Unanswered Prayer
02/August/2007 Filed in:
JottingsWe all have a tendency to create God in our own image and likeness, and sadly there are times when prayer becomes a kind of test that God must pass before we will condescend to believe. "I will pray for such and such; and if such and such doesn't happen, then I will not believe" — as if our believing or not believing could affect God's existence. Even if we do not put God to the test in quite so blatant a manner, we can treat him as a kind of "Fairy Godmother" who will magic away our worries and ensure the sun shines on our big day, provided we send up a barrage of requests or repeat the right formulae. God is so much bigger than that. Our faith must be bigger, too; because the experience of most people, most of the time, is of apparently unanswered prayer. When we pray we come into the presence of God in a uniquely close and transforming way. As the writer of the Letter to the Hebrews remarked, "It is a terrible thing to fall into the hands of the living God." Terrible, yes, but the end for which we long.