March 8th, 2011 – A lot has been on my mind lately, so I decided to try to put it to words after seeing a post from a friend who was asking for prayer advise. Ultimately, I did not send this to my new friend, even though I wrote my response as if writing to someone else. The intent of the letter is to unwrap my own thoughts regarding prayer and not advice to others. Nevertheless, I’m sharing it here since many of my friends have discussed prayer and the purpose of prayer over the past few months, and it has been heavy on my heart.

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I saw your question posted on Facebook about your desire for answers and whether to read “signs” or lack of “signs” from God as doors open/closed, respectively. Over the past week, I’ve been thinking about this question a lot as it relates to my own life, and there have been many stirrings over the past month where this topic has constantly come up, e.g., Pastor Richard Dahlstrom at Bethany Community Church–where I attend–has been talking about prayer; my small group has been discussing prayer and answers to prayers; and I’ve had conversations with close friends about the intimacy of God and prayer.

…and I’ve come away from it all getting some answers–similar to those posted by others at Facebook but with one important sobering distinction that I believe is true–but controversial to many I’m sure.

But before I get to those answers, I need to give some context. And please also understand, that I’m simply sharing what I believe is true for me in my faith journey and if it can help you, then great.

I’ve been a born again Christian for about 5 years….and believe me, I never thought I’d say that. I have a bachelor of science and majored in Philosophy. For me, religion always had the tinge of “opiate of the masses”, and I certainly didn’t think Christians were enlightened, still not sure how many of them are, but that’s another conversation.

One morning around 5 years ago, I awoke with a warm peaceful presence and a calm that seemed to be all around me saying, you’re not alone, you’re loved and everything will be ok. All of my academic, pyscho-analytic and intellectual powers were in one swoop replaced by something that felt immediately more concrete. I can only say that it must have been the holy spirit moving in me, an awakening. Nights before this awakening I had reached rock bottom and was on my hands and knees asking–if there was a God–to please help me. And in this awakening, despair was replaced with hope, bitterness with love and resentment with forgiveness. Almost overnight, my relationship with my mom improved, a job fell into my lap that was perfectly suited for me, my relationship with friends and family grew, and I started attending church again after 10+ years of absence. Life was very good, and I felt like I was on tract AND with a higher purpose to serve God rather than myself. What a relief.

Well, without getting into too much detail, life has taken many undesirable turns since my awakening and opened many unwelcome challenges and changes. Not all of it has been bad, but the overall picture has me worried. My honeymoon with Christ has ended, and I again am struggling to find peace and connection. I have experienced job discontent, followed by job loss. Relationship problems have re-emerged. I have struggled to connect meaningfully with God and lost connection with family members and some friends. I don’t think these changes are a result of my selfishness or unfaithfulness to Christ or my lack of earnestness to find answers, and I am not blaming anyone else for my problems either.

I’ve had several BIG questions about the direction and substance of my life and in the past 5 years–nightly– asking God to answer these questions…questions about what type of work I should be doing, what relationships I should pursue or end, where I should live….you know, small stuff like that.

I used to pray endlessly for resolve to these questions and get frustrated and angry with God when they worsened. I felt duped. I felt that if God existed, then he would give me clear signs, but if he did, I didn’t see them. Over the years I started losing faith, thinking He is either really incompetent, indifferent, or some combination. I’d also wonder to myself if perhaps God just didn’t like me….seemed like others were getting what they wanted out of life…maybe I just wasn’t good enough or something was just inherently bad in me.Then, one day in the past month–after complete exhaustion with these frustrations, I finally came to the realization that God does not answer prayers in the way that I’ve sometimes asked for them…and if I want my prayers answered, then I better change what and how I’m asking.

Has someone you know ever been killed by some type of disease? Has rape ever occurred to an innocent child? Have unjust wars killed hundreds of thousands of people? If you can answer yes to any one of these, then where was God? Why didn’t he stop it? Surely, prayers were asked and yet justice never came. You just don’t know God’s plan someone might say. Really? I think all but the most rigid fundamentalist can agree that any number of environmental or genetic mutations can lead to cancer or heart disease; and an emotionally disturbed person commits rape; and racism, tyranny, religious beliefs, intolerance or numerous other conditions can lead to thousands dead in a war. All of these examples we would argue are caused by man or nature, not the hand of God…If you can appreciate this line of reasoning, why do so many of us then assume God controls outcomes on who we marry or where our kids go to school or what job or income we have when larger disasters are occurring all around us? Because we are praying about them diligently? Certainly, many who are ill, or being abused or being killed in war pray for their survival or pray for others in harms way, and yet millions anguish in horrible deaths or are wronged in some way in the course of their lives. Christ was crucified, crying to his Father, “why hath you forsaken me?” John the Baptist was beheaded in prison and his head served on a dish. Peter was crucified. We know all of this and yet we persist that God somehow answers all kind of prayers about external affairs and our prosperity if we somehow are diligent or persistent enough.

I think God wants so much more from us than our own prosperity. Prosperity comes to believers and atheists alike. Wealth, disease, job, hairline, they’re all determined by factors outside of God’s concern for us. We can screw things up royally, and God doesn’t clean up behind us with his dirt devil vacuum. Life often just gets messier.

Nothing external that makes our lives easier or worse can be the direct hand of God. Let me explain more before you accuse me of blasphemy.

If we do the right things, sure we can often reap the rewards, e.g., work hard and prosper, eat healthy and live longer, be good to your friends and gain support, but there are no guarantees. The inverse can also be true, e.g., lie and cheat and become a CEO, smoke a pack a day and live to be 100, or steal your best friend’s girl. It seems then that God’s will was to grant us free will, and no external rewards or punishments equate to faithfulness.

What then is important to God? I believe it is our transformation: to love God and others above ourselves. The only kind of transformation comes from within and trust that God will conspire with us to make it so…but that desire and leap of faith and trust often feels too daunting.

I was in a conversation recently where a friend explained that most people do not like living with uncertainty. I think that is true and that the authors of the Bible were no less susceptible to their own shortcomings. That does not mean that I believe that the Bible is untrue, but we need to be active participants in listening to God and following the UNIVERSAL conscience that he has given to each of us, and not to seek self-serving passages with literal interpretations that point to God answering the prayers of the faithful, regardless of what the content of that prayer may be.

When we look at the Bible as a whole as it relates to our transformation, it shows a path more daunting than pursuing any self-serving accomplishment. Transformation is not easy. We will wrestle every day of our lives to find peace as long as we have selfish desires, and those desires are real for all of us.

The point is that God is not a puppet master, concierge or personal assistant. He has given us the greatest gift: Free Will. He has made us in his image and that imprinted design–when coupled with the holy spirit and careful attentiveness to perceiving His will–enables us to be more connected to Him, bringing greater inner peace amongst a world run a muck.

So at present–after much trepidation and resistance–I believe our prayer is to simply serve God and others and be open to wherever that leads us. Easier said than done, right? Kerry has access to many amazing people at her retirement community, and one day Dr. Savage–a retired Washington state heart surgeon–came into her office and handed her a book he wrote about his own faith journey as well as some of the stories of his patients. Dr. Savage starts the book by talking about his faith and how every day he has prayed the same prayer of Saint Francis,

Lord, make me an instrument of your peace.
Where there is hatred, let me sow love.
Where there is injury, pardon.
Where there is doubt, faith.
Where there is despair, hope.
Where there is darkness, light.
Where there is sadness, joy.
O Divine Master,
grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled, as to console;
to be understood, as to understand;
to be loved, as to love.
For it is in giving that we receive.
It is in pardoning that we are pardoned,
and it is in dying that we are born to Eternal Life.
Amen.

At the beginning of my faith journey–when God was seen anew–my outlook was fresh and optimistic, and many facets of my life were flowering in a spiritual renaissance, and God’s gifts seemed more than abundant. Now I am faced with many of the same challenges as before the awakening. I do not think my faithfulness or lack of is correlated to my past or current conditions. It is simply the human condition. Nevertheless, the awakening has changed me, and I suppose my faith journey has led me to the doorway of transformation and the sobering fact that life’s uncertainty is certain and that loving others more than ourselves is the ultimate challenge. Suffering and humility are part of this journey. St. Francis has thrown the gauntlet with his prayer…I know I cannot do it alone, so Lord please help me endure my limitations and rest in your strength and will.