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The National Day of Prayer and the “discomfort of uncertainty” · The Daily Article

• 0:02
  [SPEAKER_00]: Welcome to the Thursday May the 7th, 2026 edition of Dinnison Forms Daily Article Fodcast.
• 0:08
  [SPEAKER_00]: Cultural theoryologian and co-founder Dr. Jim Dinnison wrote today's Daily Article.
• 0:13
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'm Chris Elkins, narrator.
• 0:16
  [SPEAKER_00]: 8.26 National Day of Prayer is today.
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  [SPEAKER_00]: Millions of Christians around the U.S. will pray for our nation personally and in gatherings with other believers.
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  [SPEAKER_00]: We do so in the firm belief as the saying goes that God is always just a prayer away.
• 0:32
  [SPEAKER_00]: To escape, this must seem an unprovable assertion, a self-fulfilling prophecy akin to a horoscope.
• 0:40
  [SPEAKER_00]: If yours predicts that you'll have a good day, your grateful mindset in response helps make it so.
• 0:46
  [SPEAKER_00]: If you believe in God, your faith helps you quote-unquote experience him in prayer in ways that validate your belief.
• 0:54
  [SPEAKER_00]: Such skeptics are right.
• 0:56
  [SPEAKER_00]: We cannot prove to them or even to ourselves that time spent in prayer today or any other day is warranted that the God to whom we pray is the God we believe him to be.
• 1:07
  [SPEAKER_00]: Here's why that's such a good thing.
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  [SPEAKER_00]: There are at least six ways Christians seek to experience God.
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  [SPEAKER_00]: Some focus on a contemplative relationship with Him.
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  [SPEAKER_00]: Others on holiness and personal virtue, still others on the power of His Spirit, the priority of social justice and compassion, the call to preach the good news and the privilege of experiencing Him in His creation.
• 1:31
  [SPEAKER_00]: Some of us attempt to walk each of these
• 1:38
  [SPEAKER_00]: However, I have personally known Muslims who are just as devoted to the five pillars of Islam, Buddhists who are just as committed to the noble eightfold path of Buddhism, and Jews who are just as Arden in keeping the 613 laws of their religion.
• 1:54
  [SPEAKER_00]: How are we so certain that we're right and they're wrong?
• 1:59
  [SPEAKER_00]: I will add in full transparency that there are days when my quest to experience the God to whom I pray seems unfulfilled.
• 2:07
  [SPEAKER_00]: I have never cried with Jesus from the cross, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me in Matthew 27, verse 46, quoting Psalm 22, verse 1.
• 2:16
  [SPEAKER_00]: But I have prayed for event prayers that were unanswered so far as I know.
• 2:22
  [SPEAKER_00]: I have resonated with David's plea from Psalm 22 verse 2.
• 2:26
  [SPEAKER_00]: Oh my God, I cry by day, but you do not answer, and by night, but I find no rest.
• 2:33
  [SPEAKER_00]: Perhaps like me, you've experienced what 16th century, Saint John of the Cross, called the Dark Knight of the Soul.
• 2:41
  [SPEAKER_00]: Like Elijah in 1 Kings 19 verse 4, we can abandon hope.
• 2:46
  [SPEAKER_00]: Like Moses in Numbers 11, verse 14, we can feel that our burden is too heavy for me.
• 2:52
  [SPEAKER_00]: Like Jeremiah in Lamentations 3 verse 8, it can seem that though I call and cry for help, he shuts out my prayer.
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  [SPEAKER_00]: All similarly wrote in 2 Corinthians 1 verse 8 of a time when he was so utterly burdened beyond our strength that we despaired of life itself.
• 3:11
  [SPEAKER_00]: But then Paul made an assertion in verse 9 that frames my point today.
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  [SPEAKER_00]: That was to make us rely not on ourselves, but on God who raises the dead.
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  [SPEAKER_00]: On one hand, the fact that we cannot prove the existence of God we trust is only logical, because God is spirit, as noted in John 4, verse 24,
• 3:32
  [SPEAKER_00]: We cannot verify him through empirical material means, because our God is in the heavens, established in Psalm 115 verse 3, we cannot point to him on earth.
• 3:43
  [SPEAKER_00]: And relationships are verified, not through test tubes and mathematical equations, but through experience.
• 3:50
  [SPEAKER_00]: S.E.S.
• 3:50
  [SPEAKER_00]: Lewis wrote in Mirchristianity, quote, a man can accept what Christ has done without knowing how it works.
• 3:58
  [SPEAKER_00]: Indeed, he certainly would not know how it works until he is accepted it, in quote, on the other hand, the lack of certainty that is a necessary component of our faith can compel us forward in faith.
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  [SPEAKER_00]: Our trust and our father's omniscience, position just to receive and follow his leadership, our belief in his omnipotence encourages us to seek and experience his provision.
• 4:22
  [SPEAKER_00]: and our inability to prove our faith through reason invites us to focus less on what we too much discuss and too much explain as T.S.
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  [SPEAKER_00]: Eliot noted, and more on the God who should be the object of our worship and service.
• 4:38
  [SPEAKER_00]: So our encirciguard would agree claiming the highest of all is not to understand the highest but to act upon it.
• 4:46
  [SPEAKER_00]: In quote, how do we do this?
• 4:49
  [SPEAKER_00]: Alfred, Lord Tennyson, wrote, nothing worthy proving can be proven, nor yet this proven.
• 4:56
  [SPEAKER_00]: In the myth of certainty, the reflective Christian and the risk of commitment, Daniel Taylor similarly reminds us that, quote,
• 5:10
  [SPEAKER_00]: In quote, we can point for example to the faith, hope, and love that are the hallmarks of a personal relationship with the living Lord Jesus, found in 1 Corinthians 13 verse 13.
• 5:21
  [SPEAKER_00]: The more we experience them, the less we feel the need to understand them or to prove them to others.
• 5:27
  [SPEAKER_00]: In Tennyson's words, we leave ever to the senior side of doubt and cling to faith beyond the forms of faith.
• 5:36
  [SPEAKER_00]: Such a journey will have bright days and dark, joyful hopes and discouraging doubts, because that is the way of life as fallen people on a fallen planet.
• 5:46
  [SPEAKER_00]: Joccalooal was right, quote,
• 5:55
  [SPEAKER_00]: in quote, but we can take our next step with Jesus today, going from Isaiah 60 verse 19 that the Lord will be your everlasting light because all of God there is is in this moment as referenced in Psalm 63 verses 1 through 8.
• 6:11
  [SPEAKER_00]: Brother Jamie Nelson of the Society of St. John the Evangelist in Boston notes, quote, we crave certainty because it provides a mental container that makes us feel safer to zarynxiety and protects the illusion of control, in quote, but Nelson suggests that a better approach is to gently sit with the discomfort of uncertainty and practice welcoming God into those moments where you are not alone.
• 6:39
  [SPEAKER_00]: In quote, Nelson, therefore encourages us to pray to God for the peace and courage to help you release the desire for answers carved in stone and instead to follow an invitation to deeper relationship.
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  [SPEAKER_00]: Will you pray for such peace and courage today?