will happen, it will be done for
you. Therefore I tell you, whatever you
ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours.”
The thing is, how do we
square that with what we just said about prayer, that God sometimes does not
give us what we want? I mean, the Bible
tells us Jesus actually said this, so I don’t think we can just dismiss
it. But how does that statement relate
to our experience with God in answering our prayers?
Well, Jesus did throw in
a couple of things that may shed some light on this. For one thing, he said that we have to not doubt, but believe
that what we’re asking for will, in fact, come about. It could be, then, that sometimes, when we pray, we don’t have
enough belief that God will do what we ask.
I don’t think that really answers the question, though. There have been times when I had a very
strong belief that God would do what I asked, because it seemed so right and so
good, and it still did not happen. So
there has to be more to it than that.
It’s the same thing for
when Jesus said, “Have faith in God.”
That seems to have been the key to the Old Testament understanding of
prayer. That’s what we heard in our
reading from Jeremiah, that if people honor God and live the way they’re
supposed to live, God will answer their prayers and take care of them.
It’s been said that, if
we truly have faith, what we pray for will be in accordance with God’s will,
and so it will be done. There is some
support for that. When we pray the
Lord’s Prayer, we say, “Thy will be done.”
When Jesus prayed in the Garden of Gethsemane, he told God what he’d
like to have happen—that a way be found to bring about salvation for us that
did not require him to suffer and die—but he also prayed, “Thy will be
done.” Praying for God’s will to be
done can never be a bad thing to do.
On the other hand, does
it change anything to pray that way? It
did not change anything for Jesus. Do
we even expect anything to change when we pray that way? I mean, it seems like if we pray, “Thy will
be done,” all we’re doing is praying for God to do what God’s going to do
anyway. What’s the point of that? It’s not like God needs our permission to do
things. If God’s going to do something
anyway, it really does not matter whether we pray for it or not, does it?
I especially think of
this when I pray for healing of people who are ill. It seems like if God’s going to heal someone, then God will do
that whether I pray for God to or not.
It’s not like God’s sitting in heaven waiting to see if I pray for
someone to be healed, and if I do, God heals them, and if not, well, too bad
for them. Yet, I do pray for God to
heal people. I must think it makes some
kind of difference, somehow, or I would not do it. Still, I don’t know if my praying in that situation is a logical
response to what’s happening, or if it’s something I do just so I can feel like
I’ve done something.
In thinking about this
question, I thought about our reading from Luke. This comes right after Luke’s version of the Lord’s Prayer. Jesus went on to tell the disciples more about
prayer. Listen to this again:
Which of you fathers, if your
son asks for a fish, will give him a snake instead? Or if he asks for an egg, will give him a
scorpion? If you then, though you are evil, know how to give good
gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give the Holy
Spirit to those who ask him!
Maybe that’s the way to
resolve this. As Jesus says here and
other times, we are God’s children.
We’re very small children, really, compared to God. We ask God for things, the way little kids
ask for things. Sometimes we demand, or
beg, or try to make deals with God to get the things we want, the way little
kids do. Sometimes we don’t understand
why we cannot have what we want, the way little kids cannot understand why they
cannot have what they want. Sometimes
we even get mad at God when we don’t get what we want, the way little kids get
mad when they don’t get what they want.
God does not give us
everything we want any more than good parents give their kids everything they
want. God does give us everything we
need, though.
In fact, God does more
than that. After all, loving parents
don’t just give their kids the bare necessities and nothing more. If they can afford to, loving parents will
sometimes give their kids what they ask for, just because they love them. In that same way, God sometimes gives us the
things we ask for, even if we don’t need them, just because God loves us.
And sometimes, God gives
us even more. Sometimes, God gives us
something we never asked for, something we did not even know enough to ask for,
just because God knows it will make us happy, just like loving parents
sometimes give their children extra gifts they think the kids will like. God does that not because we deserve these
extra gifts, but because God loves us.
So, should we pray? Yes, we should. Should we expect God to answer our prayers? Yes, I think we should. Most of all, though, we should trust
God. We should have faith in God. We should not doubt that God has our best
interests at heart, even if we don’t understand what God’s doing
sometimes. God knows how to give good
gifts to God’s children. God won’t give
us everything we want, but what God does give us will be good. If we trust that, we will see our prayers
answered. Not necessarily in the way we
want or expect, but in the way that’s best.
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