Our Choice ("Prayer" part 3)

So... these previous two posts (see parts 1 and 2) beg the seemingly audacious and yet honest question:

"Why ask God for something if it's already His will?"

First let me defend the question as being valid.  We've already laid out that God has more than enough power to get what He wants.  If something is in His will why should I pray for it to happen?  Won't it happen whether or not I pray?  I think the answer to this is both yes and no.

God is ultimately in control (sovereign), but there are many things in which He desires to interact with us.  This is both in positive vs. negative ways as well as creative (morally neutral ways).

Good vs. Evil
As strange as it seems, God's ultimate will is that we would have ours.  Huh?  Really.  Even more than God wants His own choices to govern your life, God wants you to have your way.  That sound's too strange to be orthodox, but it's really not.  C. S. Lewis says it this way:

There are only two kinds of people in the end: those who say to God, "Thy will be done," and those to whom God says, in the end, "They will be done." All that are in Hell, choose it.  Without that self-choice there could be no Hell.  No one that seriously and constantly desires joy will ever miss it.  Those who seek find.  Those who knock it is opened.

So, although it sounds strange, God wants or wills more that you would have your way then that He force His own "opinions" about morality on you.  (I use this term only because some in our culture and even in our churches are completely deceived into thinking that morality is simply a collection of personal opinions.) God's perfect will is only done in our lives when our will lines up with His.  He has chosen to limit Himself to only getting His way when I get mine.  So in a way, yes, I believe that God's will won't happen in our lives unless we show through prayer that our will is lined up with His.

Creative Choice
So many times as Christians we act as if our only choices in life are moral ones.  It's like every single decision is a choice between right and wrong.  That doesn't make any sense, and it's just plain not true.


To prove my point, look at the first job ever recorded in the Bible. Adam was asked by God to name the animals.  Simple little story, almost silly in nature (nature... get it? ;).  But it's evidence that God invites us to join Him in creation.  Of course we're not creating something out of literal nothingness, but we are nevertheless invited to join His Creative work through writing, making music, cooking, making silly puns, or even forming our own sentences when we speak.  There's no getting out of it by saying, "I'm not a creative person." We are all obliged to participate in some way or another.

So what does that have to do with prayer?  Well, take another look at Elijah.  As James points out:

"Elijah was a human being, even as we are. He prayed earnestly that it would not rain, and it did not rain on the land for three and a half years. Again he prayed, and the heavens gave rain, and the earth produced its crops."

Was it God's Will to keep the rain from the earth?  The short answer is yes.  But I think there is a more interesting answer than that.  I believe it was God's will (or choice) to teach Ahab and the people of Israel a lesson, but that it was Elijah's choice (or will) to teach that lesson through a drought. God allowed Elijah to pick the way the lesson was conveyed

Conclusion
There are many other examples I could point too, but I'm going to take the easy (and shorter) way out and simply say that the Scriptures make it abundantly clear that God wants to have personal interactions with us.  He wants us to bring our needs to Him and He wants to meet those needs. And to be sure... there are many ways besides God that we can meet our own needs (or at least try to), but God wants us to come to Him.

Allow me to make one more illustration.  Growing up, my parents provided for my needs.  My mom knew that I would require food about three times a day and that once a week or so, I would probably need my clothes washed.  But if I never asked her to do those things and instead just expected those things of her, wouldn't that be ungrateful and borderline offensive?  Even though they are things that she would gladly do for me, to expect them without asking or even being grateful post facto seems so... wrong.

How much more so with God!  If I should be thankful to my Mother for meeting my needs, shouldn't I be more thankful to God?  And if my mother should have the right to hope I will ask things of her that she already knows I need, shouldn't God have that right in my life even more?   Yes.  And how joyful the experience is when we participate with Him in accomplishing His will through our own creative effort!