When God is Silent: Staying Focused During Prayer

Many things can get in the way of praying. But one of the most common obstacles is boredom. Prayer can sometimes seem tedious. Our prayers often sound the same. They begin and end the same way. They seem to be composed of the same requests uttered day after day in the same words. We don’t necessarily need to be troubled by the fact that we get bored when we pray. Prayer is an interchange, not a performance. It doesn’t have to be interesting to be effective. What is more, there are many factors that influence the way we feel, none of which necessarily have any bearing on the actual outcome of our prayers. We may be tired or sick. We may be afraid. The fact that we state our requests unimaginatively means nothing to God, who doesn’t analyze their style but searches the heart (Romans 8:27).

Yet the monotony we feel during prayer is sometimes of our own making. We may be bored because we are only praying one kind of prayer. Or it may be because it is the same prayer over and over again. The vocabulary that the Bible uses to speak of prayer is often more expansive than our practice. There is a variety reflected in Paul’s command in Ephesians 6:18 when he urges believers to “pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests.” There are many different situations that prompt us to pray, and we can do so with a variety of types of prayers. One of the things that makes the act of praying interesting, for lack of a better word, is the situation or occasion that prompts it. Just as our lives are filled with great and small traditions, we might also say that there are also great and small prayers. It is unreasonable to expect every prayer to be a transcendent experience.

Sometimes our prayers are urgent. We turn to God in a moment of great need. In those moments, we reach for God the way a drowning swimmer reaches for the outstretched arm of a lifeguard. We have skin in the game. Those are often the times when we feel God’s presence the most. We can say with the conviction of the psalmist, “In my distress I called to the Lord; I cried to my God for help. From his temple he heard my voice; my cry came before him, into his ears” (Psalm 18:6).

At other times, the situation that moves us to pray is mundane. We say grace before a meal or at the beginning of some task. We run through the names on our prayer list and generally ask for God’s blessing on their lives. We are not too specific because we are not aware of any remarkable need.

The more ordinary the context, the less emotionally charged the experience. But it isn’t necessarily the point of prayer to have an emotional experience. Most of our lives are made up of ordinary days. Just as an athlete’s regular training outside the game produces the muscle memory that will enable them to perform in the heat of competition, the habit of ordinary prayer trains us to respond prayerfully in the moment of crisis. Ordinary prayer sanctifies the mundane and makes the benign beautiful. There is nothing wrong with these “bread and butter” prayers. The Bible is full of such prayers. It is our inattention that creates the problem. When our prayers become so common that all we are doing is making religious noise, it ceases to be prayer.

Occasional prayers are a little different. As the label suggests, they are prayers suited to a particular occasion. Invocations and benedictions are an example. Occasional prayers are often a feature of the church’s great traditions. We open and close special services with such prayers. Invocations and benedictions are located at the opposite ends of a task or an endeavor. When a church service begins, sometimes the pastor or worship leader will offer an invocation. This is a kind of invitation offered to God, although we shouldn’t think that He needs permission from us to be part of the service.

God sees past our vague requests
to the real needs that lie beneath them.

Nor should we think that He is somewhere outside the building waiting to be let in. In a way, an invocation is a reminder to ourselves that God is already present as much as it is an invitation to God. A benediction is a blessing. It asks God to bless what we have done or to continue to help us. Although benedictions are viewed as prayers, often they are not addressed to God at all but to the congregation. They are promises addressed to God’s people. One does not need to be ordained to pray an invocation or benediction. Nor are they necessarily reserved for church service. When my children were small, my wife Jane and I would pray the priestly blessing from Numbers 6:24–26 over them when they went to bed at night. Many benedictions are scattered throughout the Scriptures, but writing your own can be especially meaningful. Think about how you want God to bless those for whom you pray and put it into the form of a promise. A good way to formulate your benedictions is to use the language of Scripture’s promises.

The Bible employs several terms to speak of prayer. The most basic is “ask.” It is the general word that Paul uses in Philippians 4:6: “Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.” A prayer is simply a request. But Paul’s inclusion of two additional terms expands the definition. Paul speaks of “prayers” and “petitions.” If there is a difference between the two, it is a difference in perspective. The term prayer looks at it from God’s direction. It was the term commonly used to refer to a request addressed to a deity. This language reminds us of the relational dynamic that provides the context for our request. We are coming to God, who is greater than we are. In a sense, it is a word that puts us in our place.

A petition, on the other hand, looks at prayer from our angle. A petition expresses what we want. The Greek word speaks of beseeching or begging someone. It is more than a request; this is an earnest request. So, the first principle to help us stay interested is to have clarity about what we are doing and what we want. What exactly do we want? What are we asking? It is shockingly easy to pray absentmindedly. Our petitions are not petitions at all. They are not specific enough. We ask God to bless us but in a very general sense. So general, in fact, that God could not answer them if he were limited only to the specifics we share.

Fortunately, God is able to see past our vague requests to the real needs that lie beneath them. But it is hard for us to stay attentive without a concrete sense of what we need. It is not selfish to think about yourself and your situation before you pray. It only makes sense that we should have our problems in mind when we pray. They are the concerns that motivate us to go to God in the first place. But it is possible that in the process, we may magnify those concerns so much that they drive God from our minds. Sometimes when we pray, we are only worrying out loud to God. God hears even these prayers, but they don’t bring us much comfort.

Praying is spiritual, but it is also a cognitive act that requires focused attention. Everyone knows the frustration of having a conversation with someone who is distracted. Perhaps it is because their mind wanders, flitting from one topic to another. Or it may be a result of multi-tasking—the one with whom we are trying to converse is doing something else at the same time. Their attention is divided. Prayer is no different. Conversation with God, just like a conversation with any other person, requires that we concentrate on the topic at hand and on the one to whom we wish to speak.

A meaningful prayer experience, then, requires some forethought. First, what is the subject that we have come to God to talk about? Second, what exactly do we want to say? If we had an appointment with our employer that we knew would cover important topics related to our job, we would spend some time thinking in advance about what we planned to say. The same is true when we have a serious talk with a friend or a family member. We choose our words carefully so that we can express ourselves in just the right way. We do this, in part, so that they will not misunderstand us. But only in part. We choose our words carefully because we have something we want to express. This is what makes the conversation important to us.

Although there is no danger that God will misunderstand us, there is a possibility that we may come to him without having much to say. Perhaps the reason we have trouble focusing during prayer is that the conversation isn’t important. Our thoughts are muddled because we haven’t given much thought to what we are trying to say.

Although words are primary, especially where prayer is concerned, we do not communicate with words alone. Gestures and body motions are also a kind of language. The technical word for this is kinesics. A wink, a nod, a slight gesture of the hand all indicate something. Posture, gestures, and various actions are part of the nonverbal vocabulary some use to talk to God. The difference between these holy kinesics and ordinary body language is that God does not need such signals to understand us. They are for our benefit. Things like posture and gestures can sometimes help us focus our attention when we pray. They may enable us to express ourselves more fully, not because God needs more clarity but because we do. They can also serve as reminders both of our purpose in prayer and the promises that shape it.

Maybe the real problem with my praying is that what I have been calling tedium is actually familiarity. I have come looking for a burning bush only to find a quiet room and a comfortable chair. God does not have to announce his presence with a flourish. Our momentary conversation does not have to be dramatic. Perhaps it is enough just to say my piece and then go my way.

When God is Silent: Praying in the Words of Another

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The first prayer that I remember praying was one I learned. It was a bedtime prayer. I don’t recall whether I learned it from my mother or someone else. It went like this:

Now I lay me down to sleep,

I pray the Lord my soul to keep.

If I should die before I wake,

I pray the Lord my soul to take.

To be honest, this prayer disturbed me. Up to that point, it hadn’t occurred to me that I could die in my sleep. The possibility terrified me. The prayer sounded more like an invitation for God to take my life than a prayer for divine protection. But many people have found it helpful to pray using the words of others. Sometimes, these are rote prayers, like the bedtime prayer I learned to recite as a child. Others pray written prayers that are published.

My Christian experience began among people who looked down on written prayers and rituals in general. They believed that the best prayers were spontaneous, framed in one’s own words. Liturgical prayers (prayers that were memorized and repeated) were part of what they viewed as dead traditionalism, and written prayers were even worse.

Yet, it is just as easy for so-called extemporaneous prayer to be undeveloped and unreflective. Often, extemporaneous prayer is not spontaneous at all but a repetition of phrases and themes that we have learned from listening to the prayers of others. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Everyone learns to talk by listening to the conversations of others. The vocabulary of prayer is much the same. Indeed, plenty of evidence in the New Testament suggests that the early church learned to pray primarily by imitation. One prominent example of this is the form of prayer that Jesus taught when his disciples asked him to teach them how to pray. According to Luke 11:1, Jesus introduced his prayer with the words: “When you pray, say …” Matthew’s version begins with a similar command: “This is how you should pray …” (Matthew 6:9). The prayer’s petitions, which are voiced using the first-person plural, also imply that Jesus expected the church to recite it together (Luke 11:3–4; Matthew 6:11–13).

From its earliest days, the church has prayed in both modes—sometimes by praying the words of others verbatim and at others speaking to God using their own words. It does not have to be an either/or choice. We can pray the Lord’s Prayer word for word as Christ delivered it to the church, and we can also use it as a template by adding concerns that are specific to our lives.

One of the first pictures we have of the church is that of a church that prayed together. This is where we find the disciples immediately after Christ’s ascension. They returned to Jerusalem and went upstairs to the room where they were staying: “They all joined together constantly in prayer, along with the women and Mary the mother of Jesus, and with his brothers” (Acts 1:14). Two questions immediately come to mind. First, how could they pray constantly? Second, what did they say?

When some of us pray, our minds wander after only a few minutes! Did the first disciples really engage in a marathon prayer session that lasted seven weeks? Surely they had to take breaks for eating and sleeping. We know that they stopped at least once to conduct business. Acts 1:15–26 says that “in those days,” the disciples took time to choose someone to replace the traitor Judas. As for the content of these prayers, it seems likely that it was a mixture of praying based on tradition, quotes from the Psalms, and specific requests arising out of their circumstances.

Everyone who learns to pray begins by praying words they have heard from another.

James 5:13 declares, “Is anyone among you in trouble? Let them pray. Is anyone happy? Let them sing songs of praise.” The specific mode of prayer that James recommends for the cheerful is song. The word that is translated “sing songs of praise” is a Greek term that literally means “to play on a harp.” It is related to the word for a psalm and is a reminder of the value of using the book of Psalms as a resource for our prayers and the vital role that singing plays in our overall prayer life. We are used to thinking of singing as an act of worship. Indeed, for many in the church, singing is worship. But singing is also a form of prayer.

Another revealing feature of the command of James 5:13 is the connection that it makes between music and emotion. We know from experience that music has an affective quality. Most of us do not choose our music based on its technical quality but because of the way it makes us feel. The same is true of the church. Today’s church uses music to create a mood and attract visitors. Worship and music are so identified that if someone says that we are going to worship, most people will assume they mean we are going to sing. Yet, when Acts 2:42 lists the priorities of the first disciples, it does not mention music or even worship. Instead, it says that they “devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer.”

Nevertheless, the New Testament does show that music had an important place in the early church. Paul and Silas sang through the night while in prison (Acts 16:25). John’s vision of heaven’s worship includes singing with musical instruments (Revelation 5:9; 14:2–3). John does not describe the melody, only its overall effect. He says that it was “like the roar of rushing waters and like a loud peal of thunder” (Revelation 14:2).

When we sing, we express our emotions as well as our thoughts. Furthermore, there is a physical dimension to music-making. Its sonic nature resonates with us on our deepest level in the most literal sense. “Music is a very bodily business, whether or not the human voice is used,” Jeremy Begbie explains. “Our physical, physiological, and neurological makeup shapes the making and hearing of music to a high degree.”[1] Singing enables us to pray with the whole person and not only with words.

The main thing that troubles those who are uncomfortable with memorized prayer is its liturgical nature. It bothers them that the words they pray are not their own words. Until they pray them so often that they become second nature, it feels as if they are speaking to God in someone else’s voice. But is this really such a bad thing? The fact that some forms of prayer are ritualized speech is not necessarily a condemning factor either. Dead rituals can indeed pose a danger, but in such cases, it is the deadness, not the fact that they are rituals, that poses the problem. Rituals are merely repeated actions that become meaningful to us by their repetition.

Some kind of rote praying is a feature of every Christian tradition, just as every church has its own liturgy, whether it is formal or informal. Everybody who learns to pray begins by praying words they have heard from others. In a way, none of us begins by praying in our own voice. We must first learn a vocabulary and a pattern of speech. It shows us what to ask for and how to ask. It enables us to put into words feelings and desires for which we previously had no name. Over time, what once sounded like an unfamiliar voice eventually becomes a way to find our own.

[1] Jeremy S. Begbie, Resounding Truth: Christian Wisdom in the World of Music (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2007), 47.

When God is Silent: Managing Our Angry Prayers

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Sometimes when we pray, we are angry with other people. On other occasions, we pray because we are angry with God. When Jonah prayed, it was both. After delivering what may be the shortest and most successful sermon in preaching history, Jonah prayed an angry prayer in which he took God to task for his mercy and then begged for death.

You might think that Jonah would be happy. Instead, the prophet was outraged. The Hebrew text literally says, “It was evil to Jonah, a great evil and he was angry” (Jonah 4:1). Jonah wasn’t surprised by what God had done (or, more specifically, by what he hadn’t done). Jonah was furious because God had behaved exactly as he expected. “Isn’t this what I said, Lord, when I was still at home?” he complained in Jonah 4:2–3. “That is what I tried to forestall by fleeing to Tarshish. I knew that you are a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and abounding in love, a God who relents from sending calamity. Now, Lord, take away my life, for it is better for me to die than to live.”

Yet, Jonah’s angry prayers are not an anomaly. Indeed, angry prayers are common enough that those who study the prayers of the Bible have an entire category devoted to them. They call them imprecatory prayers, after a Latin word that means to curse or invoke evil. To be fair, Jonah’s prayers were not technically imprecatory. They were more occasions of grumbling out loud to God. But the anger that prompted them is the same spirit that fuels the imprecations of the Psalms, the laments of Jeremiah, and even a few of the “wish prayers” of the apostle Paul (Galatians 1:8; 5:12).

Prayers for protection have always been prayed by God’s people. Imprecatory prayers go a step further. They ask for protection, but they also ask God to punish, sometimes with language that we would consider immoderate. For example, in Psalm 69:28, David prays that God would blot his enemies out of the Book of Life. Even more disturbing, Psalm 137:8–9 pronounces a curse on Babylon and a blessing on those who destroy it.

Anyone who has experienced abuse or witnessed an atrocity can identify with the emotion that energizes these prayers. But we don’t have to suffer abuse to understand the angry prayers of the Psalms and prophets. We have all had the same feelings, though on a much smaller scale, every time someone has wronged us. Yet, there is more than an emotion behind the imprecations of the Old Testament. The retributive standard of the Mosaic law—eye for an eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot—shapes them. Leviticus 24:20 summarizes the principle in these words: “The one who has inflicted the injury must suffer the same injury” (see also Exodus 21:24; Deuteronomy 19:21).

As a legal standard, the purpose of this command was to limit retribution. The basic rule was that the punishment should fit the crime and not go beyond it. Any penalty must consider the degree of damage inflicted on the victim and the retaliation imposed should not have extreme punitive damages. The Mosaic law’s limitation of the penalty to an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth was not exclusive to Israel. It also existed in other cultures, perhaps most famously in the Babylonian Code of Hammurabi. Possibly we might view the psalmist’s and Jeremiah’s imprecatory prayers as an application of the Babylonians’ own standard of law against them, but the limits set by God’s law on retribution were more than a cultural adaption of advanced Babylonian jurisprudence. It reflected a larger movement in the direction of grace that Jesus Christ would eventually fulfill by his coming. John gives the broad outline of this trajectory when he observes that “the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ” (John 1:17).

Christ’s inauguration of this full measure of grace must shape our understanding of Scripture’s angry prayers. The advent of an age of grace did not lower the bar of God’s justice. Jesus did not come to overturn the law but to fulfill it (Matthew 5:17–18). Not only did Jesus warn of a coming day of judgment, but he also made it clear that on that day, he would be its primary agent (Matthew 13:41–43; cf. 2 Peter 2:9; 3:7). But until that day, Christ’s dealings with the offender are marked by grace.

The spirit that shapes our prayers for those who anger us is not the spirit of Jonah but the spirit of Christ. It is not a cry for justice but a prayer for grace. To hear such a thing will undoubtedly rankle some in this era when justice has become a cultural byword. Yet Jesus could not have been clearer on this matter in his teaching. Our model is not the imprecatory prayers of the Psalms and prophets, but the pattern Christ gave us in the Sermon on the Mount. “You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy,’” Jesus declared. “But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous” (Matthew 5:43–45). What kind of prayer shall we pray for those we judge to be our persecutors? Paul echoes Christ’s command and clarifies the sort of prayer he had in mind: “Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse” (Romans 12:15).

How, then, should we pray our angry prayers? Given what Jesus says, should we even pray them at all? It doesn’t seem realistic to think that we can deny our anger. To deny it would be to pray through a mask of false piety. We cannot hide our feelings from the one that Scripture says “knew what was in each person” (John 2:24). Nor is it reasonable to dismiss the things that have sparked our outrage. They are important. At least, they are important to us, or else we would not be angry about them. Whether or not the outrage we feel is justified is not the point (not yet, anyway). If we are to worship God in spirit and truth, the truest self at this moment is our angry self. Jesus’ command to love our enemy and bless our persecutors does not mean that we cannot pray if we are angry.

We do not have to deny our anger, but we must take these feelings in hand and discipline ourselves to pray both as Jesus taught us and as he himself prayed. But if we are to pray as Jesus did, then we must also take upon our lips not only his words of forgiveness offered on behalf of those who crucified him but his cry of dereliction. Before Jesus prayed, “Father, forgive them,” he prayed, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Matthew 27:46; Mark 15:34).

I am not saying that on the cross, Jesus spoke in anger or disappointment with the Father. Far from it. Yet these words of anguish were more than a mere symbol. Just as they truly described the emotion of the psalmist at the time when they were first written, they express the agony Christ suffered as he “‘bore our sins’ in his body on the cross” (1 Peter 2:24). It is this reality that makes Jesus prayer a model for us in our anger. When we admit our anger and frustration to God, we acknowledge our ambivalence. On the one hand, the fact that we are praying is itself a recognition of God’s sovereignty. We pray because he is our God. We know that he is in control. In the act of praying, we begin with God and not our problem.

At the same time, we often feel conflicted as well. Like Jonah, we are hunkered down and waiting to see what God will do for us. If we are not angry, we are at least frustrated by our circumstances. We wonder why the sovereign God would allow such things to occur. This note of frustration is frequently heard in the prayers of the Bible.

Jonah had a problem with God because he had a problem with the people of Nineveh. Jonah was angry about the evil of Nineveh. But mostly, he was angry because God did not seem to share his anger. Jonah learned by experience what he already knew as a matter of intuition. When you pick a fight with God, you usually end up on the losing side. God is bigger than you are and has all the power. He holds all the cards and knows what you are going to say before you say it.

The Jonah story ends in silence. God asks, “Should I not pity Nineveh?” But Jonah gives no answer. We, too, are silent but often for a different reason. Sometimes ours is a silence born of fear. At other times it is the silence of artifice. Instead of expressing our real thoughts and feelings in prayer, we tell God what we think he wants to hear, as if God could not see through our charade, as if he did not already know what was in our hearts. It would be far better for us to take our stand with the patriarchs, the psalmists, and the prophets and state our feelings in plain words. It might be better, even, if we were to join Jonah as he sulks on the outskirts of Nineveh and risk engaging God in impolite conversation. Jonah, admittedly, is only barely obedient. But at least he is honest.

When God is Silent-The Art of Praying for Others

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When I was a pastor, one of my responsibilities was to pray for the congregation. I usually began every morning in my “praying chair” with the church directory open on my lap. I would look at the pictures and pray for each person by name. It was easy, as long as I was praying in generalities. It was harder when I tried to pray in specifics. Besides asking God to give them a good day, keep them safe, and bless them (whatever that meant), I often found myself at a loss for words.

My problem wasn’t the church’s size. The congregation was small, only fifty or sixty regular attenders. I knew everyone by name. I knew where they worked and some of the details of their lives. I was usually aware when something happened worth praying about: an illness, a job change, a death in the family. It wasn’t rocket science. It seemed to me that being familiar with the congregation should make praying for them easier, but it wasn’t.

Most of the time, when we pray for others, we are either trying to change them or their situation, but we face two significant obstacles. One is the people for whom we are praying. The other is God. It sometimes seems as if neither party is willing to cooperate with our effort. Do a search on books about intercessory prayer on the Internet, and the overall impression you get is that our concerns in this area are primarily concerns of focus and method. Many of the titles describe those for whom we should pray. They are about praying for our spouses and children, our nation, and our churches. We are praying for health, prosperity, and revival. These book titles indicate that we wrestle with the same insecurities and disappointments here as we do with the rest of our prayers. We don’t think we are very good at it. We are worried about our technique and are looking for some way to ensure we will get the response we desire from God.

The first explicit example of intercessory prayer recorded in Scripture is by Abraham. This doesn’t mean that he was the first to pray. Or even that he was the first to pray for someone else. Abraham prayed for Sodom after God told him that he intended to destroy the city. One of the most surprising features of this prayer is that it sounds like bargaining. It was not Abraham who initiated the conversation but God. However, Abraham did have a personal stake in the outcome. His nephew Lot was a resident of Sodom. The way that Abraham keeps driving down the number of righteous people needed to spare the city of Sodom does indeed make it feel as if he is haggling with a merchant in the marketplace. Upon closer inspection, however, there was no bargaining going on at all in Abraham’s intercession. A bargain involves an exchange with some quid pro quo given and received. Abraham offers nothing in exchange for the terms he suggests to God other than an article of faith. He only asks that “the Judge of all the earth do right” (Genesis 18:25).

Of all those who pray in the Old Testament, Moses stands as the premier example of intercessory prayer. One of his most notable prayers occurred when Israel turned from God and worshiped the golden calf (Exodus 32–34). Moses’s prayer seems to stand between God and the destruction of the nation. On the surface, we could be tempted to see God’s anger as a momentary flash of rage that subsides after Moses talks God off the ledge.

A closer analysis reveals much more. If God had truly wanted to destroy the nation, he could have done so while Moses was still on the mountain. Instead, the Lord said, “Go down, because your people, whom you brought up out of Egypt, have become corrupt” (Exodus 32:7). More than informing Moses of the problem, this declaration is cleverly framed in a way that seems to place their fate in Moses’s hands. In addition to calling them “your people, whom you brought up out of Egypt,” the Lord demands, “Now leave me alone so that my anger may burn against them and that I may destroy them. Then I will make you into a great nation” (v. 10). In the exchange that follows, Moses prays four times and offers three arguments based on what God has already revealed about his purpose and character.

Intercession is not bargaining or talking God
into or out of something.

Intercessory prayer is not bargaining or talking God into or out of something. When we pray for others, we respond to God’s invitation to enter into his purposes. Instead of carefully crafted arguments intended to persuade a reluctant God, we confess God’s promises. His grace, mercy, and justice shape our petitions. The more we know about God, the more confidently and intelligently we can pray.

In the New Testament, the apostle Paul is both an example and an advocate for intercessory prayer. He saw intercession as a way of participating with God in what he is doing in the lives of others. Praying for others is a way of participating with God in what he is doing in the lives of others. When we engage in intercessory prayer, we are not trying to direct God’s attention toward someone he is not aware of or in whom he is not interested. When we pray for someone else, we enter into a relationship that already exists between that person and God as their creator.

The apostle Paul’s language of spiritual collaboration places intercessory prayer within a relational rather than a transactional framework. He saw the Corinthians as his helpers through their prayers. Those who prayed for Paul enabled him to preach. Their prayers went on ahead and opened doors (2 Cor. 1:11). The same is true for us. The record of Paul’s prayers in his letters and his requests that the churches pray for him in return provide evidence of a praying network that was the foundation of the apostle’s ministry. Paul not only solicited prayers for himself but invited them to pray along with him for others. When we pray for a friend going through a hard time, we share the load with them. Our prayers can ease their burden.

How, then, should we practice the art of intercessory prayer? To some extent, the answer is that intercessory prayer is the same as any other kind of praying. We bring our concerns to God and ask him to take care of them. The apostle Paul’s prayers recorded in the New Testament provide a simple model that we can use for ourselves. Many of his prayers include four key elements. First, they are addressed to God. But rather than merely saying, “Dear God,” Paul’s openings often describe God by one of his attributes as recorded in Scripture.

The second element of Paul’s prayers is a request. Sometimes these are stated explicitly as petitions and at other times in words that sound more like a wish. The point here is not so much whether he used the optative mood or the indicative when he made his requests so much as it is that he saw those for whom we pray within the framework of God’s care. He was not merely asking for things. He made his requests with a Godward focus. The apostle recognized that a petition is not a demand.

A third feature of Paul’s prayers is that they usually mention those for whom he prays. He has specific people in mind. Paul’s prayers for others are personal and suited to their needs. They are not vague. The third feature of Paul’s prayers is that they usually mention those for whom he prays. He has specific people in mind. Paul’s prayers for others are personal and suited to their needs. They are not vague.

A fourth element of the apostle’s prayers is that Paul often articulates an outcome that he expects to see as a result of God’s answer. These purpose clauses set the apostle’s requests within the larger framework of God’s plan. It is easy to be so caught up in the specific requests we are making that we lose sight of why we are praying at all. Christian prayer is not magic. We are participating in God’s plan for the church, for our lives, and the world at large. There is a bigger picture to keep in view, along with the particular requests that we make. God’s purposes and his promises are a motivator and a guide in all our praying.

There is one other noteworthy feature of Paul’s intercessory prayers. Those that are recorded in the New Testament are generally brief. Often, they are no more than a paragraph or two. Many are only a few sentences. Our prayers do not have to be works of art. They do not have to be long. We can pray while working, playing, or as we lie on our bed at night. Say what you have to say as best you can and leave the matter with God.

When God is Silent-Asking and Getting What You Want . . . or Not

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In one of his parables, Jesus compares prayer to someone who asks a neighbor to loan him three loaves of bread when an unexpected visitor shows up at midnight (Luke 11:5–8). In the scenario that Jesus describes, the neighbor is unwilling at first. “Don’t bother me,” the neighbor says. “The door is already locked, and my children and I are in bed. I can’t get up and give you anything.” What is Jesus’s counsel in such a situation? Keep asking. Be shameless in your persistence: “I tell you, even though he will not get up and give you the bread because of friendship, yet because of your shameless audacity he will surely get up and give you as much as you need” (Luke 11:8).

Jesus made the same point in another parable “to show [his disciples] that they should always pray and not give up” (Luke 18:1). This story concerned a widow who kept going to a judge with the plea, “Grant me justice against my adversary” (Luke 18:3). Because the judge “neither feared God nor cared what people thought,” the woman came to him repeatedly without getting the answer she desired. The power dynamics described in this witty story aptly describe how we often feel when it comes to prayer: helpless, powerless, and frequently ignored.

Prayer is an act of communion with God. But for most of us, it’s also about getting something from God. Most prayers include an “ask” of some kind. We aren’t praying just to hear ourselves talk. Jesus’s primary point, of course, is that God is not like the neighbor or the judge. But it is an important starting point to acknowledge that we often feel that he is. We do not struggle with prayer because it is hard. Our problem is that we are not sure it is worthwhile. We suspect that God is not interested in our case or fear that he will not decide matters in our favor. Delay and denial are the major reasons for this uncertainty. We pray, but the answer does not seem to come. Or we pray, and the response we receive is not the one we had wanted.

Why does God often seem so slow when Scripture assures us that he is not slow? One reason is that our relationship to time is very different from God’s. In 2 Peter 3:8, we are told to remember that “with the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day.” What seems to us like a delay is not a delay to God. God’s plans unfold according to his schedule. The fact that time does not limit God does not mean that he has no sense of timing.

While a “no” is probably not the answer we want, it is still an answer.

Jesus began his public ministry with the words, “The time has come” (Mark 1:15). Romans 5:6 tells us that Christ died for sinners “at just the right time.” We are frustrated with the timing of God’s answers to our prayers because we forget that we are also part of a larger drama that is unfolding. As far as our daily experience is concerned, we continue to live on a timeline that unfolds as past, present, and future. We are subject to the limitations of the temporal realm in this present life. Yet, we are also living in the reality of Christ’s finished work. Our lives have been folded into Christ and his kingdom. As a result, “in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose” (Romans 8:28).

One implication of this is that our prayers’ answers are accomplished facts even before they have been granted. Another is that we can be certain that whatever form God’s answer may take, it will reflect his loving purpose for our lives. This heavenly perspective casts Jesus’s promise in Matthew 18:19 in a new light: “Again, truly I tell you that if two of you on earth agree about anything they ask for, it will be done for them by my Father in heaven.” Although the context of Jesus’s promise in this particular verse is narrow—it primarily has to do with the exercise of church discipline—it parallels Jesus’ statements in Matthew 21:22, Mark 11:24 and John 14:13–14.

What Jesus describes in these passages is not a positive attitude but a sphere of authority. Those who ask in faith can be certain of an answer because they operate out of the heavenly realm where God’s will is always done (Matthew 6:10; Luke 11:2; see also Matthew 26:42). The trouble with the view that sees Jesus’ promises as a blank check which guarantees that we can get whatever we want from God is that it shifts the focus of prayer away from the Heavenly Father so that our only concern is the particular request we happen to be making. This approach to prayer reduces God to little more than a delivery system for the thing we hope to obtain. He might as well be a vending machine. Second, such an approach confuses an affirmative with an answer. It fails to allow for the possibility that God could also answer our prayer by denying our request. While a “no” is probably not the answer we want, it is still an answer.

The Bible offers many examples of notable saints whose prayers were refused by God. Moses pleaded with God to allow him to enter the land of promise (Deuteronomy 3:23–27). David asked God to heal his first son by Bathsheba (2 Samuel 12:16–20). Paul repeatedly prayed for God to remove the “thorn in my flesh” (2 Corinthians 12:7–9). Most notably, Jesus prayed to be spared the suffering of the cross in language that suggests he was fully aware that such a thing was not possible.

Likewise, there are many in Scripture who waited many years, some for their entire lives, without seeing God grant their desires. Of them, the author of Hebrews writes, “These were all commended for their faith, yet none of them received what had been promised, since God had planned something better for us so that only together with us would they be made perfect” (Hebrews 11:39–40). Although he is not speaking explicitly of prayer, the principle is just as true. The fact that God does not grant our request as soon as we would like may not mean that he will not give it to us at all. His refusal to grant a request altogether isn’t always a sign that God is displeased with us. It doesn’t necessarily mean that we lack the faith to receive it. Sometimes God’s decision not to grant our request has nothing to do with us at all, at least as far as cause and effect are concerned.

Is there ever a time when we don’t get what we ask because it is our own fault? The answer is yes. James 4:2–3 explains, “You desire but do not have, so you kill. You covet but you cannot get what you want, so you quarrel and fight. You do not have because you do not ask God. When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures.” Prayer is not magic. It does not work like an incantation. We do not get what we want in prayer simply because we voice our desire aloud to God.

There is a kind of assurance in what James says here. It means that we cannot manipulate God by our prayers. We never have to worry that God will give us something that we should not have. At the same time, the scenario that James describes should sober us because it shows how evil motives can subvert a spiritual activity like prayer. The specific motives mentioned by James are greed and envy. But other motives can insert themselves into our praying. For example, Jesus warns of the danger of praying “to be seen by others” (Matthew 6:5). Some prayers are not prayers at all. They are theater. The prayers Jesus condemns in this verse were public displays of piety intended to elicit praise from others. He warns that such prayers go unanswered: “Truly I tell you, they have received their reward in full.”

The first principle in prayer is simply to ask. Tell God what you want, as simply as you can (James 5:13-16). Getting something from God is not the only thing. But it is the first thing. Need and desire provide the initial impetus for us to pray. There is no reason to be ashamed of this.

The second principle in prayer is to pray honestly. One of the greatest temptations in prayer is to tell God what we think he wants to hear instead of what is really on our heart. There is no point in putting on airs. He already knows what we think.

The third principle of prayer is to persist. This advice comes directly from Jesus. Pray and do not give up. We persist in prayer, not because we think it will put pressure on God to grant our request but as an expression of faith. We continue because we believe that God’s interest in us and in our needs is persistent. Persistence is evidence of our dependency, not a sign of our doubt.

God is not like the reluctant neighbor or the unjust judge in Jesus’s parables. It is God’s nature to give “good gifts” to his children. God hears us whenever we cry out to him. When God hears, his response is immediate. Although he may not always grant us the particular object of our desire or grant the answer according to our preferred timetable, we can be sure that he will always act in our interest.

Picture of Jesus praying in Gethsemane with the caption "Sometimes the best answer to our prayer is "No." With a picture of the book When God is Silent by John Koessler and a caption "Pre-Order now for a 30% discount at lexhampress.com

When God is Silent-Awkward Conversation

Featured ~ John Koessler ~ 1 Comment

Some conversations are just hard: telling someone about the loss of a loved one; talking to the kids about the facts of life; informing an employee that their contract will not be renewed; making small talk with a person whom you have virtually nothing in common. But few conversations are quite as challenging as trying to talk with someone who seems to have nothing to say.

I say this to make a point about God, or to be more precise, to make a point about our experience with God. God does not seem to be much of a conversationalist. He is mostly silent when we talk to him. We know from Scripture that God has a voice. According to the book of Genesis, the first words ever spoken were God’s words: “God said, ‘Let there be light,’ and there was light” (Genesis 1:3). Yet, the Bible also shows that God is no chatterbox. God indeed spoke to Moses “face to face, as one speaks to a friend” (Exodus 33:11). He spoke to Abraham the same way, but ordinary conversation has never been God’s primary communication mode, at least not the kind of conversations we are used to having.

God has chosen to speak through others most of the time: prophets, preachers, and occasionally angels. Even then, God has never shown himself to be what you could describe as voluble. His words have been, for the most part, relatively few and sometimes far between. Long gaps of years, decades, centuries, and even millennia separate the occasions where God speaks to his people.

We assume that it would be a comfort to hear God speak directly to us. Yet Scripture suggests that we are more likely to be unnerved by the experience. When Israel heard God’s voice, they were so put off by the experience that they begged him to stop. God came to Elijah in a gentle whisper, but on Sinai, it was with a shout and in a blaze of fire. “Go near and listen to all that the Lord our God says. Then tell us whatever the Lord our God tells you,” they begged Moses. “We will listen and obey” (Deuteronomy 5:27). It seems more likely that if God spoke directly to us, we would react as they did. Or we would put our hands over our ears in stunned silence as Job did (Job 40:3–5).

We assume it would be a comfort to hear God speak directly to us.

Taken as a whole, the Bible describes many occasions where God revealed himself to specific individuals, but very few had a face-to-face conversation with him (Exodus 33:11; Numbers 12:8). As the writer of Hebrews observes, “In the past God spoke to our ancestors through the prophets at many times and in various ways, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, and through whom also he made the universe” (Hebrews 1:1–2).

Whatever prayer may be, it is not an ordinary conversation. Believers in every generation have understood prayer as one of the means by which God communicates to his people. Yet it is a conversation where we do the majority of the talking. In prayer, we approach God but do not see either face or form and do not hear his voice. Therefore it is a conversation that lacks all the normal cues we rely upon for meaning. When we talk to God, we cannot rely upon inflection, body language, or facial expression to gauge his response the way we can when conversing with others.

Prayer differs from ordinary conversation in another respect. Those who pray often talk to themselves as well as to God. The self-talk of prayer is not a pep talk or even positive thinking. When we talk to ourselves in prayer, we remind ourselves of the truth we already know. We remember God’s disposition toward us and base our expectations upon it. This kind of prayer talk amounts to a confession of faith made in the presence of God.

If prayer is not a conversation in the ordinary sense, then what is it? Prayer is a conversation that moves primarily in one direction. It moves from the believer who prays to the God who hears. God’s silence does not mean that he is unresponsive. The first assumption of faith is that we have God’s attention. 1 John 5:14-15 assures us: “This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us. And if we know that he hears us—whatever we ask—we know that we have what we asked of him.”

The key to understanding John’s bold and frequently misunderstood promise is to note that to “hear,” in this sense, means something more than to take notice of something. To hear as John uses the term is to grasp the full implications of something. God knows both our desire and our true need. He also knows how our request fits into his plan.

It might help if we thought of prayer as communion instead of conversation. The essence of communion is shared experience. The mistake we make is to interpret God’s silence as absence or disinterest. In true conversation, listening is interaction as much as speech. Listening may even be more of an exchange than words because, to really listen, we must enter into someone’s experience.

Sometimes when we pray, we feel like we need to do something to attract God’s attention. We are like a person on the ground waving their hands at a plane passing high overhead, hoping that someone up there will see us. God does not have to come down from on high to take note of us. We do not need to arrest his attention. Although we often talk about “coming” into God’s presence, the truth is that we are already there.

We are not trying to capture God’s attention but responding to an overture that he has already made. Not only was God the first to speak, he spoke to us long before we ever uttered a word to him. He has revealed himself in creation and by his written word. We do not need to feel God’s presence to know that he is present when we pray. Psalm 139 assures us that wherever we are, God is already there. “Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence?” the psalmist says. “If I go up to the heavens, you are there; if I make my bed in the depths, you are there” (Psalm 139:7–8).

The awkwardness of prayer should not put us off. It does not originate with God but with us. We have felt uncomfortable with other conversations we have had and have pushed through the discomfort to say what needed to be said. How much more should this be true when it comes to God? “You discern my going out and my lying down; you are familiar with all my ways,” the psalmist declares. “Before a word is on my tongue you, Lord, know it completely” (Psalm 139:3–4). We do not need to feel that God is near to be in his presence. We do not need to be comfortable to pray. We do not need to speak nicely to be heard. Before we have even uttered a word, God knows our minds and hearts completely.

Do We Really Need Another Book on Prayer?

Featured ~ John Koessler ~ 3 Comments

As I was writing my most recent book, When God is Silent, I had to ask myself a question. Do we really need another book on prayer? C. S. Lewis once observed that he had never come across a book on prayer that was of any use to him. He said that he had seen many books of prayers, but when it came to books about prayer, the writers usually made the wrong assumptions about the reader.

I have often felt something similar. Books about prayer don’t seem to fit my situation. They either assume that I don’t want to pray or that I don’t know how. Neither is really the case. My problem lies elsewhere. I don’t like the way God treats me when I pray. Our conversations seem awkward. Over time I’ve discovered that most people are like me. We pray, sometimes frequently, but there is something about the experience that leaves us feeling uncomfortable. We aren’t sure why.

After giving this question thought over many years, it seems to me that many of the problems we have with prayer have nothing to do with motivation or method. They are the sort of problems that we might describe as relational. How do you carry on a conversation with someone who never seems to talk back to you? Why do we feel like God is sometimes unresponsive to our wishes? In my latest book, entitled “When God is Silent,” I address questions like these and many more.

In the end, the secret to prayer is not a matter of method or even motive. The key to prayer is God Himself. I have written this book to do more than answer questions like these. It is my hope. Indeed, it is my prayer that as you read, you will also gain a sense of God, of His goodness, and the rich welcome that is waiting for you every time you approach Him in the name of Jesus Christ.

Three Prayers from the Cross

Featured ~ John Koessler ~ 1 Comment

Some have called Jesus’ seven statements from the cross his “last words.” The label is striking but somewhat misleading. They are not individual “words” but a collection of sentences or phrases. Neither are they technically the last words of Jesus but merely the last things he said before his death and resurrection. It turns out that Jesus still had much to say. After the resurrection, he showed himself to be alive to the disciples and spoke to them over the course of forty days and beyond (Acts 1:3).

Still, there is something unique about these sayings. For one, there is a starkness to them. The dying, as a rule, are not talkative. If they are not unconscious, they are too uncomfortable to be chatty. Dying is hard work, and those engaged in the task are usually too preoccupied to be loquacious. Jesus’ words are as terse as one would expect from someone entering the final throes of death.

The First Prayer

Among these seven sayings are three prayers, of which the first is, in some ways, the most astonishing. In this prayer, Jesus asks the Father to forgive those who crucify him (Luke 23:34). This is poignant but especially so coming between Jesus’ warning to the daughters of Jerusalem of a terrible judgment yet to come and Scripture’s observations about the scorn of the watching crowd. Luke’s description paints a picture of callous disregard blended with pride. Jesus hangs naked between two criminals as the religious leaders sneer. “He saved others,” they taunt, “let him save himself if he is God’s Messiah, the Chosen One” (Luke 23:35).

The soldiers do their work with the brutal indifference of soldiers. They pound nails in Jesus’ hands and feet and haul him up. They parcel out Jesus’ clothes. Instead of water, they offer him wine vinegar. The soldiers point to the sign Pilate has ordered to be placed above his head and say, “If you are the king of the Jews, save yourself.” Yet instead of asking for justice, Jesus pleads with God for mercy on their behalf. More than mercy. Jesus asked God to absolve them “for they do not know what they are doing.”

But they do know what they are doing. At least, they think they know. The crowd, which has been swept up in these events, watches it all unfold. Some with ghoulish interest and others with sorrow. The soldiers are only following orders. The rulers, likewise, are just doing their job. They believe they are acting responsibly by ridding the nation of a dangerous person. Yet it seems that Jesus is right after all. They are all of them ignorant. None of them has any idea what is really going on.

Jesus’ request that God forgive is not a dismissal of the cruelty of their actions toward him. This is not the kind of false forgiveness we sometimes offer, saying, “Oh, it was nothing at all. Think nothing of it.” Rather, Jesus’ petition acknowledges that he knows what is happening. Jesus is not a victim. He is acting as a high priest, praying for the sins of the people. But Jesus is doing more than praying. He is also offering the sacrifice that gives him the warrant to ask for forgiveness on their behalf. It is the sacrifice of Jesus himself (Heb. 7:27).

The Second Prayer

Jesus affirms this in the second prayer he utters from the cross. If Jesus’ first prayer from the cross is astonishing, his second is disturbing. Jesus cries out, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” Matthew 27:45–46 reveals that Jesus spoke these words in darkness at three in the afternoon. This sharp cry is separated from the petition for forgiveness by at least three hours of suffering.

Some find these words of Jesus’ troubling, interpreting them as a moment of doubt or maybe even despair. But they are something else. They are a quote from Psalm 22, which is also a prayer. Acting as both priest and sacrifice, Jesus utters a liturgical prayer: “He reached up for a word of the eternal God and sent it back up again.”^[1] Jesus’ words do not reflect a loss of confidence in God, but they suggest that there is more going on in this moment than merely a symbolic act. Something is happening between Jesus and the Father that is deeply distressing to the Savior. If we take Jesus at his words, it is a separation. Somehow, the unity between Father and Son that existed since eternity past was broken at that moment. Philip Jamiesen explains, “The cry of dereliction reveals that the Son has lost His direct access to the Father even as He calls out to Him as God.”^[2]

It is easier to explain what happened than to precisely describe what Christ experienced. 2 Corinthians 5:21 explains, “God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” Those who stood by the cross watching did not recognize it but were seeing themselves at that moment. Jesus was sundered from the Father because he had taken upon himself the “sin of the world” (John 1:29).

Acting as both priest and sacrifice, Jesus utters a liturgical prayer.

The Third Prayer

The third prayer Jesus uttered proves that this cry of anguish was not a cry of despair. It is Jesus’ last statement from the cross. Luke 23:46 says, “Jesus called out with a loud voice, ‘Father, into your hands I commit my spirit.’ When he had said this, he breathed his last.” On the heels of his cry of anguish, Jesus makes this remarkable confession of trust and commits his spirit into the hands of the Father, whose presence he can no longer feel. This is the prayer of someone who knows that he is dying. Yet, it is also more. This is the prayer of someone who trusts the hands into which he has fallen. In Jesus’ experience, it is a leap into darkness but not a blind leap. Jesus knows where he is going and how this story will end.

The Methodist preacher William Sangster pointed out that, without the cross, Christians would have nothing to say to those who suffer. Jesus speaks to us, not only as one who was himself wounded. He speaks by his wounds. “To all those whose minds reel in sorrow; to all those who feel resentful because life has done to them its worst; to all those tempted to believe there is no God in heaven, or at least, no God of love, he comes and he shows them his hands,” Sangster declared. “More eloquently than any words, those pierced hands say, ‘I have suffered.'”^[3]

The Gospel

Yet the mere fact that Christ suffered is not enough. What does it matter that Jesus’ suffering outstripped ours, if all it means is that he suffered too? If all the gospel has to say is that Christ feels our pain and understands our experience, it is no gospel at all.

Jesus’ three prayers from the cross help us to place the suffering of Christ in a larger context. Jesus shared our humanity, “so that by his death he might break the power of him who holds the power of death—that is, the devil—and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death” (Heb. 2:14). Sympathy was certainly one motive for this but only in part. The ultimate reason was so that Jesus could die on our behalf. “For this reason he had to be made like them, fully human in every way,” Hebrews 2:17 goes on to explain, “in order that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in service to God, and that he might make atonement for the sins of the people.”

This is the power of the cross and the reason for Christ’s suffering. He came not only to die but to rise again on our behalf. It is the key that unlocks the mystery of Jesus’ words from the cross. Solomon observed that love is as strong as death (Song of Solomon 8:6). But in Jesus Christ, we see a love that was even stronger.

[1] Helmut Thielicke, Christ and the Meaning of Life, trans. John Doberstein, (Cambridge: James Clarke, 1962), 44.

[2] Philip D. Jamieson, The Face of Forgiveness: A Pastoral Theology of Shame and Redemption, (Downers Grove: InterVarsity, 2016), 99.

[3] William Sangster, “He Dies. He Must Die.” In Classic Sermons on the Cross of Christ, compiled by Warren W. Wiersbe, (Grand Rapids: Hendrickson, 1990), 32.

Pass Me Not

Featured ~ John Koessler ~ 6 Comments

Several years ago, at the Bible college where I taught, news reached the campus that a revival had broken out among the students of another school. It was much like the recent event at Asbury University, though on a smaller scale. The stories we heard were similar. Students knelt and wept at the front of the chapel as they asked God to forgive their sins. There was singing and confessing.

Some of the students on our campus were unsettled by these reports. But not for the reasons you might think. They were bothered that God had chosen a Liberal Arts school for this singular blessing instead of ours. They were indeed a Christian college. But we were a Bible college, training students for Christian ministry instead of business or the arts. Many felt this was a distinction demanded more of us in terms of the spiritual climate on campus. Perhaps they believed we should also have expected more from God because of it.

In other words, it seemed to me, that our students’ initial reaction to the news was one of disappointment rather than rejoicing. Indeed, I might go so far as to say that it produced a kind of petulance and self-recrimination. “What is wrong with us,” they seemed to say, “that the Spirit would pass us by and choose to fall on them?” It was as though God had overlooked Jerusalem and chosen Samaria instead to be his habitation.

This was not the first time I had observed this kind of spiritual jealousy. I had seen it many times in churches. I had wrestled with it myself. Watching others obtain a blessing you have sought for many years is hard. It feels much the same as being passed over for a promotion. It is like learning that your best friend was invited to a highly anticipated party when you were not.

There is biblical precedent for such a thing. Jesus performs miracles in Capernaum and ignores Nazareth (Luke 4:23–28). He invites Peter, James, and John up the mountain to watch the transfiguration and leaves the other nine apostles in the valley (Mark 9:2). He heals the invalid at the pool of Bethesda but leaves the rest to sit in their affliction (John 5:1–15). There is also plenty of precedent for spiritual jealousy. On several occasions, Jesus’ own disciples speculated and even argued with one another about who was the greatest among them (Matt. 18:1; Luke 9:34, 46).

In his Gospel, Mark tells how blind Bartimaeus sat by the side of the road begging as Jesus, his disciples, and a large crowd were leaving the city of Jericho (Mark 10:46–52). When the blind man heard that it was Jesus, he began to shout. “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!” The crowd attempted to silence him, but he only got louder. Finally, Jesus stopped and called for him. “Cheer up!” the people in the crowd said. “Get on your feet! He’s calling you.”

Bartimaeus cast aside his cloak and jumped to his feet. When he stood before Jesus, the Savior asked a question whose answer seems self-evident: “What do you want me to do for you?” I don’t know which bothers me more. The fact that a blind man had to tell Jesus that he wanted to see or the thought that if Bartimaeus hadn’t made such a fuss, Jesus might have passed him by. With this act, Bartimaeus becomes the patron saint of all those who make demands of Jesus. He also becomes the prototype of all who fear that Jesus will grant a blessing to others while withholding it from them. There are, no doubt, reasons for Jesus’ question. Perhaps his blindness was not obvious. Maybe Jesus wanted him to take the initiative and ask as an indication of his faith. I suppose Jesus could have been hinting to Bartimaeus that he could do more for him than heal.

Still, there is brusqueness to the question that I sometimes see in Jesus of the Gospels and find unnerving. It is the sort one occasionally experiences from the clerk at the counter who asks how they can help us. They know why I have come. They also know why they are there. Must I really spell out in detail what to me seems self-evident? Of course, such a comparison is unfair to Jesus for many reasons. I can’t see the expression on his face or hear the timbre of his voice when he poses this question to Bartimaeus. He may have exuded an aura of welcome and appeal.

Whatever Jesus’ motive was for requiring Bartimaeus to make the first move, it is the blind man’s anxiety we feel when we hear that Jesus is working somewhere else. It does not always come to us as good news, especially if we feel that we have been overlooked. For Bartimaeus, of course, it was a moment of opportunity. This was his usual spot. Jesus just happened to be passing through. It is different for some of us. The blessing we have been looking for is one that we have been pursuing for some time. To our own minds, at least, we can make a case for why it should come to us rather than someone else.

Some of the students at the school where I taught were part of a group that had prayed for a revival on campus for months. Some of them for years. For some reason, they always scheduled these meetings to last all night and held them on Fridays when most students were going out on dates. I suppose it was their way of shouting, like Bartimaeus. The more inconvenient they made the circumstances, the louder the shout. Then to have God drop the blessing in such an arbitrary way on a group of students who they felt were not nearly so devoted seemed almost like an insult.

I couldn’t help noticing something of this petulant spirit when comments about the prolonged chapel at Asbury began to surface on social media. Not everyone, mind you. But enough to make me take note. I am not surprised to find such things greeted with a certain amount of ambivalence. We Christians are caught between two equally necessary but competing obligations when it comes to such phenomena. On the one hand, we are warned not to “quench” the Holy Spirit (1 Thess. 5:19). Apparently, if we are not welcoming, we can act as wet blankets to his fire. On the other, we are warned that we must “test the spirits to see whether they are from God” (1 John 4:1).

As a result, some people see it as their primary responsibility to sit at a distance and make negative judgments based on the photos and videos they see on the Internet. These gatekeepers issue reports and warnings as a public service to the church. Others, who are grieved by this critical spirit, consider it their responsibility to counter those remarks. They act as cheerleaders posting updates and affirmations. The rest of us scroll through being triggered by one or the other, depending upon our personality and spiritual history.

It doesn’t help matters that we are theologically split when it comes to such questions. Our doctrinal differences have their roots in American church history, with the divide coming between the first and second Great Awakenings. The theologian of the First Great Awakening was Jonathan Edwards, the 18^th-century pastor whose marks of a work of the Spirit of God have been showing up in posts on social media lately. The theologian of the Second Great Awakening was Charles Finney, the 19th-century revivalist whose methods and assumptions still shape most of today’s popular worship practices. The main difference between them is essentially a question of control. To what degree can our efforts guarantee revival?

Edwards’ answer was that we cannot. Revival, according to him, comes as a surprise. Finney had a different view. “Revival is not a miracle, or dependent on a miracle in any sense,” Finney asserted. “It is a purely philosophical result of the right use of constituted means.” When Finney calls revival “philosophical,” he is using the language of what was then called “natural philosophy,” or what we refer to as science today. In other words, Finney believed that spiritual laws govern revival. If the right means are used and proper conditions put in place, then revival must follow.

You probably won’t be surprised to learn that there is much more that separates the two views of these men and that the differences between their theological perspectives are largely incompatible. This is another reason for the harsh tone taken by some of those who differ over contemporary claims of revival.

If you are Bartimaeus, all that matters is
that Jesus stopped and called you.

But ultimately, these differences really come down to a basic question. Did Bartimaeus cry out because Jesus chose to come his way? Or did Jesus call for Bartimaeus only because Bartimaeus raised his voice loud enough to get noticed? I suppose, if you are Bartimaeus at that moment, you don’t really care. All that matters is that Jesus stopped and called for you. Such questions are probably best pondered at leisure rather than at need.

In the end, however, I think Finney was wrong. The Spirit of God is ours as a gift, but he is not ours to control. There is something whimsical about how God interacts with and acts upon us. He is unpredictable in his ways, especially where the Spirit of God is concerned. “The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit,” Jesus explained to Nicodemus (John 3:5).

I have had more than one person ask me what I thought about the revival at Asbury. My answer has been that I am not close enough to the events to have a good opinion. Besides, I am not sure that my opinion matters. What I do know is that if, it is legitimate, the same Spirit at work there is the one who dwells in me. The same presence that fills the auditorium is also present in every place I am. And the same Jesus who called for Bartimaeus also calls to me in Scriptures and says, “Come to me . . . whoever comes to me I will never drive away” (cf. John 6:37).

Eternity Shut in a Span

Featured ~ John Koessler ~ 6 Comments

December is the season when tinsel-haloed angels draped in bedsheets announce the birth of Christ to bathrobe-clad shepherds on the church stage. There is a kind of charm in the way we tell the nativity story that might fool people into thinking that it is merely a rustic folktale. But the Bible’s account of the birth of Christ is not a children’s story. It is a record of history and an act of divine revelation.

Luke begins his recounting of the Nativity story by anchoring the story to a particular place at a moment of time. Luke starts his telling, “in the days of Herod, king of Judea” (Luke 1:5). Its true beginning, however, is much earlier than this. Earlier than the reign of Herod. Earlier than the prophets who predicted Jesus’ coming. Even earlier than the promise made in the Garden that the seed of the woman would crush the serpent’s head (Gen. 3:15). Indeed, one might even say that this is a story without a beginning since, in the beginning, Jesus Christ, who is the Word, already was (John 1:1).

God, who has no beginning, entered time and space in the person of Jesus Christ. The God, who already was, took to Himself a human nature that He did not previously possess. The theological word for this is incarnation. It is a word that basically means “to become flesh.”

The Gospels describe the incarnation of Christ as a historical fact. But the Scriptures also point out that it was a revelatory event. The author of the letter to the Hebrews says that God has “spoken to us by his Son” and that Jesus is “the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being” (Heb. 1:1, 3). This assertion does more than claim that Jesus is God in human form. It distinguishes Jesus from the Father, just as John does when he says that the Word was “with God” and also “was God” (John 1:1).

Poet Richard Crashaw captured the mystery of our Lord’s birth with these words:

Welcome, all Wonders in one sight!

Eternity shut in a span.

Summer to winter, day in night,

Heaven in earth, and God in man.

But the Son of God was not born simply to make a poetic statement about God. His humanity does more than translate the divine into human terms. Jesus was born to die and rise again. Without the cross and the resurrection, Jesus’ translation of the divine nature into human experience would be little more than a babble to us. Without the deliverance which the Savior’s death and resurrection secured, the portrait of God that the incarnation provides would be meaningless. We would suppress its truth, just as we push down the things that God has revealed about Himself “from what has been made” (Rom. 1:20).

Jesus is also much more than a moral example. Without the cross’s power to cover sin and “put to death” whatever belongs to the sinful nature, the incarnation is like a virtuoso’s musical score, beautiful to hear but impossible to perform (Col 3:5). Viewing Christ as little more than a moral example reduces Him to a mere recapitulation of the law instead of its fulfillment. We may, like John, be able to look and touch (1 John 1:1), but we would never be able to follow. Jesus took on a human nature not only to correct our false perceptions about what God is like but to rescue us from the sin which was the cause of this distortion in the first place.

Jesus is more than a moral example.

When Christmas comes around, there is an unfortunate tendency to co-opt the nativity story for other purposes by placing it within frameworks that diminish its bearing on the Bible’s theology of atonement. It has been portrayed as a morality play about the plight of refugees, divine lobbying for the Pro-Life platform, an argument for showing hospitality, a statement about the role of women in the church, and much more. Perhaps the account of Christ’s birth has implications for all these concerns, but they are not its primary point. The main point of the nativity is that God became human.

The doctrine of the incarnation does not teach that the God merely took up residence in the man Jesus, who was subsequently elevated to a divine status. Neither does it assert that God only appeared to be a human. Instead, this teaching of the Church asserts that the incarnate Christ was both truly God and truly man. His divine nature did not alter his human nature and his humanity did not diminish his divinity.

The incarnation is fundamental to the Christian faith because it is the foundation of Christ’s atoning work. Jesus was made in human likeness so that he could suffer and die on the cross for our sins (Phil. 2:7–8). The fact that Jesus was made like us ensures that he is able to be a merciful high priest, one who understands and sympathizes with our struggle against temptation (Heb. 2:17–18). Christ’s true humanity also meant that he could suffer in our place by taking on himself the penalty for our sin. Though he was tempted like us in every point, Jesus was without sin (Heb. 4:15). This enabled him to go beyond sympathy and provide a genuine remedy for our transgressions through the shedding of his blood.

Jesus was, as the old confession says, “very God of very God.” Jesus shared our humanity, “so that by his death he might break the power of him who holds the power of death—that is, the devil—and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death” (Heb. 2:14). To accomplish this Jesus had to be made like us. As Hebrews 2:17 says, “For this reason he had to be made like them, fully human in every way, in order that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in service to God, and that he might make atonement for the sins of the people.”

Jesus does not merely sympathize with our suffering and provide an example of what holiness looks like. He took our sin upon Himself. Jesus’ humanity meant that He could be pierced for our transgressions and crushed for our iniquities. His punishment brought us peace. By His wounds, we are healed. Jesus’ life was an offering for sin. His death was the price paid to the law in compensation for our sins. Because we have been united with Christ in His death, we can also share the hope of His resurrection (Isa. 53:11–12).

When we separate Christmas from the cross, all that remains is a charming story about a babe in a manger. It may be a tale fit for children, but it has no value for broken sinners. The Nativity of Christ is more than a sweet story. It was a cosmic revolution that shook creation to its very foundation. It brought about a change in the Person of Christ so that He became what He previously was not, without ceasing to be what He was before. Still God, but now in the flesh. There was never a time when the Word was not, but there was a time when the Word had not yet become flesh. Unto us has been born a Savior, who is Christ the Lord. Let all the tinseled angels shout this news to bathrobed shepherds everywhere. This is no tale but a fact of history. Our God has come. Clothed in human nature. And we will never be the same.