Wednesday, 20 May 2009
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Prayer Collision
Monday night, as I drove home from play practice, I caught myself doing something weird. I caught myself praying that a local high school team would lose.
Before you go all psycho on me, let me explain. The lead actor in our play is a popular radio personality. He often does the play-by-play for local sporting events. One particular high school sports team was in the playoffs, and if they won the game on Tuesday, they would play another game on Saturday. Saturday happens to be the day of our last performance, and an important one at that. Should the team win, our lead actor couldn't get out of his job announcing for that game, and we couldn't put on our performance without him. Nobody could memorize the sheer volume of lines he says in the play. Therefore, I prayed the team would lose.
This makes me wonder about prayer. More specifically, what does God do with prayers for opposite outcomes? Someone might pray, "Please Lord, let the Yankees win this one," while the guy next to him at the sportsbar might be praying "Heavenly Father, please don't let those overpaid Yankees win another one." Does God tally up the votes like American Idol? Does he weigh the piety of the people praying, like a job interview? Or does he choose not to get in the middle of some matters, like a Jerry Springer show?
The site godisimaginary.com, an atheist site that gives 50 reasons why you shouldn't believe in God, gives a little test prayer that is supposed to prove to you that God doesn't exist. Basically, it's summed up as "God, eliminate all cancer in the world, and I'm blackmailing you with my belief because Jesus said all these things about you that I'm going to hold against you if this prayer doesn't come true." But what about all the people who prayed the opposite?
People prayed FOR cancer?!?!?
What if cancer is a part of God's plan? What if preparation for death leads us to straighten out our lives? What if someone is touched by the last dying moments of a close friend (or even a total stranger), and decides to devote their time to a good cause because of that? What if all along, when we Christians have been praying the prayer that Jesus taught us... "Your kingdom come, Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven," we've been praying for, among other things, cancer? Well, if God keeps a tally of the votes, you had better keep praying for the miraculous disappearance of cancer. We've got about a 2000 year head start on you.
Sidenote: So, does that mean we Christians should stop praying that God's will be done? Of course not. God's will is good, and there's a lot of great things that come out of God's will. Unfortunately, death is a part of the world we live in. Anyone who tells you otherwise has their head in the sand. And don't take my musings too seriously. I'm just guessing at things I don't claim to know about.
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Comments (5)
i don't pretend to know everything that God will do. that's asking for trouble.
it's ok to want teams to lose. i say that about everyone the Cavs play!
i always wondered how God dealt with prayers that differed as well. it's one of those things that i'm putting in my book of questions to ask when i get to Heaven.
Veeeery good question. I'm not sure how he chooses. I usually pray for what I want, but ask for God to have his will done, so I except whatever happens is his will.
I always sort of pray "if it is your will, please let blah blah happen". It's kinda a pointless prayer because if it's God's will, He's not gonna wait for me to ask, but my lack of understanding compells me to do it anyway.
"I'm just guessing at things I don't claim to know about." <<That's what makes you a wise man. You don't portend to know the mind of God.