78 Answers Pt 3: Talking to the Big Man Upstairs

  Prayer is a very difficult topic to address and understand even as a Christian, and as an unbeliever it is easy to see how it could get confusing.

  

8 If your child were dying, and I hope that never happens, would just pray for them or would you take them to a doctor? And if you'd do both, which one do you think has more of an impact?

9 Whose prayers does God answer? And if it's ultimately His Will, why bother praying?

10 If you have cancer, what would help you more: Certain drugs, or prayer?

11 If you had an amputated limb, would prayer ever bring it back?

12 If you have an exam coming up, what would contribute more to a higher score: Prayer or more studying?

13 If you prayed for me over YouTube right now, do you think I would know it?

14 What matters to God more: The quantity of people praying or the quality of their prayers? If quantity matters, shouldn't the most popular team always win the Super Bowl? If quality matters, why do people you love sometimes die no matter what you do?

15 Is it possible that your prayers have no supernatural effect and only serve to make you feel better?

16 Would you ever admit it if that were true?

  What we know for sure from Bible passages is

    (a) God is sovereign (Psalm 135:6)

    (b) God is moved by our prayers (1 John 5:14)

 These two seem to be irreconcilable, but I don't think they need to be.  Our tendency is to think that God is going to do whatever he is going to do, and answer our prayers as He sees fit. While this is true it is not to the exclusion of our request, in fact He assures us that our prayers are valuable to Him and will at times actually affect change.

  The Bible records times when prayers actually changed God's mind. Two of these that I can think of off the top of my head are the petition of Abraham for God to spare his nephew Lot (Gen 18) and when Moses convinces God not to wipe the Israelite off the face of the earth (Exodus 32).

  While this is said, we know that God doesn't change His mind. He does what He has always planned to do. The best way to reconcile this is to say that God's will was to change his mind.

 I think that this is entirely feasible, and I think that this is a small picture of what prayer does in the grand scheme of things. We must understand that God is outside of time, so our prayers have factored into God's decision making for as long as He has existed. God has heard our prayers for eternity, every word. Because God is sovereign over everything I think we can safely say that He ordained our prayers and our requests. He does not hold these requests lightly.

    The truth is that God's sovereignty should be a motivating factor for us to pray. If He was not in ultimate control of all things, if His will was not set in place before time began, than He would not be powerful enough to affect any change on our behalf. What we need to realize is that God is fighting for us. We don't want to believe this when things like cancer, death and trials happen, because in our tiny worlds our comfort is most important If we submit ourselves to God's will we will find that there is a greater joy that awaits in glorifying the only one worth the glory and refusing to demand He glorify us through answering our prayers to our specifications. It's all a matter of who we believe to be God: the creator of the universe and author of life itself, or us. Should we be serving God, or should he be serving us?

   So is prayer effective? If indeed God is sovereign, and I could argue many reasons to believe this, then prayer is effective. Not only are miracles possible through prayer, but prayer is more effective then any other form of activity.

 Should this keep us from being active. Not at all. In fact, the Bible has very harsh words to speak against laziness. However, if God created the world and sustains it by His hands it is foolish to think that our actions have greater effect than His.

 The Bible also has harsh words for those that demand miracles of God. During Jesus's ministry there were many people who either only followed Him only for his miracles, or who found excuses to hate him despite His miracles. If you are a true believer in God, miracles and wonders are not as important as God's glory and your relationship with Him. Jesus often deliberately alienated the people who were following him only for the things they could get from him (John 6) and chose not to do miracles for those who He knew were not going to believe (Matt 13). We also see this working out in reality when Christ raised Lazarus from the dead and the spiritual leaders of the day had no problem believing that the miracle had happened and were more interested in their reputations than the fact that God might be walking among them. (John 11:45-54)  While we often hear that people want to see miracles before they can accept Christ, the truth is that if shown these signs most would still find reason to turn away. God is not a beggar or a sales-man. If you don't want Him as the son of God who takes away the sins of the world, why would He lower Himself to your genie? If we can demand that we be loved for our own sake, why do we think that God is only worthy of our love if He serve us? If anyone deserves to be loved only on the basis of who they are, it is God.

  I will address one last thing before I end. What kind of prayers will God listen too? If you are asking this then you are looking at prayer and God all wrong. God is out for HIS glory. Your prayers serve many purposes, and many you will never see or understand in this lifetime. They draw us closer to God, they teach us compassion for our fellow humans, they give us hope during times of trouble and YES they move the heart of God. There is no right or wrong prayers because the spirit of God moves in us as we pray. The Bible records some of the most heart-wrenching and real prayers to the Lord and encourages us to do the same. These however are conversations between a father and child. While some guidelines are given for how we should pray, and some sins do hamper those prayers, in general all God wants from His children is that they talk to Him. If we misunderstand this we will find ourselves attempting to manipulate that relationship for our own gain. God will not allow that any more then a good parent would. God, like any good parent, will place relationship and the good of the child before the momentary happiness of that child.

 If you are not a believer though, the same does not apply for you. Every prayer answered for an unbeliever is a act of grace beyond what you can imagine. It is the loving hand held out from a Father to the people who brutally killed His son and sing songs celebrating the slaughter. You cannot expect God to lower himself to respond to the demands of such people.

  There are so many more things that could be said about prayer, and so many more resources to find those on, but for the sake of brevity I will leave it here. This I will say, if you have questions about prayer there is no one better to ask then God Himself. Ask those questions, open the Bible. Come truly ready to listen and get answers, and you might be surprised what you find.

  If you enjoyed reading this be sure to look back over the last few posts where earlier questions were addressed. Be sure to keep updated as well as I work on my Christian non-fiction book on Satan and Demons. I will be updating with the next installment in two weeks. You can find me on twitter at @J23hawkE and on FB at https://www.facebook.com/JPurrazzi. I hope you will keep me in your prayers as I study the Word and seek to glorify God through my writing.

I'm Back.

    Hey all, its been a while. My heavy schedule has gotten the best of me and finding time to write blogs has been difficult. I have big news to share with you all! First I will fill you in with what you should expect for the future of this blog.
   From here on out it is my intention to put out a blog on the second and forth weekend of every month. My last few blogs were apologetic blogs answering 78 questions posed to Christians by a popular atheist you tuber. I would like to see that series through to the end. If you haven't seen them yet I encourage you to read back over the last three blogs.
   For Christmas this year my mom and dad gave me a journaling Bible to illustrate.  If you are unfamiliar with the growing trend you can see a glimpse of what people are doing by searching "Illustrated Faith"  It really is a beautiful movement.
    I have already finished two spreads and hope to share with you my progress as I study through and illustrate the Bible. I have pushed myself to read and illustrate it page by page, and I hope you will enjoy following along.
 
   Now for the big announcement. This year I have decided to pursue a calling I have felt for some time. I believe that God has given me a gift of teaching. My love for the Word and study and my tendency to talk too much has both gotten me into a lot of trouble and been used by God to his glory. Because I do not feel that leadership is a gift I have been given (though that is often given with the gift of teaching) I feel like one of the best ways for me to pursue that gift is to write both in blogs and in book form.
  Because of this I have decided to pursue my dream of becoming a published author. I have two projects I am currently working on. The first is a fantasy trilogy that has been growing in my mind and my writing since I was twelve. It is entitled "Smoke, Fire and Ash". If you are interested in following the progress on that you can look into another blog I am writing entitled "The Vow" at orenvow.blogspot.com.
   I tried a variety of different subjects for my breakout Christian Non-fiction, however I never felt released to pursue any of them until the Lord reminded me of my desire to share my experiences with Spiritual warfare.
   I am going to be writing this book on the subject of Satan and Demons. It may seem like an odd choice for a first book, and is in fact very daunting for me. It is one thing writing a theological book with both feet on the ground. It is another thing sharing the deeply personal and easily ridiculed experiences that have shaped this book. I have seen that our culture in particular has a lot of misconceptions on the subject however, and I must be obedient if I feel the Lord wants me to address it.
   My hope with the book is that I can finish the first draft this year between the first and second draft of my fantasy book, which is in it's final chapters as we speak. After some edits I will be looking for a few Christians who I trust who might be willing to read the book and check the theology and writing. If all is well I will complete the final edits before self-publishing the book. The current plan is that I will be publishing the book on Kindle first and using the money from the sales to publish paper-back copies. If the Lord is willing I will be using the sales from this book to fulfill my desire to support some Christian ministries I am invested in. I will be using a "reverse tithe" method, keeping 10% to invest back into my writing and art, and donating the remaining 90% into Christian ministries. Some of these ministries might include my Church, Sent Church in Sanford FL, and "Unearthed" a ministry that fights human trafficking through media, distribution of funds to existing ministries in need, and the creation of resources for churches.
   What has caused me to want to write on the subject. A more complete testimony of my experiences will be included in the book, but I will explain briefly to you.
   I remember being terrified of the dark as a child. Apparently most people are afraid of the dark because of what they cannot see and therefore imagine in the dark. However, when I was a child I very vividly saw what I called monsters walking through my room.
     I would often sit awake on my bed watching as monsters milling about. I was afraid to close my eyes or turn away because on an early occasion when I had done so a monster had laid it's hand on my shoulder.
   As I grew older I dismissed most stories of demons. Though I believed they existed, I did not feel like people were telling the truth when they talked about seeing demons or feeling them. All the while I was plagued with bizarre nightmares, sleepwalking and hearing voices during the night.  Most of these were terrifying experiences, but became a family joke when I recounted them. I didn't want to let on how truly terrifying they were, or relieve it in the telling.
 As I grew older these symptoms got worse and began to include complete spiritual and emotional break-downs and occasional waking sights of demons. During this time a friend suggested that what was happening was not just my subconscious but active demonic oppression.
   After this suggestion I searched for books, sermons and articles on Satan and demons. I found that most of the resources I found were based not on Bible study and exegesis but on experience and conjecture. Most sources prescribed exorcisms with specialists and treated demonic oppression as if it were a disease that needed a certified spiritual doctor to fix.
  After trying a variety of these remedies with both terrifying and hilarious results, I was more terrified and disappointed then ever. I was struggling with an eating disorder, panic attacks, a multitude of unaddressed sin habits and I was loosing sleep with almost nightly demonic dreams and visions.
 Finally, God stepped in and showed me His presences through the same thing that was so plaguing me: Nightmares. Two, specifically. After this point I threw out most of the teaching on demons and opened my Bible.
  Since this time my experiences have been few and far between and all without fear. When demons enter my dreams I cast them out in the name of Christ. When I wake to see them I feel no fear but follow the Biblical prescription for such times: the name of Christ and prayer.
   I have come to resent much of the teaching on Satan and demons, which drags believers away from the power of the Cross to that of incantations, self-help and humanism. Christians have become enslaved to fear and to false teachers, more ensnared by their attempts to flee the enemy than by the actions of the enemy.
   This is why this book is one that I have always wanted to write, though I never expected it to be my first book. I hope you will follow along, open your Bibles, and learn what is meant by "spiritual warfare".
  If you want to follow me as a writer you can find me on Twitter under the name @J23hawkE and on my FB page at Jill E Purrazzi. If you have any stories or thoughts on the subject of Satan, demons, and Spiritual Warfare, I would love to hear anything you have to tell. Please message me your stories and thoughts! I may even include some of them in the book, with your permission of course.
  I hope that you will keep me in your prayers, that I will listen to the voice of God and not veer into false teaching. Pray that God will use this book or stop my writing it.