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Thoughts on Prayer and Sovereignty

Prayer is communication with God.  I have written that, preached that and taught that for decades.  Yet prayer is also a tutor.  Prayer teaches people about the sovereignty of God.  We can pray our heart’s desire and when things do not change or things happen badly, we can either throw up our hands and say that prayer is useless or we can stand, marveling at God’s sovereignty.

This post comes after the horrific shooting in Sutherland Springs, TX.  The people that were murdered were praying Christians.  My guess is that they did not pray that government background checks would work and that no one would shoot up their church.  That is understandable.  But the truth is, God allowed a murderous, evil man to kill praying, believing Christians.

Various commentators in TV have actually said that this is proof that prayer does not work.  This is an insane notion.  If prayer worked the way Don Lemon says it needs to work, then God would be a gum ball machine.  Prayers go in and perfect safety and prosperity comes out.  If people who prayed got everything they prayed for they way they prayed for it, then people would be getting the glory, not God.  God gets the glory when his sovereignty shows, when his control and his glory are seen.  Even in the Sutherland Springs shooting, God’s glory can be seen as people come together and a deeper, more substantial Christian community is formed.

People are fallible, sinful and evil.  We cannot form a utopia with regulation and God will not give us a utopia when we pray for it.  We pray about everything and trust God to answer the way that glorifies him the most.  Sometimes, perhaps most of the time, our sinful minds cannot conceive how God is glorified in a mass shooting.  Yet the Bible is clear that God was and is greatly glorified by causing the Babylonians to invade Judah.  He was and is glorified when he caused the Persians to punish the Babylonians for their sin.  Thinking about how God is glorified by and in everything that happens will make the most spiritual person have a headache.  We are so far out of the realm of understanding God’s glory.

A Jewish teacher once told me that the purpose of prayer was to remind us that we are not God and that God is God.  Even Jesus did not pray his will, but the Father’s will.  We need to learn how to pray in and through God’s sovereignty.  We need to pray with the idea that God will be glorified.  I need to pray that I will learn how to glorify God in my prayers and everything else I do.  God is sovereign.  God will be glorified.  We are participate, not control this by praying with that mindset.

Our Father in heaven,
hallowed be your name,
your kingdom come,
your will be done,
on earth as in heaven.
Give us today our daily bread.
Forgive us our sins
as we forgive those who sin against us.
Save us from the time of trial
and deliver us from evil.
For the kingdom, the power, and the glory are yours
now and for ever. Amen.

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