“How should we pray when we hear of persistent immorality like abortion, murder, sexual assault, or terrorism? How do we process through faithfully the plight of our unbelieving friends’ hardness of heart toward the gospel? What about the physical suffering of a friend who, by all accounts, does not seem to deserve such affliction? What about a wayward child or church member or friend?”
When we begin to roll up our sleeves and get serious about being Christians we rouse our minds as well as our hearts to action. Increasingly God uses the Bible to shape the minds and hearts of his people. By God’s grace he molds us. We begin to think his thoughts after him and likewise long for his glory. We cry, “Hallowed by Thy name” even as God resolutely declares that his name will be hallowed.
But it’s not that easy, is it? As we endeavor to respond to God’s Word amid the world, we feel a tension. It’s sometimes confusing, and other times it can frankly be discouraging. Let me flesh this out a bit. You read the Bible and find what God loves, but then you look in the world and you see things happening that God does not love. What is going on? How do I pray?
Furthermore, what am I to conclude about God himself? Is he not so powerful that he could stop all of this injustice, pain, and hurting? And if so, then why not? Does he know everything that is going to happen? How do I work through what is happening in light of what God has said?
It is important first of all to remember that these types of questions are not marks of immaturity or sinful doubt. If sincere they reflect a heart and mind that is attempting to interact with what is in God’s Word and what is seen in the world around us.
Second, it is helpful to remember that the Bible speaks in a couple of different ways about God’s will. The most helpful categories are the hidden and the revealed will of God. We see this distinction in Deuteronomy 29:29:
The secret things belong to the LORD our God, but the things that are revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may do all the words of this law.
The hidden will of God refers to what God has decreed. He has not told us everything he knows or everything he is going to do. He has his secrets that belong to him alone. God’s hidden will comes to pass according to his sovereign decree, and we do not know what these things are until they happen (Ps. 33:11; Isa. 46:8-10). Then we have the revealed will of God. This is what God shows us in the Scriptures. Here we learn about what is good, true, and beautiful in God’s sight. We learn about holiness and love. We are given a sufficient revelation of God’s will in terms of his precepts—we have what we need in order to know and follow him (2 Tim. 3:16-17).
So far you have the fact that God knows everything, decrees everything that comes to pass, and then reveals to us his perfect law. But what about that point of tension between the hidden and revealed will? How do we think much less pray about that space in between? Read the papers; there is enough injustice overnight to make a sensitive saint nauseous. Furthermore, what about the strangeness of how God seems to decree certain things that are clearly against his revealed will in order to accomplish his big plan? One might consider the story of Joseph for example, or more to the point, the death and resurrection of Jesus. In both cases we have violations of the revealed will according to the decreed will.
How should we pray when we hear of persistent immorality like abortion, murder, sexual assault, or terrorism? How do we process through faithfully the plight of our unbelieving friends’ hardness of heart toward the gospel? What about the physical suffering of a friend who, by all accounts, does not seem to deserve such affliction? What about a wayward child or church member or friend?
Let me give you some examples that I’ve found helpful when trying to pray through this apparent tension. Let’s call them five reminders.
(1) Remember the context.
Much of our longing comes from the perspective of longing to be home. God’s Word reveals to us the beauty of Eden, the destruction of sin, and the untarnished glory of the coming city of God. We long to be there. But our groanings echo in a broken world. Our eyes look around and see pain in the tear-stained faces and the horrible headlines. As we process what we see we must remember that this world is broken even as we know that God is making things new through the gospel. As Christians we understand the context: we are in the midst of the time whereby God is calling people to himself through the gospel. The world and its inhabitants are broken. This period of time exists in order for God to make things new. God’s revealed will teaches me to prayerfully trust him and his plan.
(2) Remember your free access.
When we look around and see things that don’t line up with the Word of God we may have a tendency to retreat back and, in despondency and fear, avoid prayer. However, this is just the opposite of what we are to do. The Bible teaches us that God has given us free access to him through Christ (Heb. 4:14-16) whereby we may come and cast our cares upon God (1 Pet. 5:6-7). We have such an infinite resource in prayer. We have a God who is all-powerful and all-loving who has bidden us to come to him with our hearts all tied up on knots that he might untie them. May the tension you feel and see as you attempt to apply God’s Word only serve to drive you to him in prayer.
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