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SIM
Registered Member

Date Joined Nov 2002
Total Posts : 90

Posted 1/5/2003 2:07 PM (GMT -6)

The subject of prayer came up in another thread. It got me to thinking of something I've wondered for years about how prayer works. In my reading, I ran across a book that contains a quote that has perplexed and baffled me ever since:

"To think that we puny people may speak with God and through God we may move all the worlds. Yet when your prayers are heard, creation will not be disturbed. Though the grandest ends be answered, providence will not be altered for a single moment. Not a leaf will fall earlier from the tree, not a star will stray from its course, nor will one drop of water trickle more slowly from its fount - all will go on the same, and yet our prayers will have affected everything. They will speak to the decrees and purposes of God as they are being daily fulfilled; and the decrees will all shout to your prayer, "You are our brother; we are decrees, and you a prayer; but you are yourself a decree, as old, as sure, as ancient as we are." Our prayers are God's decrees in another shape. The prayers of God's people are but God's promises breathed out of living hearts, and those promises are the decrees, only put into another form and fashion. Do not say, "How can my prayers affect the decrees of God?" They cannot, except to the degree that your prayers are decrees, and that as they come out, every prayer that is inspired of the Holy Ghost in your soul is as omnipotent and as eternal as that decree which said, "Let there be light: and there was light" (Gen. 1:3)." (C. H. Spurgeon, "The Power of Prayer in a Believer's Life")

My first thought was, "How can that be?" If my prayer is at all efficacious, then how can this writer say that nothing happens because of it? But then in thinking about God's eternal existence, it occurred to me that what God hears is in a sense also timeless, and therefore, the effect of the prayer is also eternal, not just for that present slice of time. I'm still not sure what I think of this.

I know that for you all who will not consider God to be timeless, you probably won't be interested, but I'd really like to hear people's comments on what they think of this quote.

Thanks,
SIM

Edited by - SIM on 01/05/2003 7:14:04 PM

PotOnWheel
Registered Member

Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 9890

Posted 1/5/2003 3:34 PM (GMT -6)

SIM, you perhaps know that (1) I understand God to be immutable; but, (2) I don't like the term "timeless" since: time is caused by God, and God's opperations have their fingerprints all over temporal things! But I like your question.

God is BOTH a 'terrible' God (meaning we do rightly to be in absolute AWE) and the God who loves the world and mankind. What we seek to learn about prayer will include both of these. Like two banks of a river.

Some prayers are such that they are our participation in what is already accomplished. Liturgically, some prayers are praises to God for his reign. Like the part preserved in the hymn, "Let all mortal flesh keep silent." We join the cherubim and seruphim, and all the white robed martyrs. Those prayers are really something! Then, other prayers, often intertwined in the liturgy with the first category are directed to God's mercy. We who sin and sin need that mercy. And in the midst of the WHOLE Church (which includes all those angels mentioned in scripture) is the appropriate place.

Your Spurgeon quote is poetic. I don't want to be quick to discount it in any way. I might temper it a bit a while later. But as poetic I'm sure it has its place.

Answering his mention of leaves we do well to place ourselves and our prayers WITHIN all of Creation. See this traditional hymn:

quote:
THE THANKSGIVING AT THE LIGHTING OF THE LAMPS
An ancient poem, or, as some say, by the martyr Athenogenes.

O joyful light of the holy glory of the immortal,
heavenly, holy, blessed Father, O Jesus Christ.
Now that we have come to the setting of the sun
and see the evening light,
we sing the praise of God,
Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
It is right at all times to hymn you with holy voices,
Son of God, giver of life:
therefore the world glorifies you.

"...therefore [ALL] the world glorifies you..."

Spurgeon would do well to not leave the rest of Creation out of the role of prayer. Including it might give us a better understanding. After all, Christ died for ALL of Creation. (Orthodox and Reformed both say so.)

SIM
Registered Member

Date Joined Nov 2002
Total Posts : 90

Posted 1/5/2003 5:04 PM (GMT -6)

Good comments about nature needing to be included in prayer. I don't think Spurgeon was necessarily excluding nature's participation in the affect of prayer, but was pointing out the eternal element of prayer. He seems to be saying that our prayers affect the unfolding of events, not immediate affects. He's not saying nature is not affected, but maybe just not in the immediate present.

It's certainly poetic, but is it true? I don't know. Maybe sometimes, maybe not other times.

My foot was kept from slipping on a steep embankment once when I was in a very precipitous situation; I prayed desparately for help, and my prayer was immediately answered; that certainly seems like the prayer was immediate.

So, this could be just a nice bit of rhetoric.

Very nice thanksgiving poem. Thanks for your comments.

SIM

PotOnWheel
Registered Member

Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 9890

Posted 1/5/2003 6:00 PM (GMT -6)

SIM: Very nice thanksgiving poem.

Al: Its a Vespers hymn -- "O Joyful Light" (the ancient Phos Hilaron). www.church-music.co.uk/FOS.htm I like seeing how prayers are used, in context. That one, combined with the lighting of the lamps before the reading of scripture (in contrast to the darkening evening) proclaims the presence of the "light" who is Christ.

Seeing how prayers are used in context helps me to understand them better; and helps me when I take parts of them and make them "my own" when needed.

P.S. -- I'm SURE that God answers prayers that we pray in our need.

Tom
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Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 10353

Posted 1/5/2003 6:29 PM (GMT -6)

SIM-

You’re probably tired of me by now, eh? I’ll only bother you with a comment or two and then leave it to others to comment. Prayer is a great and wonderful thing to do and study. You probably know by now that (1) I understand God to be virtuously flexible in response to us, able to change (because he plainly tells us so), yet unchanging in character and holiness, and that (2) there is no good reason for believing God to be timeless. Having said that, I am VERY interested in prayer! Why would you think those who believe God to be temporal would not be interested in prayer?

I wouldn’t “temper” Spurgeon’s quote. I’d toss it out. It’s the standard deterministic line. God determines all things via his eternal, unconditional, exhaustive, and efficacious decree. All things, including whether you pray or not, are determined by God. Your prayers are the decreed secondary means for bringing about decreed ends. If you pray, that is decreed and determined. And if you don’t pray, that’s decreed and determined too. I understand that there are Calvinists who claim to find this a meaningful and rewarding view of prayer, but I confess to finding it injurious and empty.

You have my brief comments on prayer in the “Sovereignty and Trust” thread. I stand by ‘em. Prayer matters my friend, not just as the decreed necessary means to decreed ends. It makes a real difference. God has decreed/determined THAT our prayers play a part in authoring history, but he has not decreed/determined whether we pray or not. You're right to believe that prayer is efficacious. Unfortunately, there is still nothing "timelessness" can do to explicate that belief.

Come on folks, help SIM out here. Nobody wants to hear me all the time!

Tom [:]

Love never ends

Tom
Registered Member

Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 10353

Posted 1/6/2003 12:49 AM (GMT -6)

SIM-

Here’s an analogy that may help explain how I see the place of prayer and obedience.

Last Summer my family moved into a new home. We had painting to do. We were in a hurry to get out of the hold apartment and into the new one. I was tempted to send my four kids (two teenage girls and two preteen boys) down to the city for the day while I did the job.

I knew what I wanted.
I knew what colors to use.
I’m a better more efficient painter.
I get the job done more quick if I just do it myself.

But…

…there’s something even more important to me, and that is building a loving relationship with my kids. I could have painted Jessica’s room by myself, done it quicker, and done a BETTER job. But I accomplished something infinitely more valuable to me by inviting her to paint her bedroom with me. I let her pick the color. I cut in the ceiling and corners and she rolled the wall. She was messy and wasteful. She ruined a good shirt that we can’t get the paint out of now. I got frustrated when she crossed the lines. In the end the room was not as nicely painted in spots as it would have been had I done it (either by myself or by holding my hand over top her hand to guide every stroke she took). A lot went wrong when I decided to give her the brush and let her paint independent of me. But I’d do it again because of the great time we had talking, laughing, and just BEING together. Painting the room was one project. Building a relationship is another. In this case, the former became a means of accomplishing the latter.

This is what I feel God has done in creating world the way he did and in deciding to endow us with a measure of independence. God could have decreed everything himself. I could have held my hand over top Jessica’s and directed every stroke she made. But then it’d just be me painting the room through her and not her and I painting the room together.

You have to decide, SIM, what you think God was really up to in deciding to create in the first place. What’s the whole point of the creation project? From there you move on to understanding prayer. If God’s point was to share his life and love with us and to have us share that love with one another, then he has to put the brush in our hands, so to speak, and step back. Love requires freedom.

Now, God’s creation project has turned out to be messy and wasteful because of our misuse of freedom. We cross the lines. We ruin things. But the possibility of this happening is the price God had to pay if he was to get what it was he really wanted—people freely choosing to love him and partner with him in achieving his purposes.

Prayer is a subset of the larger creation project. God could have determined our prayers (and the lack of them) to achieve predetermined ends, but would that accomplish what God really wanted to begin with? I don’t think so. Depends on what you think God is up to.

Prayer is thus the language of love. It’s the invitation to paint the room with Dad, to be independent of him (though in limited ways) and to choose to use our independence to help him get the job done. That means the room might not everywhere look the way God wants it to look, because the brush is in our hands. God’s committed to the project, and the project is us freely choosing to love him and work with him. If we choose not to love him, then God doesn’t get what he wants either. That’s the risk he takes. There are risk-free models of prayer and there are models of prayer involving risk. I believe prayer involves risk even for God because he has decided to make SOME of what he wants done dependant upon our willingness to pray (see. Ezek. 22). Not everybody is ready to face this, but I believe it’s entailed in how most of us live and pray anyhow.

If you’re interested, order Providence and Prayer: How Does God Work in the World? by Terrance Tiessen (InterVaristy, 2000). He surveys the different models of prayer. Excellent. He is not an open theist, so you can trust him more!

Tom

Love never ends

SIM
Registered Member

Date Joined Nov 2002
Total Posts : 90

Posted 1/6/2003 5:33 AM (GMT -6)

Tom - I'm anything but tired of your posts. In fact, have found them very thought-provoking and clarifying. I do need more time to read and study and think before commenting.

WOW! Great analogy of you, the father, and your daughter in the painting of your room with God, our Father, and us Christians. (And what a great father you must be!) And that is exactly how I see our relationship with God too! I believe God does give us creative freedom to mess up terribly. The difference between my belief and yours comes with the amount and particulars of that freedom. God, I believe, does give us a lot of freedom, in fact, a potentially very dangerous amount of freedom. And the refreshing part of the OV belief system is that recognition of our responsibility in the choices in our lives and our freedom to either be a positive tool for God's purposes, or a negative destroyer of His purposes. I think the worst danger in the extreme view of God's sovereign control is that believers don't take this responsibility seriously enough and therefore reduce the importance of their choices.

I've been thinking that it is possible that many times my belief and an "open view" belief is not all that different at their core. Because I am bound in time, I am not able to conceptualize what "out of time" is. Therefore, I find myself sneaking God into time in order to have any kind of concept at all of who He is. And then, I believe that Open View beliefs have to eternalize God at times (oops! see how easy that is?) in order to make sense of their concepts. I'm just wondering if God isn't chuckling at our "disagreements"?

After all, as we sang in church yesterday, isn't this bottom line what is most important, "Trust and obey, for there's no other way to be happy in Jesus, than to trust and obey"?

New Years Resolution: To spend as much time WITH God as typing and reading ABOUT Him. And with school, public school student teaching, piano teaching, wifely and motherly responsibilities means I'm spending ALOT less time on this forum. It's getting addictive!

Have a Fabulous New Year!

SIM

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