Wednesday, August 13, 2014

If God already knows what is going to happen, why pray?


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If God already knows what is going to happen,
why pray?

Wednesday, August 13, 2014
Jeff Lampl


First, in watching this video of a little boy trying out his Darth Vader super powers,     


it occurred to me that he is a little bit like us when we pray and the dad is a little bit like God.    The little boy is trying out his superpowers/prayers while Dad is somewhere off in the distance. The little boy finds that his “prayers” (his Darth Vader super powers) don’t work and he’s discouraged.  Mom is sort of like “the real world” saying “here’s your lunch”.  This sandwich I made for you is what’s real.      

And sometimes we feel like that.          

We pray and pray and the dog sleeps and nothing happens and we doubt.  And then the car starts, what you’ve asked for actually happens, out of the blue, and you’re shocked.  Next you try to capture what you did that made the car start (was is my honesty this week, was it me, was it my helping that little old lady across the street, was is the words I used?) and it doesn’t work! Next time nothing!      

Yet behind it all is your father who is in control, who watches you, who answers every prayer that is within his will.  Your Father who wants you as his partner, who, when he sees you not seeking to start a car for your own benefit, but instead sees you seeking to pray something good beyond yourself into existence, now he’s got you where he wants you and uses you.  

A second answer to this question above is this one.  Both the Bible and science at least imply that time can be slowed down to a stop.   Travel fast enough and time just about stops (Einstein proved this – in fact if you get in a plane and travel once around the world you are younger after the trip, relative those who stayed home.  In fact your watch will have actually slowed down!).  Further,  the bible tells us that  “a thousand years are as a day”.   Notice even this verse! 

“He has saved us  . . .  in Christ Jesus before the beginning of time,"     
                                   2 Timothy 1:8-9 (NIV2011)
             

All of this implies that for God everything that ever happens is “now”, an eternal now, in which God see everything in the history of the universe happening at the same time.  If this is correct and I think it is, this means that the creation of the world and our prayers at this very moment are all happening at the same moment, right now!   This would then mean that God has each of our prayers right before Him and, based on the scripture’s teaching that prayer changes things, factors our prayers into what he does.   Our prayers are answered from the ground of all creation. Our prayers are heard, not only before we make them, but before we are made ourselves.


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