plat•i•tude, [plat-i-tood], noun
1. a plane, dry, or trite remark, especially one uttered as if it were fresh or profound. Synonym: cliché. Examples: “Everything happens for a reason.” “Be a team player.” “God works in mysterious ways.”
God can use anyone. God even uses men and women who are in rebellion against him like he did with Pharaoh (Exodus 9:17). God can use men and women who love him and yet have moments of backsliding like Moses did (Numbers 20:2-13). While God can use anyone, he prefers to use a certain type of person.
Perhaps the caring heart and character of God is the first lesson Jesus teaches us about in this parable because this is foundational to our desire in pursuing the Lord. If we don’t know he cares for us, why would we pray to him?
1 Peter 5:7 (NIV) states, “Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you.” Peter motivates us to cast all our troubles onto the Lord by reminding us that God really does care. God really is good. If you don’t know he cares for you, if you don’t know that the heart of God is for you, or if you doubt the goodness of God, you won’t pray very much.
My three year old son has an adversary. She’s redheaded, immature, easily excitable, really fun, slobbery, and super annoying when she wants to play. His adversary also happens to be our golden retriever, Lois.
In typical first born fashion, my son wants to be in charge, and Lois is an easy target. “Lois, get off my toys! Lois, stop hitting me with your tail! Lois, stop barking! Lois, stop breathing on me!” The funny thing is Lois doesn’t pay attention to him at all. She just keeps doing what she’s doing as though he isn’t shouting at the top of his lungs right in her unimpressed face.
It’s not that she doesn’t understand him; I think she finds pleasure in doing the opposite of what he says. When he yells “Move!” she stares past him, just wagging her tail like she’s enjoying herself at the beach. Or if he screams, “Stay!” she suddenly has the urge to slowly mosey somewhere else with that dull, blank, drooping jowls, older dog look . . . “Yeah, right kid.”
When we begin to learn about God’s sovereignty, the temptation is to turn into the “frozen chosen” who use God’s power as an excuse to be lazy. If God is in total control of everything, why pray at all?
Certainly this is a multi layered question that could be talked about endlessly in the theological classroom. The more pressing concern is when the idea of God’s sovereignty hinders your prayer life in a very negatively practical way. This is not what God wants.
So to answer the question, “Why pray if God is Sovereign?”, perhaps a counter question will help us see the Bible’s answer: “Why would you pray if God wasn’t sovereign?”
By God’s grace I have had the opportunity to do missionary work in Liberia, West Africa. During my time there I had the privilege of visiting a lot of orphanages, some on a weekly basis.
I saw hundreds of orphan children. Babies, toddlers, children, teenagers. Some well fed, some not so well fed. Some with beds to sleep in and roofs over their heads, some without. Some of these orphans were in the city, some were way out in the African bush. Some were healthy and loved to play, some were crippled and lame.
I remember one boy named Francis. He was probably around fourteen, but he didn’t know his true birth date because his parents died when he was young and no one was there to share the details of his early life, a common problem amongst orphan children. Francis was a free spirit and did not like the rules and expectations of an orphanage, so he lived in a shipping container in the port, wheeling and dealing with the sailors to provide food for himself. Just from talking to all the sailors from different countries he had learned multiple languages: English, Russian, Ukrainian, French . . . Francis could speak them all. He was a genius.
I like to over complicate things. Let’s go back into my childhood. Let’s take a deep look into my thinking process. Let’s analyze every word this person said to me. Na, Jesus says. Let’s just start with prayer.
As I was going through seminary and pursuing a Master’s Degree in pastoral counseling, I was taught a principle I believe Jesus practiced, “Complicated problems don’t always require complicated solutions.”
Before my wife and I were married, we dated long distance for over a year. We would drive eight hours to see each other around every two weeks, but of course we wanted to connect more than that. Phone conversations were the next best thing.
Looking back, perhaps one of the best foundations to our marriage was that year of dating where we were forced to connect with one another through conversation. As humans, having conversations is essential to building deep relationships. The same is true with our walk with God.
As Christians, we all know we should pray more than we do and talk with God as his word instructs us to. But how can we pray more? Being disciplined and just deciding in your heart to pray more is certainly not the worst thing you can do. But perhaps there’s a better way.
The Bible explains that before we will truly have the desire to seek God we must ask God for that desire. To have a passionate prayer life, we must pray to God for a passionate pray life.
I pray because I can’t help myself. I pray because I’m helpless. I pray because the need flows out of me all the time- waking and sleeping. It doesn’t change God- it changes me.-C.S. Lewis
And I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son.-John 14:13
Before going to college, I took a year off and headed to West Africa. I was volunteering with a Christian organization called Mercy Ships in the country of Liberia. Mercy Ships is a floating hospital that travels up and down the west coast of Africa to provide healthcare for the poorest of the poor.
I had left the States in hopes of a deeper relationship with Jesus. This was my hail-Mary pass, my attempt to push in all my chips, my last desperate stab at knowing God like never before. If I don’t experience him out here, I figured, then I probably never will. You see, I knew I was a Christian, but I also knew I wasn’t a very good one. Chronic sins plagued my life and I knew if ever I was to experience the freedom of God I longed for and read about in the lives of his saints, I had to do something drastic.
It was going pretty well. I was working faithfully in the ship’s kitchen to help feed the crew, serving in local orphanages on my days off, and spending a ton of time reading in the ship’s library due to the dullness of life spent docked in a port. But after three months, things were starting to get really stale. The awe-factor of being in a third-world country was wearing off, routine was setting in, and although I was no longer stuck in a sinful lifestyle like I was back home, I had yet to experience God the way I had hoped.
One of the greatest dangers in the Christian life is complacency. Contentment in Christ is to be sought after and celebrated. Complacency in Christ, however, is very different.
Christian contentment means that no matter what happens, you are fully satisfied in Jesus. Christian complacency means that no matter what happens, you are fully self-satisfied with your current personal effort in pursuing Christ.