The Scriptwriter and the Timelessness of Prayer
Okay, I’m going to be really, really honest with you. What I’m going to say, I’d like to keep this between us, okay? I’m trusting you here . . .
I’ve had my doubts about prayer.
When I first hit my health issues, I thought, “I don’t know whether to ask people to pray for my healing . . . or not.” On one hand, I read that ‘Prayer doesn’t change anything but ME’. That’s pretty fatalistic. On the other hand, I read Jesus’ parable about the persistent guy, knocking and knocking and knocking and ultimately, the master comes to the door and gives him what he’s asking for. When I hear people refer to an answered prayer with “It worked,” I think “Wow, they think they talked God into doing what they wanted.” Like prayer is this process where if enough of us gang up on God, He’ll somehow give in and give us what we want.
Then I read Scripture that says “God does what He pleases,” and “The rain falls on the just and the unjust.” On the other hand, God changed His mind at least once (see Exodus 34:14). If He’s changed His mind before, that means He can again . . . if he wants to.
I think that’s at least 4 ‘on the other hands!’
The other day, I read a C.S. Lewis devotional that blew my mind. Shifted my paradigm. Answered this huge question for me. I’ll try to explain.
God is timeless. His timelessness is what we least understand about Him. It’s what’s most different between God and people.
God is the scriptwriter of all history. Before He formed me, He knew me. He knows how everything turns out because He wrote the script. From our limited perspective, we live, act and decide with free will. But at the Ultimate, “God” level of things, He fore-knew what we were going to do because He wrote the script.
When we pray, He hears our prayers and takes our prayers into account as He writes the script. So even though the script was written eons ago, every single prayer we utter enters in to the mind and heart of the Scriptwriter. He gives (or gave) it consideration as He was writing the script of our lives and of history.
Conceptually, a prayer for an event that already happened wouldn’t be wasted. But that’s where compassion and hope come in. God loves us so much, He wouldn’t want to see His children pour out their hearts in prayer for something that’s already come to fruition. That would be dumb. He knows we thrive when we have hope and die without it. It only makes sense to pray for present and future things . . . where there’s hope.
So as I pray, I know I’m speaking to the Scriptwriter. He’s going to listen to my prayers and take them into consideration as He develops the characters, plots and outcomes. No prayer is ever wasted . . . I should pray about everything that matters. He loves me, so if it matters to me, it matters to Him. After I pray, I have to trust His judgment.
I’m glad I know the scriptwriter. I’m grateful He’s written me into His story. I know how His story ends.
I trust He’ll take care of me until then.
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Responses (3)
Prayer is a great wonderful opportunity to talk directly to God. I have found it is a great connecting point when we remove the obstacles in our lives to talk to Him. Meaning the Phones, PC’s, TV, Doorbell, shut out all distractions and talk to Him, be still and know He is God, and of course that we are not!
And yes God talks back to us, directly to us, how cool it that when you really consider it! So prayer is not a struggle, a battle, it is a blessing and the devil tries to keep us from it all of the time. Never quit, pray always!!!
Mike
Jeremiah 23:29!!!
Not sure that I agree with your statement that ‘God is timeless. His timelessness is what we least understand about Him. It’s what’s most different between God and people.’ Let me explain;
If by stating that God is timeless you mean that God is eternal, than I don’t have a problem with that, I just haven’t heard it expressed that way before. God created time and while he exists outside of time (in eternity) God became a man and entered into time…there was a definite period of time when God ‘became flesh and dwelt among us’. In stating that God is eternal, we affirm that he exists in time and in eternity.
Secondly, I’m not sure I agree that his ‘timelessness is what we least understand about him’ because Ecclesiastes 3:11 states ‘He has made everything beautiful in its time. Also, he has put eternity into man’s heart, yet so that he cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end.’ I would be more inclined to acknowledge that while the concept of eternity is difficult for us to fully comprehend, it is the holiness of God that we least understand about him, not his ‘timelessness’ or eternal nature.
Finally, I do not think that timelessness is what is most different between God and people, but rather holiness (God’s holiness) is what is most different between God and I. I have been called to be holy because he is holy…the inference being – I am not holy! It is only by the grace of God that I have been made holy by the blood of Jesus Christ – His righteousness imputed to me, my sin borne by Him on the cross at Calvary. That God is eternal is indeed a wonder to meditate on. That God is holy humbles me and inevitably causes me to worship Him.
Thank you Regi for your website, and its aim of leading people to Christ, the Scriptwriter.
My comment:
Why pray for the deceased?, some ask……, since their destiny is final.
But one’s prayer for that person is not bound by time. In other words prayer is timeless, right?
Or should a Christian just forget about the deceased?
And what about veneration of those who gave us life? That needn’t be ancestor worship, but simply respect for progenitors, right?
Baring some evil necromancy, shouldn’t Christians keep the departed close to their hearts and minds, instead of relegating them to a remote and transcendent place over yonder?