Yesterday I began looking at the first phrase of the
Lord’s Prayer – our Father in heaven. The look was very academic. I love
academia. It is safe. It is neat. It is also very fake – like airbrushed
supermodels and those plastic dessert samples that they wheel around in
restaurants so you can choose the perfect end to your perfect meal.
The ideas shared in yesterday’s look at “our Father in
heaven” were true. And what I am going to add today does not make them any less
true. But most of us do not live within the neat confines of academia; we live
in the messy openness of reality. A reality where parents abandon their
children; sisters die of cancer; husbands (or wives) cheat on their wives (or
husbands); companies go bankrupt taking their employees down with them;
earthquakes crush the innocent; children die of hunger…Meanwhile evil-doers
prosper; and it looks like our heavenly Father either isn’t paying attention,
doesn’t care, or really isn’t so omnipotent after all.
How does it feel when the prayers of some Christian get
quick “yes” answers? Their children all walk with the Lord, have great jobs,
wonderful marriages and brilliant, beautiful babies. They or a loved one has
cancer; they pray and God miraculously heals. They need a car or home or - fill
in the blank, and God shows up to meet their every need – and most of their
desires. Meanwhile other Christians cry in despair as they watch their children
wander, or struggle with disabilities, loneliness, or barrenness. They pray for
healing and God does not intervene. They look at their brothers and sisters in
Christ and they are convinced that God plays favorites.
I have friends who appear to be God’s favored child and
friends who appear to be the ugly step-child. I have sat with the ”favored
children” as they shared some recent answer to prayer and heard them lament
that they can’t share these things with some people. I have also sat with the
“ugly step-children” as they shared their recent unanswered prayer and I identified
with them in their struggle to believe that they are indeed loved.
Does “our Father in heaven” play favorites? That is this
morning’s the billion dollar question. It is a scary, messy question. This
question does not belong in academia. It belongs in the realm of my wanderings.
Will you wander with me tomorrow morning along this straight crooked path?
I want to assure you these posts are being read. But the question seems hard. Is their anyone who really believes all their prayers are answered? Is there any believer who feels none if their prayers are answered? Are prayers really supposed to be requests? Or should they be conversations?
ReplyDeleteThe question is hard, and I have put people in two distinct groups. I know, of course, that no one believes they have all their prayers answered. I meant only that, from the pit of despair, it surely seems as though there are the "favored children." And from personal experience I can tell you that like the teenager who is unhappy with her parent I have thrown the accusation at God, "You always tell me no."
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