A Conversation Between Prayerful and Prayerless

Many people wrestle with the question: “If God ordains and controls everything, then won’t His plans from of old come to pass whether we pray or not?”

This is a fun and clear explanation, via a conversation between Prayerful and Prayerless that will answer this question.

Click this LINK to go to the Blog or read below. Thanks, John Piper.

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Prayerless: I understand that you believe in the providence of God. Is that right?

Prayerful: Yes.

Prayerless: Does that mean you believe, like the Heidelberg Catechism says, that nothing comes about by chance but only by God’s design and plan?

Prayerful: Yes, I believe that’s what the Bible teaches.

Prayerless: Then why do you pray?

Prayerful: I don’t see the problem. Why shouldn’t we pray?

Prayerless: Well, if God ordains and controls everything, then what he plans from of old will come to pass, right?

Prayerful: Yes.

Prayerless: So it’s going to come to pass whether you pray or not, right.

Prayerful: That depends on whether God ordained for it to come to pass in answer to prayer. If God predestined that something happen in answer to prayer, it won’t happen without prayer.

Prayerless: Wait a minute, this is confusing. Are you saying that every answer to prayer is predestined or not?

Prayerful: Yes, it is. It’s predestined as an answer to prayer.

Prayerless: So if the prayer doesn’t happen, the answer doesn’t happen?

Prayerful: That’s right.

Prayerless: So the event is contingent on our praying for it to happen?

Prayerful: Yes. I take it that by contingent you mean prayer is a real reason that the event happens, and without the prayer the event would not happen.

Prayerless: Yes that’s what I mean. But how can an event be contingent on my prayer and still be eternally fixed and predestined by God?

Prayerful: Because your prayer is as fixed as the predestined answer.

Prayerless: Explain.

Prayerful: It’s not complicated. God providentially ordains all events. God never ordains an event without a cause. The cause is also an event. Therefore, the cause is also foreordained. So you cannot say that the event will happen if the cause doesn’t because God has ordained otherwise. The event will happen if the cause happens.

Prayerless: So what you are saying is that answers to prayer are always ordained as effects of prayer which is one of the causes, and that God predestined the answer only as an effect of the cause.

Prayerful: That’s right. And since both the cause and the effect are ordained together you can’t say that the effect will happen even if the cause doesn’t because God doesn’t ordain effects without causes.

Prayerless: Can you give some illustrations?

Prayerful: Sure. If God predestines that I die of a bullet wound, then I will not die if no bullet is fired. If God predestines that I be healed by surgery, then if there is no surgery, I will not be healed. If God predestines heat to fill my home by fire in the furnace, then if there is no fire, there will be no heat. Would you say, “Since God predestines that the sun be bright, it will be bright whether there is fire in the sun or not”?

Prayerless: No.

Prayerful: I agree. Why not?

Prayerless: Because the brightness of the sun comes from the fire.

Prayerful: Right. That’s the way I think about the answers to prayer. They are the brightness, and prayer is the fire. God has established the universe so that in larger measure it runs by prayer, the same way he has established brightness so that in larger measure it happens by fire. Doesn’t that make sense?

Prayerless: I think it does.

Prayerful: Then let’s stop thinking up problems and go with what the Scriptures say. Ask and you will receive. You have not because you ask not.

Where is Wisdom When I Need It?

I recently started reading the Book of Proverbs again in my morning prayer and devotional time.  It has always been one of my favorite books in the Bible. It is easy to read and understand for the most part, and I admit that I need the wisdom that it offers. I REALLY need it.

20 Wisdom calls aloud outside; She raises her voice in the open squares.”

The Lord God offers wisdom, discretion, and understanding to those who want it. Do I see a hand raised? Yes, I see that hand!

Below is some motivation to read and dig into the wisdom books of the Bible, which includes:  Job, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, some psalms, and probably the Song of Songs.

1 The proverbs of Solomon the son of David, king of Israel:
2 To know wisdom and instruction,
To perceive the words of understanding,
3 To receive the instruction of wisdom,
Justice, judgment, and equity;
4 To give prudence to the simple,
To the young man knowledge and discretion—
5 A wise man will hear and increase learning,
And a man of understanding will attain wise counsel,
6 To understand a proverb and an enigma,
The words of the wise and their riddles.
7 The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge,
But fools despise wisdom and instruction.

I fit in the description above of those needing to obtain wisdom and instruction. If you’re one who needs to drink of the wisdom of heaven, open these Books and have at it. Solomon is called the ‘wisest man who has ever lived.’ I think we can all learn from this guy.

A Plan

The Book of Proverbs has 31 chapters. One plan is to read through one chapter a day corresponding with the day of the month. When a proverb jumps off the page at you, or if you’re snagged by one of them, stop and gain from its lesson(s). Write down what it is telling you. We are more apt to retain when we write.

Just as important as reading from these wisdom books is … praying for wisdom, discretion, and understanding. You and I are dependent upon the Omniscient God–the All-knowing One.

To answer this blog’s title question

The foremost place is in the Scriptures, revealed by the Spirit of God, and available to those who need it.

A helpful hint to go along with the answer to the question

Don’t wait until you need it, by then you’re a step or two or eight behind the cue ball. Prepare and begin engaging with wisdom today.

BTW:  Wisdom is more valuable than riches or physical health. Just thought I’d give you a preview of coming attractions, that is, if you’re going to read Solomon’s writings.

Abusing The Goodness of God

James 1:16–17 (NKJV) — “Do not be deceived, my beloved brethren. Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and comes down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow of turning.”

When I think about the goodness of God there is an immediate overwhelming within. I know so little and yet in the microscopic glimpse of the nature of God I am left in speechless awe. Goodness is but one attribute of God and yet its depths leave us with a mix of thoughts and feelings–humbled, encouraged, loved, and joyful and wanting to know more.

God is good and from Him all goodness flows. Where else can it come from? There is no other living God. He has repeatedly announced that He alone is God and there is no other god besides Him. There is no other source for goodness, mercy, grace, and love to originate from. How grateful that He is good.

One of the challenges that we have in this life is that too often we use feelings and experiences to define reality and truth. When we do this, we fail to see and use God’s definition of goodness. His Word and His ways teach us the depths of what good is, and how to be good, including what  is and isn’t good. It is when we use other standards, criteria, or measurements to define and determine what is good that at the very least we miss the goodness of God. At the worst we abuse His goodness.

How is the Goodness of God Abused?

  1. The most common way is by thinking that goodness originates from within us or others, rather than the Originator—God (James 1:16–17). How can a created being, whose whole existence is dependent upon its Creator originate any goodness from itself … since “all good” gifts comes from Him? Any good that is within us and that we express is from God. It is because of God that we are able to be good to do so. He enables us to know and distinguish good from bad and to love good rather evil. For those who despise good and prefer to do evil and harm to others do not reflect the goodness of God, but as Jesus Christ said, “They are of their father, the devil.” We must remind ourselves that ‘God is summurn bonum, the chiefest good’;
  2. Forbid ourselves from partaking and enjoying God’s goodness, and as some, create rules to keep others from enjoying His goodness (1 Timothy 4:1–5). How does this happen? By not accepting everything that God has created as being good. The biblical context above gives a few examples of man abusing God’s good gifts.
  3. When we consider something that is of God as being merely, sorta, kinda good, or not good at all, for ourselves or someone else, then we have robbed Him of glory that is due Him. This applies to people that He puts in our lives, and also to things, events, and circumstances (Luke 7:33-35). Just because we cannot currently see good in something or see God’s usefulness and purpose for something does not mean that it is not good from Him. How shallow is that deduction? For example, it wasn’t until 2009 that medical science realized the good purpose of the spleen in healing after a heart attack. It wasn’t too long ago that science considered the spleen a useless organ of the evolutionary process. Not anymore. If God created it, it is good and has its purpose, whether we have discovered it or not.
  4. Accusing God of not being “as good as He could be” when evil is manifested in our world. Evil does not negate the goodness of God. We must learn to look for God in the midst of tragedy, pain, and sorrow. He is present. His goodness is faithful and He is faithful in His goodness–a lesson to imitate as His beloved children;
  5. We err by limiting God’s goodness as being solely benevolent. His goodness is also wise, righteous, just, holy, and in perfect agreement with the rest of His other divine attributes. One attribute does not contradict another. Each of His attributes perfectly expresses the others. As Paul Helm (emeritus professor at the University of London) wrote, “But the goodness of God has a deeper and richer (and more mysterious) character than benevolence alone.”; and
  6. We fail when we do not attribute the small graces in our daily lives to His goodness working in us and towards us and for us.

O’ Lord, “You are good and do good; teach me your statutes.”

All that God does is good. Everything; all of the time. It is His nature. God does not choose to do good, it is good because He does it. The same is with His love: He does not choose to love, rather it is love because He loves. The nature of God is good, as it is righteous, just, eternal, and other perfections. For instance, in the six days of creation He made everything good. It was good because He made it. Therefore all that He is, by virtue of being by and from Him, is good.

A person may disagree that everything that He does is good, but can you really make that claim? Are you perfectly good and therefore able to discern and judge that God is not?

Nothing God does is in the slightest bit strayed from pure, perfect good. He is good and does good.

Isn’t this a “good” thing for us? That is a “good” question. We want God to be good, perfectly good, right? We can trust all that He does, allows, and plans as being perfectly good. We want that, at least most people do. But is there a negative to Him being perfectly good? Yes, there is. Not negative to Him, He remains good. But if He is good, what are the ramifications towards anything that is not good? I’ll post more on these questions later.

For now, relish in His goodness and be fully assured that all that He is doing is righteous, just, and perfectly good.