I love math. I majored in math at Furman. I love that math problems are black and white — there is a right answer and a wrong answer. I never enjoyed writing school papers because of the subjective nature of the grading process. I feel like I can hand the same paper to different professors and get vastly different feedback. Calculus is beautiful because the answer is always the same, regardless of the professor. The black and white is nice.
I became a Christian while attending Furman, and I struggled early on with accepting that everything in the Christian life is not black and white. While absolute truth does exist and relativism is false, the Scriptures contain tensions from a human perspective that we are called to believe and accept.
- A sovereign God holds humans responsible (Gen. 1:1; Ps. 90:2; John 1:1; 2 Tim. 4:1).
- You are saved by grace through faith, not by works of the law; yet, God has good works for you to do, and a good tree is known by its good fruit (Eph. 2:8–10; Gal. 2:16; Luke 6:43–45).
- Just as a loving father disciplines his son, so God disciplines us because He loves us (Prov. 3:12; Heb. 12:6).
- You are righteous and a new creation if you have believed in Jesus (Rom. 5:17; 6:14; 2 Cor. 5:17), but you are also a sinner (1 John 1:8, 10; 2:1).
- God gives good gifts to His children to enjoy (Matt. 7:11), but you are not to love the things of this world (1 John 2:15–17).
Tensions abound.
One of the greatest gifts God has given my heart and mind over the last 15 years, since I became a believer, has been the ability to accept and live with the tensions of life and Scripture.
Tensions also exist in prayer. But rather than that being the problem, that is the beauty of prayer!
Does God need my prayers to accomplish His will? No. Does God use my prayers to accomplish His will? Yes.
Is there a reason to pray, knowing God is sovereign and in complete control? Yes, but you might say that doesn’t make a lot of sense. Exactly! Our God is not limited by human rationality. He is outside of time and space, ruling and reigning over all things. Let’s consider some of the wonderful and beautiful tensions that exist in prayer.
God is sovereign over us.
We have already briefly discussed this, but I wanted to make a clear point. God is in control. You can trust Him, even amid the great tribulations and trials you face in this life. His purposes reign supreme. He does all that He pleases (Ps. 115:3; Prov. 16:9; 19:21; Isa. 41:10; 55:8–9; Matt. 19:26; Rom. 8:28).
God hears our prayers.
We get to hear from God directly through His Word, which is always right and true (Ps. 19:7–11; 2 Tim. 3:16–17). We also have God’s Spirit living within us if we are born again (Tit. 3:3–7), illuminating and teaching us about our Triune God and His Word (1 Cor. 2:9–13; John 16:12–16). In his book entitled Prayer, Tim Keller proclaims, “Through the Word and Spirit, prayer becomes answering God — a full conversation” (46).
In prayer, we are getting the great opportunity and joy to talk with our God, knowing that He hears us. God even hears our complaining and moaning, which is one of the great gifts of prayer (Ps. 55:16–17). We do not have to put on a false front. We can cry out honestly and with humility, asking how long the pain, trouble, or sin in our lives will continue, just as David does (Ps. 13:1–2).
God uses our prayers.
In A Praying Life, Donald Miller argues, “If you are not praying, then you are quietly confident that time, money, and talent are all you need in life” (49). It is easy to go for extended periods without praying, even while seeking to do good ministry (such as evangelism, discipleship, preaching, or serving). Martin Luther, the great reformer, talked about how he was so busy that he had to pray for three or four hours. Reflecting on this idea, Miller says, “In fact, the more pressure, the more I need to pray” (49). We rely on God when we set aside time to pray, much as the Israelites depended on God when they took time to observe the Sabbath. We are trusting Him to work for His glory and our good as we pray rather than doing it all in our own power.
First John 5:14–15 proclaims, “And this is the confidence that we have toward him, that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us. And if we know that he hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we have the requests that we have asked of him” (ESV). Matthew 7:7–8 says, “Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened.” There is a tension here! I can ask for a glass of water to appear before my eyes right now, and it didn’t happen.
However, these passages exhort us to pray and ask based on the Lord’s will (“ask anything according to his will”), knowing that the sovereign God, who created all the stars, all the grass, and all the tiniest molecules, hears and answers me. He may not always answer in precisely the way I want, but He does use our prayers. It’s been remarkable how much I have tried to will something to happen in my power, only to realize I have never prayed about it. When I stop and pray, the Lord works magnificently, even if not always according to my exact prayers.
I pray Luke 10:2 every day at 10:02 a.m.: “And [Jesus] said to them, ‘The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few. Therefore pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest.’” It typically lasts 20 to 30 seconds. I don’t know how God has used those prayers precisely. I probably never will. But the harvest is plentiful here in Greer, in South Carolina, and all around the world. It is a joy to send our members out into the harvest in Greer by closing each of our services with, “Church, you are sent.” It has also been incredible to send out our beloved members to the ends of the earth. God uses our prayers.
God is not limited by our prayers.
The tensions go on. God hears our prayers and uses our prayers, which is a great joy. But He is also not limited by our prayers, which provides great freedom.
God does not need you to accomplish His purposes. The gospel will go forward (Matt. 28:16–20). The gates of hell will not prevail (Matt. 16:18b). In Ephesians 3, Paul prays for the church at Ephesus to receive strength and power through the Holy Spirit. But then he concludes his prayer with this: “Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen” (Eph. 3:20–21). God can, and will, do more than we can even think about in our brains, much less pray about.
The tensions in prayer abound. God will work through our prayers, and God will do more than we could even know to pray about. But we must pray. In one of my seminary classes, the late Dr. Jim Shaddix took us to Mark 1:35 to show that Jesus prioritizes “sacrificial, unhurried, undistracted communion” with His Father. If Jesus, the One who is fully God, spends time praying, how much more do we need to embrace the tensions in prayer and make regular time for prayer?
Here are a few practical points to consider as we embrace the tensions of prayer and seek to grow.
- Set aside time to pray — I love Donald Miller’s suggestions to help us pray: “Get to bed, get up, get awake, get a quiet place, get comfortable, get going, keep going” (50–51)
- Enjoy praying — The God of the universe is eager to spend time with you!
- Be patient in praying — Prayer is not like going to the mechanic, who fixes the issue and sends you on your way; prayer is an investment over the long haul
- Pray about everything — God is eager to listen
- Pray for heart change — The Spirit is the One who convicts and changes both you and those you are around
- Pray honestly — No reason to cover something up; God already knows all things
- Trust God — If this is a struggle, pray for Him to help you trust Him.
— Aaron Markham serves as a pastor of Ridgewood Church in Greer. He is a graduate of Furman University and Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary.