redemption

For years, I have been in a serious philosophical quandary about prayer. I have spent most of my life imagining God as someone who stands above us, sifting through emails and phone calls, deciding which prayers to answer and which to ignore for some unknown reason. What happens when two people are praying opposing prayers? I'm reminded of a verse in the Tom Wait's song The Day After Tomorrow. The song is written from the perspective of an American soldier fighting in a war, and feeling disillusioned:

"You can't deny, the other side don't wanna die anymore than we do.
what I'm trying to say is, don't they pray to the same God that we do?
tell me, who does God choose.
whose prayers does he refuse..."

As a kid, growing up watching the Cardinals play, I would get so wrapped up in the game that I'd be begging God to help them win. I never thought about the prayers of the Astros fans.

The most interesting thing about the view of prayer I adopted for most of my life is my own reaction to what I perceived as God's anwser, his action or lack there of. When I felt that God answered my prayers, I would thank him. When I felt that he didn't, I had to find some way of rationalizing it. Isn't it such an ingrained way of thinking f0r so many of us? When good things happen, we thank God - all blessings come from God. But when bad things happened, we don't blame him (or we know we shouldn't) - after all, they don't come from him, do they?

How is it that all good things that happen were caused by God, and all bad things were simply not stopped by God?

How is it that God helped deliver my babies safely into the world, gave us money to live, kept me safe every day at a dangerous job, helped me do well on a test, helped my baseball team win, but let 200,000 people die in an earthquake, let a friend die a slow and painful death to cancer, let millions of people starve, oppressed by the wealthy and powerful? I work on an ambulance. I've seen selfish, bitter, and abusive people live to a ripe old age, continuing to abuse their family and destroy lives. And I've seen thirty-year-old men drop dead without a moment's notice in front of their families that loved them. Why answer the trivial, and ignore the astronomical prayers?

Is it possible that God doesn't routinely alter the course of events, things that would or wouldn't have happened had someone not prayed. If God is eternal, and we are eternal, than God must be infinitely patient. Eternal, infinite significance doesn't lie in the events of life themselves, but in how they change us, who we become from them, what they teach us. I have to believe the concern of God, from his eternal perspective, would be our hearts, our nature, redeeming us to our true selves, his spirit empowering us to become who we were created to be.

That is why Easter has so much significance to so many people.

"God did not abolish the fact of evil. He transformed it. He did not stop the crucifixion. He rose from the dead." -Dorothy Sayers

Why would God need to make things happen or stop them from happening, when everything can be redeemed; everything can teach us and grow us; and we have eternity to learn? My prayers have changed. I wonder if prayer benefits the one praying more than the person or situation they are about. I pray for God's presence. I pray for peace. I pray for encouragement and strength. Pray these things for my children, my wife, all my family, all the world.

I pray for and believe in redemption.