Virg Hurley - Pray Nevertheless

PRAY NEVERTHELESS

Copyright 2015 Virg Hurley

Published by Virg Hurley at Smashwords

Smashwords Edition License Notes

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Table of Contents

When Prayer Raises Questions, NotGives Answers

The Conundrum of Prayer

How to Obey Gods Will When ItConflicts With Ours

Preface

PRAY Nevertheless encourages us tosee prayer as a distinctly spiritual communion with God. It studiesthe struggles disciples often experience by praying in faith.Whether through our misunderstanding of prayer, or Godsunwillingness to hear, consider, and answer prayer, Christians canbe victims of their faith in God. We know he can help us if he onlywould. Why doesnt he?

This brief eBook explores the problem ofprayer raising questions, not giving answers. Mary and Martharequested Christs immediate return. His delay caused a crisis intheir faith. Among the lessons learned from their experience isthat terrible things happen to those committed to Jesus; and Godssovereignty supersedes all human experience.

Chapter two explores the conundrum ofprayer. Four observations clarify the conundrum by use of answeredand unanswered prayer illustrations.

Chapter three offers suggestions how we cansubmit to Gods will when it conflicts with ours. Five principleswere established in the experience Jesus had in Gethesemane. Theseprinciples can strengthen our desire to trust God even as herejects our prayers.

Chapter One

When Prayer Raises Questions, Not Gives Answers

American bomber crews raiding over Germanyin World War II experienced wild swings of emotion, excitement,exhilaration, fear, and despair. An officer told of going off byhimself afterwards to weep over lost crew members. In anguish heoften found himself at once praying to God AND cursing God.

While the inconsistency astonished him,heartbroken mortals have often felt bi-polar emotions about God.Minus the profanity, we plead for help only he gives, then questionwhy he withholds it.

Martha and Mary experienced that angst whenLazarus fell sick, then became critically ill. They hurried runnersto Jesus and obliquely sought his post-haste return to Bethany.

Which he refused. And when he did returntoolatethe sisters implicitly blamed him. Lord, if you had beenhere, our brother would not have died, meant Jesus let Lazarusdie. Why hadnt Jesus returned when requested?

Lets consider three lessons learned fromthis event.

One, terrible things happen to thoseunreservedly committed to Jesus. We sometimes hear it said thatGod wont let certain things happen to his people, but thatsuntrue. Marthas family offered Christ unconditional discipleshipand hospitality, yet Lazarus became sick and died.

The same discrepancy continues to occur. OnOctober 24, 2005, a Junior in Bonita Vista High School, ChulaVista, California walked with a friend into an intersection tocross the street. A Toyota entered the intersection and hit theboy, but not his friend. The boy died in the collision. Yet, he hada passion for sharing his faith in Christ. The morning he died hewas on his way to teach a Bible Study group before attendingclasses. He didnt deserve to die. San Diego Union-Tribune10/25/05

While ministering to City Christian Churchin Menifee, California, we had an excellent Filipino member.Faithful to the Savior in every way, he served in any capacity hecould; and never counted any service too small or inconspicuous. Heintended to return to the Philippines after retirement to preachand start churches.

One night, while repairing a machine atwork, other workers stood around, watching and waiting. Throughsome kind of tragic mis-communication, while he lay under themachine, someone, thinking he was safely out, switched the machineon. It instantly twisted him into a human pretzel.

While the machine was as instantly turnedoff, the damage was done. He had stopped breathing. EMT personnelworked tirelessly before a pulse was restored. After severalsurgeries to repair the terrible damage, he survived. To live therest of his time in a wheelchair, being cared for: unable to speak,to clearly understand. To this day, he remains immobile. He didntdeserve the fate he suffered.

God doesnt answer every prayer asrequested. It can be specific, Christ-honoring, and belief-based,and still be refused! Thats a problem Christians sometimes ignoreor deny since they think it reveals a lack of faith. Indeed, thedifference between Biblical teachings about prayer, and personalexperience in prayer, can raise stiff challenges to faith in Godswillingness to hear prayer and Gods ability to answer prayer.

Leroy Trulock used to say, if God is yourpartner, make your plans big. Since God doesnt phone in, or emailhis commands to our personal answering service, most of ourdecisions are made under his Permissive, not his Predictive Will.And, as free as we are to set high goals and pursue big dreams forGod, we must also leave room for him to affirm or re-direct ourstrategy. In that way, however big our plans are, God willultimately be glorified and we satisfied.

That also seems to best fit the Mastersteaching in John 15:2 that God prunes the fruitful branch to makeit more fruitful. Maybe changing our plans is part of the pruning;or unanswered prayer; or the imposition of a burden we wouldntchoose to bear. In any case, the life-interruptions that occur canresult in greater, not lesser faith; in stronger, not weakercommitment.

Whatever happens, for our peace of mind, wemust separate Gods love for us from lifes experiences. They dontautomatically relate to and reflect each other. Any nexus we demandwill eventually torment our faith in God. Its possible that eatingwrongly, or not exercising, or constantly worrying, can createhealth problems, but not necessarily. Its possible that proactivepersonal habits can enrich or prolong life, but not automatically.Frank Sinatra had a good friend who had exemplary personal habits,diet, and exercisebut died young of cancer. I remember seeing apicture of officials in FDRs administration performingcalisthenics to stay fit, and the one guy in the picture whorefused to perform them outlived the rest.

Separate Gods love for us from lifescircumstances. Dont let them, good or bad, determine ourrelationship with him. Kipling discussed it in his poem IF.

If you can meet with Triumph anddisaster

And treat those two imposters just thesame.

How much truer spiritually. Thank God forlifes pleasures, though theyre fleeting; invoke his compassion inpain, though its lasting. For after pleasure and pain both vanish,GOD REMAINSand we in him by Christs everlasting grace! Through itall we can proclaim, God and I will together make it throughthis. Then, when something bad happens, we can say what DaveDravecky said when he lost his pitching arm to cancer: he lost hisarm; he didnt lose God.

Whatever solution we offer to mansescalating dilemmas, agnosticism or atheism arent crediblealternatives. Such insinuations simply abuse humanity more. Theyapply heat to sun-scorched souls; they stick needles into openwounds. Were desperate for solutions. But eliminating ormarginalizing God guarantees continuation of all the dilemmas, notan answer to a single one.

Separate Gods love for us from lifescircumstances. Dont let them, good or bad, determine ourrelationship with him.

In the 1930s tiger hunts in India provideddiversion to the rich. Native beaters beat the grass, chasing thetiger towards a temporary corralnothing but a cloth strung betweenstakes. It offered no obstacle to the tiger...EXCEPT, like any wildanimal, tigers feared the unknown. That cloth, strung out acrossits path, proved the impassable barrier.