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An Honest Conversation about Prayer · Red Couch Theology

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Hello, hello, and welcome to another episode of the Red Couch
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Theology Podcast. Hey everyone.
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This week we're talking a little bit about prayer and I think
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Alex and his message on Sunday. And in this episode, he actually
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says some of the things that many of us have wondered
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silently. He says it out loud.
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What's up with those prayers that don't just just don't get
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answered or the suffering that we feel and we cry out to God
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and it seems like he's silent. How do we deal with all of that
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kind of thing? Is God causing our pain?
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Is he not care about it? Is he not listening?
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These are all the kinds of questions we wrestle with today
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and I'm I'd encourage you to dive in with us.
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Let's begin. Well, hello everyone.
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I'm not sure if our audio is good or not because I pirated
0:49
our equipment. What do you mean pirated our
0:52
equipment? It's the same equipment we've
0:55
had for ages. No I mean like I stole it and
0:58
used it for another purpose and then came back and all the
1:00
settings are different so. So you were the pirate?
1:06
I was the pirate. Like, haven't we already
1:10
established that I'm the biggest problem around here?
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How do I still have a job? Because you're wonderful.
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Oh, wow. All right, how's it going, man?
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Good. Well, welcome everyone to the
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Right Couch Theology podcast. This is where we sometimes talk
1:27
about theology, but sometimes talk about nonsense.
1:30
Someone asked me today if we could put a time marker in the
1:34
YouTube session of when we start talking about actual stuff.
1:37
That's amazing. Split it to nonsense versus real
1:42
stuff. And I'm like, that's assuming we
1:44
don't flip flop back and forth often.
1:46
Sure. And that depends, like right
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now, are we talking about real stuff?
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Because we're talking about like the flow of the show, which is
1:53
quite important, or are we talking nonsense?
1:56
I don't know. I don't know.
1:57
Well, it depends on whether you think that most podcasts talk
2:01
about how they should produce the podcast while also live on
2:05
the podcast. Actually, no, it's even worse
2:07
than that. Whether most podcasters talk
2:09
about how badly they've produced the podcast that's live.
2:15
So all right, at this marker, whatever this time marker is,
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we're going to talk about serious stuff.
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Now let's go. So here's the serious stuff,
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Utah, about prayer and anchoring sort of your life to prayer.
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But you took it in an interesting angle in the sense
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that you went for the jugger, like you said the thing that
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everyone secretly feels about prayer, and you said it out
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loud. Well, not everybody, but some.
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Most people are, most people have encountered a moment where
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they're like, I'll tell a story. So when I was a kid, I was
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probably 8 or 9, we encountered that passage.
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Like if you ask with fervency or whatever, like God says yes or
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something, I don't know which. There's a couple different
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iterations of something of that nature asked with faith.
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So I decided I was going to pray for a dirt bike.
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And I prayed and I tried to muster as much faith as I could
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possibly muster, and I did not get a dirt bike.
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Oh. That's so painful.
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And so, yeah. So tell me.
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Yeah, it was, it was. I mean, it's really one of the
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biggest sufferings I've ever been through if you think about
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it. Well, this isn't this the like,
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so, so this is and and and This is why sometimes we talk about
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trying to turn Jesus into Santa Claus.
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Have you ever seen the movie The Santa Claus?
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Yeah, yeah. So the, the, the, the, the kind
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of crux of that, of the guy who's like, I guess he's not the
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bad guy. It's Judge Reinhold.
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He plays the stepdad and he's always telling the kid, no, no,
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no, Santa's not real. All those things.
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But it turns out, like the crux of his problem is he asked for a
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pennywhistle and he didn't get a pennywhistle.
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Yeah, like, like, so, so like in those moments, your, your faith
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is questioned. And so if, and I'm going to hold
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if, if the premise of prayer is that God is like a better Santa
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Claus, which I think as a kid especially, but perhaps even
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into adulthood, when you read lines like that is the the
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inference is yes, then then it is traumatic to your faith when
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you don't see the results of it. Yeah.
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So yeah, that was your story. That was your encounter, man,
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I'm sorry. Yeah.
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Well, thanks. Did you ever get a dirt bike?
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Ever. I got a mini bike later in life
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that I bought with my own allowance.
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That's amazing. And it was a piece of junk, but
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it it worked. I love it.
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Yeah. So, so yeah, talk a little bit
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about like why I mean, you built it up.
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You, you talked about like this tremendous, some tremendous
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missionary or philanthropy. It's not, Yeah.
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George George Mueller. Mueller So you know a guy who
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takes care of kids and orphans and stuff.
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And thousands of them. Tons of faith.
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Yeah, he never asked for a. Single financial gift in his
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life. Yeah.
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So you give that example and then you give the antithesis of
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that where a guy just basically says never had an answered
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prayer ever under any. Circumstance 60 years following
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Jesus no personal prayers answered, no spouses prayers
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answered, no kids prayers answered no personal property
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prayers answered. Like and goes through the list
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and it's like what a waste of time, Don't recommend it.
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To which I say the answer was no.
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Yes, yeah, potentially. That's The funny thing about
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this terminology. We always talk about like, oh,
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answered prayer. But what we mean and what this
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guy meant was God said yes. Yes.
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But that's a little. Bit of some semantics, but what
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I think is interesting there is we have very clear markers for
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us. If we ask something like that
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and God says yes, the thing happens.
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Yeah. The answer that looks like no is
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the thing doesn't happen, which also feels the same as if
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someone just didn't hear you at all.
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Yes, if I say, if I say, hey, hey, Aaron, like are we doing
6:23
the podcast this week at the same time?
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And you don't answer. Like, did he not hear me?
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Like was he doing something else?
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It's like worse than a no Yes almost.
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But it's silent but it. Feels like relationally silent,
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yeah. So, so I think you can like,
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I've, I've watched a bunch of, you know, the term theology
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Bros, like the guys online, they're like tearing him up.
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They're like, this guy's an idiot.
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And there's all these people in the comments that are like,
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that's not what you followed Jesus for.
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That's not what you followed Jesus for all these different
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things. And, and like there's some
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theological truth to their answers.
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But I do think like maybe he actually deserves or needs
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compassion first and some sense of man.
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I'm sorry that that's been your story and that's the
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expectations you were given. And and that like, actually like
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maybe this guy's never been discipled in that journey, which
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I don't know. We don't know his story.
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We just know that somewhere he he had expectations that that
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weren't met. And so I, I actually feel like
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sympathy for him, I guess. And when I nudge it into my own
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life, I'm like, yeah, I kind, I kind of get get that, that sense
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of like, you know, I remember, I remember the first time like a
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prayed deeply for something was when my uncle got sick.
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I've talked about him before, like really important person in
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my life, larger than life character and diminished by this
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cancer that really just rocked him.
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I remember standing behind the shed one day at school just in
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tears. Like, God, please don't let him
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die. Yeah.
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And my mum tells a story about them all gathered around him
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towards the end of his life and praying, and they felt like
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something was about to happen. They were like, all of them were
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like, he's going to be healed and he wasn't.
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So. So you know, you, you put you,
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you, you, you, you read stories around like what Jesus says
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about healing and all those sorts of things.
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Yeah. And you're like, wow, why not
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him? And why not the answer that we
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wanted? Yeah, absolutely.
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So, yeah. How did you deal with that in
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the message for those who didn't get a chance to hear it?
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Yeah. So, So what what what I took in
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the message was this idea that actually when we talk about
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prayer being answered, especially in the context of our
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passage for this, which which you assigned me actually, and
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you actually, I don't know if you did this on purpose.
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You only assigned the very like minute middle part of the
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passage actually on the list. It was just five and six.
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Yeah, which is just like, do not be anxious about anything.
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But in all of. Trying to think of the parent
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supplication. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
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And supplication. Make your requests be known to
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God. Yeah, there's a lot of context
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around that, which you obviously knew and left me to figure out
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what to include. And so when you take just that
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couple of verses, you're left with a little bit ambiguity and
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A and A and a fair conclusion might be a prayer should be
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answered. I'm anxious about this.
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God, I'm going to ask you, you're all powerful.
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You can do all these things. You care about me.
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Believe all of these pieces of the you know, of the theology
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I've been taught and and now I'm going to ask and you're going to
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do something. But when you read the context
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around it, the passage starts to look, look a little bit
10:04
different. There's there's what I
10:08
personally feel is not not maybe a horrible translation in Greek,
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but at least a like a questionable translate
10:17
translation. So for those of you that aren't
10:19
aware of how Greek works in the original manuscripts we have,
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you know, this is always an interesting detail.
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Like Greek in the original manuscripts has no lower case.
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It's all uppercase. It has very little punctuation.
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It just flows together. So there's a lot of choices
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being made by the people. Translate it as to what exactly
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they're going to translate it. Yeah, Yeah, too.
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And now the later Greek texts that have been written, they all
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have lower case. They all have all the
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punctuation you might expect. But again, some choices made on
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the original manuscript, maybe for the best, maybe not.
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Yeah, yeah, we don't want to reduce your confidence in the
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English translation, but. But.
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If you've ever done any translation, even with the
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purest of heart, you're making interpretive decisions.
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You have to. You can't get around.
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And, and, and there's all sorts of reasons for that, that that
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maybe if you're only used to English as a language, a hard to
11:19
understand, like maybe the simplest one to explain is that
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Greek is a, it's called a declined language or uses
11:26
declination. So the endings of the word
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changed change depending on the tense.
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Now that happens in English, but not necessarily in ways that
11:35
you'd notice a lot. And so we quite often have
11:41
different words for different tenses, whereas they have the
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same stem and then a different ending depending on the tense.
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But some of them match up. And so some of them are like,
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context is key, all those different things.
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It's all like you're trying to figure out what's the context
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and what might this ending mean and how might I best interpret
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it? Yes.
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When you get to this text, I have always felt that the
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language there. Have you got that in there in in
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Philippians 4, Yeah. How far down?
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I can't. Remember, yeah, there we go.
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Yeah, we start in verse four with rejoice in the Lord always.
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I will say it again, Rejoice Philippians, is known as the
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Epistle of Joy. It's like very upbeat, very much
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encouraging, that kind of mentality.
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Let your gentleness be evident to all.
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And then it says almost like a separate sentence in the English
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translation. It simply says the Lord is near
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full stop. Because of the verse break,
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verse 4 becomes verse 5. We tend to think, well, this is
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a new, new thought entirely. We've already had one thought,
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then a second thought, then a third thought.
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Maybe this is now a fourth thought in one sentence.
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Do not be anxious about anything in every situation by prayer and
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petition Thanksgiving. Let your requests be known to
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God. If you just read those verses
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without the the the verses before, you might be excused for
13:14
thinking that this is simply permission to ask for whatever
13:19
you need in a given moment. But when you think about the end
13:21
of verse 4 running into verse 5, it might sound something like
13:25
this. The Lord is near, so you do not
13:30
need to be anxious about anything.
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Suddenly a verse that's about like what might happen when you
13:37
pray is more about who might be present when you pray.
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And that seems to be according to a lot of writers and maybe
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this text and perhaps my experience, your experience is
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actually what we're given in prayer, that maybe the thing
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that we're guaranteed in prayer is that God is present and the
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yes is not guaranteed. And when you think about that in
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line with praying into God's will, your will be done on
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heaven as it on earth as it is in heaven.
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Like I sometimes even pray that when I'm praying that prayer
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your, your will be done in my life as it is in heaven, like
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your will be done. That maybe changes our feelings
14:28
about how we might trust God to answer.
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I tend to believe that you can ask God for anything, but if
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you're going to trust him for his will, then some of the
14:44
prayers we pray, they suddenly become prayers that maybe don't
14:48
need to be answered. Like I was just a joke with
14:51
people when I was going through my real like, like like or or
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don't need to be answered. Yes, sorry.
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When I was going through my real like new to following Jesus,
14:59
1819 year old faith, I was sharing my faith with everyone.
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I was seeing things happen in church that were miraculous.
15:06
I said I would say to my friends, you know, I I actually
15:08
believe I could ask God for a Ferrari.
15:10
Like I actually believe that right now.
15:12
Like I was so like up in the clouds, just like, yeah, man,
15:15
like God. God answers prayer and I'd
15:19
always just throw in, but maybe it's not his will for my life,
15:23
which actually was probably the best piece of my theology around
15:26
prayer at the time. I think there's all sorts of
15:28
things that you could ask God for and, and, and actually we
15:31
see that maybe in some of the name and climate faith.
15:34
Yeah. But, but actually, if you're
15:36
someone who genuinely is asking God for his will, then a lot of
15:41
the things that our earthly desires would say yes to lottery
15:45
wins, huge houses, like all those things they become, no,
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that's not actually good for you.
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There's a reason Jesus says it's hard for a rich man to go
15:55
through the eye to to enter into heaven.
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It's as hard As for a camel to enter through the eye of a
16:00
needle. We tend to have a culture in the
16:04
West that longs to be rich. People want to be wealthy and at
16:08
the same time we forget Jesus recommendation to us that wealth
16:14
may not be a good thing. And so if you think about those
16:18
two elements just for a moment, riches that we might pray for,
16:22
Jesus warning about the possibility of riches and what
16:25
it might cost us on an eternal level.
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When you think about praying for those in line with God's will,
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how often do you think you might say yes, and how often do you
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think you might say that's not a good thing for you?
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Yeah. And I think I just, I also think
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one of the big struggles when it comes to prayer is that we
16:45
overestimate our own capacity to know what's good for us
16:49
massively. And so the biggest help to me is
16:52
just knowing how I parent my kids.
16:56
Like, I love that they come to me with their requests and I, I
17:01
factor in their desire a tiny bit, but my ultimate my, my
17:09
preeminent Trump's over all things is whether the the thing
17:14
they're asking for is genuinely good for their thriving.
17:18
I was listening to Jimmy Carr on the Joe Rogan Show, and Jimmy
17:23
Carr would not claim to be a follower of Jesus on any level,
17:25
but he has been someone who's expressed this huge surprise at
17:30
the gift of parenting. As he always said, like I found
17:33
the cheat code, I don't have kids.
17:35
Life's easy. And then he said, like, I
17:37
realized after I got to like 40, I'm playing at this really low
17:40
stakes table and actually, like, the real gift is to play like,
17:44
you know, where it matters. And he said, so children was a
17:48
natural choice at that point. And he said it's been the
17:50
biggest gift ever. But he said, one of the things I
17:53
constantly know is that I am making hard choices for my kids
17:59
with the goal of it being better later on.
18:03
So when they say to me, I want to be on a screen all day, which
18:08
is my kids regular request as well, just leave them with a
18:12
tablet and they'll be happy. You know, we're here.
18:15
I mean, it's really easy parenting opt out.
18:18
It's like just take a tablet, leave me alone.
18:22
You know, that it's actually rewiring part of their brain and
18:26
it's going to make certain things really hard for them in
18:29
the future. Yeah.
18:30
He's actually going to make it less likely that they can do
18:32
something meaningful career wise.
18:34
He's actually going to leave them with all sorts of kind of
18:36
like challenges in the future. So he says, I am making hard
18:40
choices now for a preferred future for them.
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I'm like, man, it's starting to sound like Jesus.
18:48
And so then like I think an answered prayer, a yes answer to
18:52
prayer is good and beautiful. But the agenda behind a yes is
19:00
often times just relationship with my kids.
19:03
Like when when my kids ask for something frivolous or even
19:06
something that's semi unhealthy for them.
19:08
Like what can we go get ice cream?
19:11
Like ice cream is not a healthy choice.
19:17
I will occasionally say yes because it's about the
19:20
relationship and the memory created, which I decide in any
19:25
given moment, depending on what's going on in our world
19:29
outweighs the health risk of sugar.
19:37
And it's so there is, but so the relationships, the driving force
19:40
behind the yes, not the request. I'm actually trying to meet them
19:46
with a yes just so that they know that I love them, that I I
19:50
love spending time with them again.
19:52
So it's like to your thesis and your sermon, it would it's
19:55
always about the relational dynamic for God, regardless of
20:00
whether, you know, there's times when I pray and because I I like
20:07
this posture of like thinking of myself as a child because it
20:11
helps me navigate some of these like frustrations around prayer.
20:15
But I'll say, all right, Father, I have this idea.
20:20
And I'm so, so insufficiently capable of making this, but I
20:24
have this idea and I think it sounds awesome.
20:26
And I, I literally say this in my prayer.
20:28
I think it sounds awesome. I think it sounds like your
20:30
Kingdom. So I'm going to pray for it.
20:33
But if it's not your Kingdom, then say no and I'll present my
20:39
idea. Sounds like it's ID's.
20:42
Never heard or I never considered bringing my Kingdom
20:46
through that method, but it what it does to me is it helps me in
20:51
interact with my father and engage in in some ways.
20:56
And sometimes he answers those prayers with a yes, which maybe
21:00
means he just was going to do that thing anyway and he just
21:02
wanted to bring me in on it. Well, you, you know, it's
21:04
interesting. I think that we, I, I was
21:09
listening to do you know who Scotty Scheffler is?
21:13
He's currently the best golfer in the world.
21:16
Yeah. He's one.
21:18
Bunch of stuff really early on. Guy's a rock star.
21:21
Ball golf. Ball Golf.
21:23
Yeah, yeah, yeah, real golf. Yeah.
21:25
He's not, he's not got Tiger Woods like presents in in quite
21:30
the same way. But he's potentially going to be
21:34
as close as we've seen to that kind of level for a long time.
21:38
So consistent. And he actually talked to you
21:40
that someone asked him about the the major championship he won
21:44
this year. And he said the problem for me
21:47
is that it's always disappointing.
21:49
Like it's so flinty. It doesn't last very long.
21:53
I don't know what to. Do about that.
21:56
Like, so, so this is a guy who's like reached a pinnacle of
21:59
something #1 ranked golfer in the world, regularly wins.
22:02
People joke about like, if he can putt today, he's winning the
22:05
tournament. He's just so consistent.
22:09
And yeah, he's like, it's, it's actually a little bit
22:11
disappointing. It's one of those pieces that
22:14
demonstrate how when we think like, oh, if only I could get
22:18
that, I'd be happy. It doesn't work.
22:20
We've talked about this a lot at South.
22:22
Yeah, yeah. This materialistic world that
22:23
will tell you no, no, if you can only get this, you'll be happy.
22:27
So, So a lot of our prayers, if we let ourselves go down that
22:30
trend that that that line is that we just keep praying for
22:37
the next thing, the next thing. My mentality got a little tweak
22:43
with this. Just the other day, someone said
22:47
they, they shared something that somebody else had told them and
22:49
they said it was really life changing for them.
22:51
They said this. They said if I could have seen
22:54
my life now as a kid, I'd have assumed we were rich.
23:00
Like if I could have watched like the way that we get to live
23:03
now, yeah, I'd have assumed these are rich people.
23:06
Like these people have, like, they, they, they, they have it
23:09
sorted. Like they drive like, not old
23:12
cars, not brand new cars, but like, you know, like cars better
23:18
than I had as a kid. They get to eat out fairly
23:21
regularly. I never got to do that as a kid.
23:24
They don't worry about paying the mortgage.
23:27
I never got to not worry about that as a kid.
23:29
They go on a European, I mean by necessity in some ways because
23:34
of family, but they go on a European vacation every year.
23:38
Like, there's things about our life that just.
23:40
I would assume like, yeah, they have the family life I would
23:45
have dreamt of as a kid if I could have designed my life as a
23:49
kid. Yeah.
23:50
I'd be like, these are the things I would put in place.
23:52
Yeah. We even have a trampoline in the
23:55
backyard. I would have loved that as a
23:57
kid. Yeah.
23:58
And yet, like, that doesn't change the fact that internally
24:01
there'd be like, some sense of like, yeah, like that.
24:04
I'd like that. I'd like that.
24:06
I'd like, oh man, those guys, their house, you that like
24:09
neighborhood that it's just interesting how there's always
24:12
another thing. So go down that route.
24:15
So so some of our prayers, if we're honest, are are a
24:18
continuation of that narrative. Like it's the next thing.
24:21
It's the next thing. Yeah, so I'm thinking of the
24:23
person out there who's like, that's not my prayer.
24:26
I'm not asking for a bigger house.
24:28
I have excruciating, like, chronic pain in my back or in my
24:37
whatever. I have chronic migraines.
24:40
Yeah. And I feel like I could be a
24:44
better follower Jesus, and be more engaged as a as a healthy
24:50
human being that loves other human beings if I wasn't just
24:53
constantly wracked by chronic pain.
24:55
Yeah. So I pray.
24:57
Yeah. Yeah.
24:58
For years. Yeah, that's that's where
25:01
sometimes like, like, OK, we'll get outside of the material
25:05
side, OK, we can make a mental ascent.
25:08
OK, that's right. Maybe there's a good reason why
25:11
we don't get more money. But what about some of these
25:14
other things that like, or even a restored relationship or a
25:18
healthy marriage, or these things that seem so in alignment
25:22
with God's Kingdom and world of how he wants the world to
25:25
function? And we pray fervently for the
25:27
thing we think sounds like his Kingdom.
25:29
And it still seems like it doesn't come.
25:31
And I don't think there's a universal answer to that.
25:34
It's there. I mean, I shared that with my
25:37
with my uncle. I felt like my uncle being
25:39
around was a better narrative for this world.
25:41
Yeah. He's one of the truly great
25:43
Jesus followers I've come across.
25:45
Just like he just used to run these little stores giving out
25:49
free Bible stuff at like local fairs.
25:52
Like how do how can someone turn a store that does that into the
25:55
funnest store at the fair? Like you got flocks of kids
26:00
around this store giving out Bibles because that's just who
26:04
he was. He just made things fun.
26:06
So my sense was like, it's a better world with him in it.
26:09
And I don't understand the note of that.
26:12
And so like there's, there's anecdotal evidence we might give
26:16
that that doesn't fit every situation.
26:19
And I think that that that's that.
26:21
So you almost pause on giving it because of that.
26:24
But I'm going to, I'm going to say it anyway, just knowing if
26:27
it doesn't apply to you, I, I don't get to decide that.
26:30
But but one we know just based on our own lives that very
26:37
rarely do people say, oh man, this this year was super easy
26:41
and I grew a ton in following Jesus.
26:44
Like we actually think like ease helps us follow Jesus actually
26:49
doesn't usually. I think there's a a level to
26:54
which God trusts some people to go through some things and that
27:02
that's surprising as well. When when we were parenting Jude
27:07
at my third kid when he was young, and he really had some of
27:10
these more autistic signs that have started to fade out a bit
27:14
as he's got older. He still has some quirks, but
27:16
it's changed a little bit. I would actually regularly pray
27:20
God, thank you for trusting me with this.
27:22
You trusted us to be able to to parent well in this situation
27:27
that that means something. Yeah.
27:30
As much as I'd pray God, like, you know, reverse this thing,
27:34
change this thing and, and actually finding over the years,
27:38
he just became more and more of a gift.
27:40
Yeah, because of his quirks. So, so, you know, I, I have had
27:46
moments, not long moments of intense pain like that.
27:49
And I would not wish it on anyone.
27:51
And I, yeah, I, I, I would certainly find myself praying.
27:56
God, please take this away as I did in those moments.
27:59
Yeah. And so how how you deal with
28:05
that and that that's so hard when it's over a long period of
28:09
time. Yeah, I, I remember, I, I think
28:11
I've probably shared this on the show, but I probably one of the
28:17
most painful seasons of my life. And I remember just crying out
28:21
to God so many times, you know, late at night in bed, just like,
28:26
Lord, please lift this burden for me and this this pain like I
28:31
just want goodness and beauty. And I came across that the
28:37
Hebrews 12 passage about in your struggle like consider him
28:44
endured from sinners such hostility.
28:49
And this freedom came from this passage that was like beautiful
28:52
one because I was in this place at that time in my theology that
28:57
I must be doing something wrong. That's why I'm suffering very
29:02
much like the, you know, like you talked about, was it this
29:06
week or was it a couple weeks ago maybe it was on a previous
29:10
episode talking about like in that day and age, in Jesus day
29:15
and age. Yeah, they assumed.
29:16
Like if you are lame, it was your fault.
29:19
Gotta be you or or your parents or.
29:22
Your parents, Yeah. We've got someone to blame.
29:24
Yeah, and so I, I think that that's actually more common in
29:27
our world today too, Like, oh, I'm suffering.
29:30
It's because I'm sinning. And so like one, I was under
29:33
this burden of shame and guilt because because I'm suffering,
29:37
it probably means I'm sinning. And I was trying to figure out
29:40
where the sin was or, and I found stuff always because I am
29:44
a Sinner. And so I'm like, yes, this I'm
29:47
going to try and eliminate this thing and then my suffering is
29:49
going to go away. And then I'd it just never
29:51
worked. And then I counted this passage
29:54
that talked about like Jesus suffered at the hands of
29:58
sinners, hostility and suffered tremendously.
30:03
And yet he's perfect. So suffering doesn't equal
30:06
sinning necessarily. So that was one gift.
30:10
And then the other gift was realizing that this passage that
30:12
he goes on and talks about this discipline of the Lord.
30:16
And I it, it the realization that discipline can be seen as
30:21
punishment, but in this context, it couldn't be punishment.
30:24
At least the flow coming from Jesus.
30:27
It's actually like training like a coach.
30:30
So then I started to like in that same season when the pain
30:34
would get extra difficult or heavy, I would picture like this
30:39
image of me in the weight room and my coach is putting more
30:42
weights on and, and I'm like, I don't think I can lift this.
30:46
And he's like, so the pain actually was like this nod
30:50
similar to what you just said with about your prayers to the
30:53
Lord related to your son. It was like, no, I think you
30:58
are. And if my coach thinks I'm ready
31:01
to lift this weight, even if I'm not, he's right there to spot me
31:07
and he's and, and he believes in me more than I believe in me.
31:11
And then it actually the suffering started to become this
31:13
weird invitation to like almost like pride of my father and
31:20
coach in that I'm ready for more growth, ready for more maturing.
31:26
So now when the yeah, when the heat turns up in my life,
31:29
sometimes I'm like, OK, I disagree.
31:31
Don't think I'm ready for this, but you do.
31:34
And so therefore I'm going to try and lean in.
31:39
We did get a question this week. And before I read it to you, I'm
31:43
just going to confess to the whole to the whole audience that
31:46
I have anxiety around public reading.
31:49
Did you know this? I did not know this.
31:50
Yes, I'm not a very good reader, so sometimes I just get all
31:54
anxious and start stumbling. This is a long question, so I'm
31:57
going to do my best, but you can know that.
31:59
That's why I get all out of sorts regarding the sermon.
32:04
July 13th. What a beautiful blessing to
32:06
hear this sermon. The Spirit of the Lord has been
32:08
working on me sometime without my full cooperation to bring
32:13
about some of the state states that Alex spoke of.
32:17
About 12 years ago God led me to discover a type of silent prayer
32:20
called Centering prayer. I did not choose this route
32:24
spiritually, but I know God did it for me.
32:27
Alex sermon confirms that I'm on a recognized path and I know he
32:32
has spoken about this contemplative path last year.
32:36
I wasn't quite sure of my journey for a long time now, but
32:40
my red but my red couch theology question for you to ponder is
32:45
the role of pain, suffering, lamentation and diminishment in
32:51
the process of bringing this intimacy into one's life.
32:55
For myself, I reflect back on the decade on on a decade decade
33:00
ago, my life was just perfect and the way that I wanted it.
33:04
And yet God brought medical problems which have been dealing
33:09
dealing to include open heart surgery, similar to Alex's
33:12
sharing in the sermon, and a complete reconstruction of my
33:15
spine which is ongoing. Strangely, in all this pain, I
33:20
reflect that it draws me closer to an intimacy with my ABBA.
33:24
Does our Heavenly Father allow this pain and suffering or
33:28
actually bring it? Such a good question.
33:32
I trust that some some find a way to this divine intimacy
33:36
without the route of pain and suffering, but somehow I wonder
33:39
if it's essential and should be expected.
33:42
Not exactly seeker friendly sermon material.
33:45
Should we pray for pain? Should we want pain if it's the
33:50
path to surrender and death and false personality?
33:54
Here's a chance for you guys to reflect.
33:57
I think it's a brilliantly crafted question and you're like
34:02
tracking with them, tracking rhythm.
34:03
Then he just goes for the jugular, like should we want?
34:06
I was actually thinking about it, that perspective when you
34:10
were reading it. I think.
34:14
So centering, I actually nearly used centering prayer as an
34:17
example. I've used it a few times.
34:20
I do think it's probably the greatest gift in prayer.
34:30
I'm going to say that like with some some sense of, I don't know
34:34
that I, I, I find it just amazing as a gift.
34:39
I think I've shared before that my word I've used in centering
34:42
prayer recently has been storehouses.
34:47
Yeah. There's a line in a song that I
34:50
actually asked you to do, and I wasn't here for it.
34:53
I think it was when Kevin Butcher was preaching last year.
34:57
It's a line in a song by a girl called Jess Ray.
35:01
And she says something like, but you will never come to the
35:04
bottom of my storehouses of love.
35:08
Like it just to me is this beautiful picture of like a
35:10
storehouse of grain just overflowing that you can't get
35:14
to a bottom of. And that's what God's love for
35:16
me is like. And so for me, it's just become
35:18
this word that invites me into like embracing, yeah, and and
35:23
and presence and joy. But in around that language of
35:29
like silence and contemplation. There is been a lot of writing
35:36
that has said something like this.
35:37
I think this was a direct Richard Roe quote.
35:43
God is experienced through two things.
35:46
Suffering or contemplation is one of the two.
35:52
And suffering has a way, it seems of bypassing the
35:56
contemplative element that in suffering, it seems like there's
36:02
this possibility that God is just instantly present without
36:06
any of the, the, the seeking the work just just as a gift.
36:11
And then the other method is that you actually, you actually
36:16
do the work, not not earning, but putting in the effort to use
36:24
that Dallardly Dallas Willard language.
36:27
You. Know God is not opposed to death
36:31
or grace, is not opposed to effort.
36:33
It's just opposed to earning, but the you actually look for
36:38
him. You know, I think of like
36:39
Psalms, like, you know, sorry language in Jeremiah that says,
36:42
you know, I'll be fond of you when you seek me with all your
36:45
heart. And so I think there is a gift
36:49
of of presence in suffering that that is, is, is is different.
36:57
Yeah, and I, I agree. So are you recommending that we
37:02
pray for suffering? That, that, that, that's a great
37:04
question. I think that's a courageous
37:05
prayer. I, I think, I think the best way
37:09
I could imagine it being phrased would be something like, God, I
37:14
would like to experience you, no matter what it costs.
37:23
And, and to do so regularly might be to invite suffering in
37:27
your life. And, and knowing that that
37:31
suffering might cause hardship for people around you, hardship
37:35
in a marriage or in a parenting situation or in a, like a child
37:40
as a carer, all those sorts of things.
37:43
And that in some eternity in the future, you might all look at
37:47
that and say that was absolutely worth it.
37:50
But it's not easy for anyone. So I mean, suffering's hard for
37:53
the person that's experiencing and it's different, differently
37:57
hard for the people that that watch it.
38:02
I mean, I mean, the number of parents that I've spoken to
38:04
that, you know, I've had a child who's suffering, who's been
38:08
hurt, something has happened to them in this world that's
38:13
traumatic. And, and every parent I've
38:15
talked to said I would take it on myself every day of the week.
38:19
Yeah. So, so I, I, you know, I, I like
38:24
you. You recognize the, the potential
38:27
trauma of that for others as well.
38:30
That's so hard. Yeah, so John Owen, Puritan
38:34
writer wrote wrote this poem called I asked the Lord.
38:40
He says I asked the Lord that I might grow in faith and love and
38:43
every grace might more of his salvation know and seek more
38:46
earnestly his face. And it was he who taught me thus
38:51
to pray and he I trust his answered prayer, but it has been
38:53
in such a way as almost drove me to despair these and then he
38:57
goes on to describe these horrific trials that come and
39:01
then the sort of punchline at the end of this poem and it's
39:04
been turned into multiple different songs is these Lord,
39:10
Lord, why is this I trembling cry.
39:12
Will thou pursue thy worm to death?
39:15
Tis in this way, the Lord replied, I answer prayer for
39:17
grace and faith, these inward trials I employ from self and
39:22
pride to set thee free, that thou my seek thy all in me.
39:26
And that's such a brutal poem when you're on the especially
39:32
when you're on the outside looking in to a suffering.
39:35
But if you, if you're genuine, if you've tasted and seen of
39:39
God's goodness, there is it is so unparalleled in its beauty
39:44
and goodness that it gives people the boldness to pray
39:49
ludicrous prayers like whatever it takes, Jesus, whatever it
39:52
takes to get me closer to your goodness and beauty and.
39:58
And. And, and there's been moments
40:00
where I've had that faith, and then there's been moments with
40:02
where I trembling cry, Lord, what will thou pursue thy worm
40:05
to death? And so is it.
40:07
Yeah. So, so I, I think that a
40:10
starting point, if you're like, man, that that's just like, you
40:13
know, I'm like with the guy that's like, what's with the
40:17
unanswered prayers for property? Like I've been praying for a
40:21
house or a better house for a long time.
40:24
Yeah. And you're like, I just, I'm
40:27
just disappointed with God hasn't shown up for me in those
40:32
ways. Yeah.
40:35
Then a better starting point is probably something like give me
40:41
the faith to pray those kind of prayers or help me get to a
40:45
point where I can honestly pray those kind of prayers to
40:48
acknowledge that you're starting from a point of like just
40:51
nowhere near being able to say something like that.
40:53
I was, it was, it was, it wasn't Teresa River Villa.
40:56
Who was it that said, God, I don't love you and I don't want
41:01
to love you. I don't even want to want to
41:03
love you, but I want to want to want to love you.
41:07
Yeah. You know, it's, it's an honesty
41:10
of like where you are in that journey.
41:13
I think sometimes we surprise ourselves there in, in terms of
41:17
who we are and what we truly hope for.
41:21
I, I remember I was watching a movie The other day with some of
41:24
my family and, and one of the guys was in danger.
41:30
And the guy that was trying to help him was suspicious as to
41:33
whether, you know, should help him or not.
41:35
Like, you know, he's someone I should be bothering to help.
41:39
And he said to him, so are you a good man?
41:42
And the guy paused. And he went like, yeah, I don't,
41:47
I don't know. And the guy helps him.
41:50
And, you know, as he comes back to health, he's like, why did
41:52
you help me? And he said, well, I asked you
41:53
if you were a good man. And he said, and you paused and
41:59
said you weren't sure. Well, if you were a bad man, you
42:02
would never have asked that question.
42:04
You would never have paused like that.
42:05
Like, you know, if you were someone that like had no desire
42:09
to be good, you would have just lied to me.
42:12
You just said, yeah, sure. So so it's just one of those
42:16
interesting, like, like behind the scenes looks even in the pop
42:19
culture. Yeah.
42:21
Of of the movie world as to like how complicated we are and who
42:25
we actually desire to be and actually what we want from God.
42:30
So, and I think most of us would like God's will for our lives,
42:34
but if we're honest, we're just a little afraid of what God's
42:37
will might look like. Yes, yeah.
42:43
And I think this is where like returning to the love of God
42:53
becomes like the, the safety net when it comes to that fear, like
42:58
saying, I don't know if I want your will.
43:01
The only way you can like actually grow in faith to know,
43:05
no, I absolutely want his will. I want his Kingdom to come and
43:09
his will to be done on earth as it is in heaven, whatever it
43:12
takes. The only way anyone gets the
43:14
boldness to pray that is if you're really confident in his
43:19
goodness and in his love, which is kind of a little spoiler
43:22
alert. Some of the element of like what
43:26
it means to anchor to the cross or anchor to the to the gospel
43:31
is the gospel is just this like shouting declaration in human
43:35
history that this is how far God will go to demonstrate love.
43:41
So the second part of that question I want to linger with
43:45
for just a moment. OK, so we've established that
43:48
God can use and does often use suffering to to bring about
43:54
intimacy. Does he cause suffering?
44:02
Is is. I think there's language in
44:04
Scripture that would point to he that he doesn't, that he uses
44:09
it. I think there's a language that
44:11
suggests that, you know, God doesn't cause evil, that allows
44:17
things to happen, that, this, that, that.
44:23
That's some of the language around like a like what what
44:28
sometimes gets called a cruciocentric theology.
44:32
That. That if God, I'm, I'm giving
44:35
some pointers to Sunday a little bit.
44:38
If God ultimately reveals himself with Jesus who dies for
44:42
those that are enemies. And actually what we see in the
44:46
Old Testament is God removing his protection that he's
44:51
allowing things to happen as part of the journey of faith of
44:55
his people. But ultimately the, the key to
44:59
the revelation is always the Jesus story and the the cross
45:04
and God choosing his own evil or choosing his own suffering pain
45:13
for his followers. So, so yeah, I'd, I'd find it
45:16
hard to say yes to that, but but when you think about the job
45:22
story, like that's maybe the best example I could come up
45:27
with of God saying I'm stepping back and allowing.
45:31
Yes, no, I mean I feel like there's passages that the author
45:35
of those passages definitely thinks it was God who's doing it
45:40
even when outsider uses that language.
45:44
That's why I think at least from from my perspective, and maybe
45:47
you, you push back on this, but I think it's the answer is
45:51
sometimes yes, sometimes no. Like they're like, but I think
46:01
more often than not, the things that happen in the world, both
46:06
good and evil, are a little bit more the results of the system
46:13
structures that and they got designed into how the world
46:16
should and shouldn't function. And we're either align with
46:20
design or don't align with design.
46:22
When we don't align with design, bad things happen.
46:24
When we do align with design, better things tends to happen.
46:28
But those are principles. But then, like other times, like
46:33
God seems to step into that system and actively act for good
46:38
or or suffering in in certain moments, like to a prayer of of
46:45
someone saying like Lord, I want to grow whatever it takes and
46:49
and is he actively causing that pain?
46:53
Well, maybe not. Maybe he doesn't need to.
46:54
Well, this is this is the problem with this question.
46:57
It's getting so difficult. Solid answer is, is what?
47:02
What do we mean by causes? So let me tell a brief story
47:05
that I think I can tell without it becoming super emotional.
47:10
I've told it before on on some level somewhere, but when I was
47:15
at the lake up in Minnesota a couple of years ago, I was doing
47:19
some stuff on one of the boats and I've kind of had this
47:24
awareness that Jude had come down to the lake.
47:28
Yeah. But was busy was kind of just
47:30
like a, you know, kind of semi aware.
47:37
And then I heard this faint noise and I was again in the
47:42
middle of doing some another boat.
47:43
I thought, just going to go check what that is.
47:46
And I walked to the front of the boat and Jude's in the water,
47:50
face down, just like desperately splashing away, trying to come
47:55
back to the surface. And I reached out and grabbed
47:59
him and pulled him in. And I was fortunate.
48:02
Then I got there like maybe 30 seconds after he fell in 20
48:07
seconds. So he was OK.
48:10
If he'd have died, I would have blamed myself for the rest of my
48:14
life. Yeah, I would have had this
48:16
sense that I did that negligent through not stopping it happen.
48:21
Yeah. So on some level, I would have
48:23
held myself as the cause of those events and other people
48:27
would have said, no, you didn't 'cause it, you didn't do it, It
48:30
was an accident, accidents happen.
48:33
But I would have held my responsibility as his protector,
48:36
the one who's supposed to watch over him as having not done
48:40
that. No, I'm not.
48:42
If you've been in a situation like that, I'm not saying you
48:44
got to blame or any of those things.
48:45
I'm just talking about how I would have felt in that moment.
48:48
Yeah. And so when we talk about does
48:51
God 'cause it? Well, is he the 'cause if he
48:54
doesn't stop it, that's the wrestling of Theodosy.
48:57
He's all powerful. He's all knowing, He's all good,
49:00
like he should stop those things happening.
49:03
And, and if he doesn't, on some level, to some people's minds,
49:06
he's, he's the cause of it. Yeah.
49:10
And if he even if he he built the system in the 1st place, the
49:13
surrounding can exist so. So, so so I think that that
49:19
there's a nuance to that word that makes it very hard to to
49:24
come to a conclusion for me. If God does good things for some
49:29
people, certainly across history, you look at the ways
49:32
that the people of Israel believe God protected them,
49:35
defeated their enemies or the some image bearer of God
49:39
somewhere who now is suffering because of that protection.
49:45
You know, one man's suffering is another man's good and vice
49:49
versa at times. If you're a business owner that
49:52
prays for more clients, a growth, you know, and then
49:57
someone else goes out of business because of it.
50:00
Has God caused your good? Has he caused their suffering?
50:03
All sorts of just like. Yeah, it's way too complicated.
50:06
That, that, that, you know, yeah, that that that circle
50:10
around us and we and ultimately end up kind of maybe wallowing
50:13
like Judas trying to figure out like, what is this story here?
50:17
Yeah. And so that's why I like the
50:20
conclusion that I kind of came to, which is whatever your story
50:24
looks like, that is present in your story.
50:28
And that came that idea came from, you know, I, I sometimes
50:31
feel like I quote Frederick Wigner too much, but but he
50:37
never the reason I quote him so much is because he's just
50:40
brilliant. Has a way of saying stuff.
50:43
He does. Yeah.
50:44
Yeah. And he has a thing on prayer
50:49
that that I think just like, gets to the heart of this.
50:54
I don't know if I've got time to.
51:00
Yeah, Here we go. We all pray.
51:04
What? Whether we think of pray, we're
51:06
praying or not. The odd silence we fall into and
51:08
something beautiful is happening, or something very
51:11
good or very bad that sometimes floats up out of us out of the
51:14
4th of July crowd when the rocket bursts over the water.
51:17
The stammer of pain of someone at someone else's pain.
51:20
Stammer of joy at someone else's joy.
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Whatever words or sounds we use for for sighing with over our
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own lives, these are all prayers in a way.
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They're all spoken not just to ourselves, but to something even
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more familiar than ourselves, and even more strange than the
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world according to Jesus. By far the most important thing
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about praying is to keep at it the image he uses to explain
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this, or rather comic, as though he thought it was rather comic
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to have to explain this at all. He says God is like a friend you
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have to borrow bread from at night.
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The friend tells you in effect to drop dead, but you go on
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knocking anyway, until finally he gives you what you want so
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you can go, so he can go back to bed again.
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Or like a crooked judge who refuses to be hear the case of a
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certain poor widow, presumably because he knows there's nothing
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much in it for him, but she keeps # hounding him until he
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finally hears a case just to get her out of his hair.
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Even a stinker, Jesus says, won't give his own child a black
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eye when the child asks for peanut butter and Jelly.
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So how? How all the more will God when
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his children ask the importunate?
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God says not one assumes just because you have to be to path
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to God's door before God will open it because but because
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until you beat the path, maybe there's no way of getting to
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your door ravished my heart John Donro.
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And then he's got this bit where he says believe somebody is
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listening, believe in miracles. That's what Jesus told the
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Father who asked him to heal his epileptic son.
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All things are possible to him who believes and the Father
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spoke for all of us when he answered Lord, I believe help my
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unbelief. What about when the boy is not
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healed? When listened to or not, the
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prayer goes and answered. Who knows?
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Just keep praying, Jesus says. Remember the sleepy friend, the
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crooked judge? Even if the boy dies, keep on
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beating the path to God's door, because that's the one thing you
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can be sure of, is that down the path you beat, even with your
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most half cocked and halting prayers, the God you call upon
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will finally come. Yeah, that's so good.
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Yeah, who writes like that? Yeah.
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And I think back to your point a little bit ago, the story you
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just told, maybe one thing that is true about God is regardless
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of whether you would have caused the death of a son, the feeling
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that you did might be true of how God feels about all our
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suffering as well. But he knows the complexity of
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the world and there's he's got reasons far beyond what we can
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handle and understand of why he would say yes or no or not stop
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a suffering. But there I think there's pretty
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strong biblical evidence that he feels the pain as if he caused
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it. And I think with the story of
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Jesus, he both through it, he both does say it and can say of
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the world that it's most broken and our experience of that, you
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can say, yes, me too. Yeah.
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Like I think that's the gift, like of the cross ultimately
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that God says no, I've I've felt that the world.
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That it's the worst possible expression of pain.
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I am right there with you and it and it's not fair.
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And, and having all the power in the world to stop it and
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choosing not to for the good of of the world.
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Yeah, that's that's the profound thing.
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Yep, Awesome. All right.
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Well, thanks, Alex, I mean. Thanks, Aaron.
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Good stuff. I'm going to find the stop
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button. Thank you all for tuning in and
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let's keep praying. Find that Frederick Beekner
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quote if you need to. What book is that in?
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Yeah, it's in Wishful Thinking and it's just cool.
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It's just, yeah, publishing Wishful Thinking, which is a
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brilliant book where he has, like, little, little ideas
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around the alphabet of grace, he calls it.
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So think of something fine suffering.
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There'll be a little article under S for suffering.
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Wow. Prayers about faith, all those
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different things. Very cool.
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And he pushes buttons, but in a good way.
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Yeah. All right, everyone, we will
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catch you next week. Bye.