In the last week I've encountered several situations where questions have been asked about God's involvement in human matters. The questions have been posed as we have discussed a seemingly endless series of mysterious experiences. Some experiences have been amazingly joyful...dreams come true...stories of redemption...health restored... or renewed relationships. Other experiences have been horrible...nightmarish...painful...tragic.
As we pray about those situations we vacillate between gratitude for unimaginable blessings and a sort of confused wonderment about why unexpected and seemingly unprecedented burdens come our way. Together our hearts and voices wonder why this happens now, or how long it will go on before peace and wholeness will return.
When something good happens that seems to defy all odds, we lift our hearts and praise God. We recognize an inbreaking of God's grace. We know a deliverance has occurred. We say to ourselves, to each another, and to God: "It's a miracle! How amazing! This is truly a God-send." Our reality in this case seems far better than our reason could have predicted.
But when things go wrong...suddenly... or when painful challenges go on, and on, with no relief or resolution in sight, we ask ourselves, one another and God: "Where is God in this? Why isn't God intervening?" Our reality has no alignment with what our hearts and minds might hope for, plan for, pray for...and perhaps even expect.
A young woman suffers from untreatable brain cancer. A major highway bridge in Minnesota collapses during rush hour. A toddler disappears. A person who has always lived an incredibly good, selfless life is faced with a lingering disease that ravages the body without the quick relief of death.
It is understandable that the child of God would ask...where are you? How long will this go on? We believe that by knowing answers to these questions there will be a more immediate return to life that reflects peaceful harmony between our reality and the deepest desire of our heart.
Prayers emitted by the individual or shared by the body of believers do release a power. It is a power that tranforms our focus as we move ever so gradually from listing the gravity and intensity of our various pains to an awareness of God's mysterious presence. We move from telling God how large our petitions or concerns are to telling our burdened hearts and souls how vast and how deep God's love is.
Prayer translates human experiences of glorious joy or wrenching pain into something that our minds may never understand. But our heart, the space each of us recognizes as that which swells with joy or breaks with sorrow, KNOWS when we have moved from the limits of human perception to the mysterious realm of faith. Our heart recognizes extraordinary miracles. Our heart recognizes reassurance that confronts fear, exhaustion, confusion, grief, exhaustion ... any burden cast upon the human condition.
So prayer is the gift given to each of us by God, reavealed to us through so many of the words spoken by Jesus, that opens the portal of human awareness to God's presence and involvement with our day, whether it is a day of joy or of sorrow. I doubt that our prayer makes God become MORE involved ... I KNOW that our prayer is the way WE become more keenly aware of God's involvement in all times, all places and all situations.
1 comment:
I'm one of those wondering about God's involvement in our lives... Because we are so bound by time it SEEMS that if we pray for something specific and it happens (especially if it happens immediately), then God has intervened, changed something in our lives. Of course, as Pamela said, if we don't get what we ask for or if the opposite occurs, we wonder why God would allow such things (as if we will know the mind of God!). I'm trying to see God as present and active in every present moment in my life. Still, I wonder how we can pray for ourselves or anyone else for future events. I feel that I'm still missing some link here.
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