The Bible is an amazing book. It is full of stories, history, great truths, poetry, fabulous literature, and so much more. It is the inspired message from God to us. It contains what God wants us to know about Him, His plans and purposes, and those who obeyed (or tried to obey) Him as well as those who opposed Him. Good and bad, success and failure, faith and unbelief, law and grace, love and hate: it is all there. We are told all we really need to know; and yet there are some things about which I cannot help but wonder. Let me share a few of these with you.

Mary and Martha and Lazarus were such good friends of Jesus. We are told much about them, but there is much more I wonder about. Who was Simon the leper in whose house Jesus was anointed by Mary? Was he their father, the husband (deceased or living) of Mary or (more likely) Martha, or just a friend? Lazarus was brought back to life by Jesus, but we are told very little about him. What was he like? Did he change much after his first death? How long did he live after that? Some characteristics and concerns of Mary and Martha are made clear by Jesus. He complements Mary for choosing better than Martha. What did the sisters say to each other after Jesus left their home? Who served (made the coffee) on subsequent visits by Jesus?

Unlike the above family, the so-called prodigal son and his family are fictional. They appear in a parable Jesus told. But there are still some things I wonder about them. What did the older brother say to his younger brother after the father talked to him? What was it like at the breakfast table the morning after the big welcome back party? What did the servants think about all this?

We are told quite a bit of detail about the calling of some of the original twelve disciples. But we are told almost nothing at all about the reactions of their wives and families. I wonder what the conversations were like with the spouses when the fishermen informed them about their decision to drop their nets and follow Jesus. And what about the others in the fishing business who were left to carry on with a bigger share of the work load?

We assume (probably correctly) that Jesus learned the carpentry business from Joseph. In those days fathers always taught their eldest sons the family business. Boys were trained by their fathers. What did Jesus build? Was his craftsmanship flawless? Were the things he made highly prized by others? What would a chair made by him be worth today?

Jesus performed many miracles of healing during his ministry on earth. A favorite has always been the healing of the paralytic who was lowered through the roof. It's such a neat story. The paralytic must have been quite a person himself to have such dedicated and determined friends. But I wonder who later had to fix the roof. How did the home owner react? Did the healed paralytic and/or his friends come back to do the repairs themselves, or at least offer to pay for the damages?

These are just a few of the interesting kind of fun things I wonder about when I read the New Testament. (Don't even get me started about the Old Testament.) Do you ever wonder about any things like these? Of course the really important thing to ask ourselves is how God's message affects us personally. Are we responding to it in the way we should? Are we being changed to reflect the glory of our Lord? Are we being properly prepared for the future kingdom? What do others wonder about us and the lives they see us lead? Do we keep a kingdom perspective? I wonder.

I read a story recently about a young girl who wrote a letter to a missionary to let him know that her bible class had been praying for him. But evidently she had been told not to request an answer to her letter because the missionaries were very busy. So the missionary got a good laugh out of her letter. It said, “Dear Mr. Missionary, we are praying for you. But we are not expecting an answer.”

I can't help but think that little girl summarized the prayer lives of many Christians. Sometimes we pray without expecting an answer, even though God has assured us that He does indeed hear all our prayers. David said, “I love the Lord, because He has heard my voice and my supplications.” (Psalm 116:1). But I think many of us struggle with the irritating question, “Is God really listening to me?” Yes, He heard David, He heard Elijah, and He heard the apostles. But does He hear me?

How do we really know that our prayers are answered? Sure, there are times when we see obvious results. We may pray for someone who's sick and the next week they get well. But more often, our prayers don't produce spectacular instant answers. We pray for help in financial problems, and we don't see things get any better. We pray for guidance in making right decisions, but the decisions don't get any easier. We pray for our relationships with other people to improve, but they just seem to get worse. How do we as Christians account for that happening? How do we explain the fact that so many of our prayers seem to go “unanswered”?

The truth is, for a child of God there is no such thing as an unanswered prayer. Maybe you've heard it said before that God answers prayer in three ways. Sometimes the answer is “yes.” Sometimes the answer is “no.” And sometimes the answer is “wait.” It's easy to accept an answer of “yes,” but what about when God says, “no”?

Let me suggest three principles:
First of all, we need to trust God enough to realize that our all-loving, all-powerful Father loves us and has our best interest at heart. So when it appears that God says “no” to our prayers, we must trust Him enough to understand that there must be a good reason for it. It may be beyond our limited ability to understand, but we must simply and completely trust God.
Second, we must not forsake God. Disappointment is a dangerous and powerful thing. When we get the feeling that God isn't listening to us, that He has said “no” to some prayer, we have a tendency to feel disappointed in Him. And Satan whispers to us, “God said He loves you, but He's not here.” And if we allow that disappointment to dwell in our hearts, it can drive a wedge between us and God. We must continue to be faithful to our responsibility before God.
And third, we need to realize that the answer may not be “no”, but only “wait”. God always hears our prayers immediately, but sometimes there's a delay in giving an answer and that can be a difficult thing for us to accept. The ability to wait for an answer is one of the marks of maturity. Be willing to let God answer in his own time, in his own way, and in his own power.

Many people see God as a divine vending machine in which you deposit one prayer and out pops a blessing. But what happens when you put your money in a vending machine and nothing comes out? You get angry and kick the machine, because you feel cheated. So it's not really surprising that having such a view of God and prayer leads to disappointment when God says no.
I believe that we need to cultivate an entirely different view of prayer from that one. Our God is the Great God of the Universe, the Creator of all things that exist other than Himself. For us to even venture to speak to Him is presumptuous. For us to ask Him to pay attention to our requests and then hope for Him to meet them requires our bold expectations. In fact such would be total arrogance if it were not for the simple fact that God tells us to do just that.

Looking from the proper perspective, we will not ask “What happens when God says no?” but rather “What happens when God says yes?” That the God of the heavens would listen to us and our needs is a great testimony to His great love for us. And it is that love that will lead Him to say no from time to time. At those times, we must trust Him knowing that he loves us and desires what is best for us. We must never forsake Him or our faith in Him. And we must realize that what we interpret to be an answer of “no” may just be God telling us “patience, wait a while”.

“This is the confidence that we have in Him, that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us.” (I John 5:14)

Viewpoints
by Andy Weeks

The Subtlety of Sin

I’ve been amazed at how the Lord speaks to many of us at once in our church. Last month Joe Funari gave a sermon, perhaps one of his best, on “Our Moral Compass.” In it he describes some of the failing we encounter when we drift off course into the straits of this world. I have watched many a Christian stray off the course of holiness and slowly accept the values of this world and its god. I had been contemplating a sermon on the “deceitfulness of sin” when Joe and I talked about his sermon a week before he gave it. Then we had our flip a study and Steve Knapp and Steve Teunis both hit on the importance of not fulfilling our earthly desires. I can’t help but wonder if God is trying to tell us to watch carefully right now. I know as I started to meditate and think about this topic that He put His finger on more than a few areas in my life where I have been off course. That was a bitter pill to swallow and I’ve got some work to do in personal worship and avoiding certain types of media.

I know that compared to most of the people I know I’m considered a bit prudish. That term used to bother me because of its condescending tone. But I recently realized that there is a wonderful word that comes from it: Prudent. According to Webster’s dictionary, prudent means:

Wise in handling practical matters; exercising good judgment or common sense.

I know that the Apostle Paul would have us live a very prudent life where we constantly would make small course corrections to keep on the narrow way of life. In every letter that he wrote he warned us to avoid that ‘old man.’ Consider Ephesians 4:22:

“Throw off your old evil nature and your former way of life, which is rotten through and through, full of lust and deception.”

There are so many courses in our life that we can take that lead us away from a fulfilling life. We were designed to be spiritual creatures, yet we always go back to the easy road of self fulfillment. We have everything at our disposal now to draw us away from a spirit-filled life. Pornography can be had in 15 seconds. Sporting events can take us down the road to despising the players on the teams that play against our favorites. TV gives us every opportunity to laugh off moral shortcomings that God so adamantly condemns. Sin slowly becomes an indiscretion; indiscretion becomes ‘it’s OK between two mutually consenting adults.’

Satan knows he can’t beat the church of the living Christ with a frontal attack. But he can slowly wear us down over time to the point where our morals are better than the world’s - but completely out of sync with God. Jesus loved God and hated iniquity. I know we all love God at our church. The question is; how much do you and I hate iniquity?

Don’t let the tides of this world take you adrift. Constant little corrections are needed to stay the course that Jesus would have us walk.

Ebenezers

1 Kings 19

Elijah is a classic example of someone who, at times, shows amazing faith and great courage, but then, at other times, seems to have very little faith and a great deal of fear. In our story, we find Elijah had journeyed far in fear of his life from Jezebel. Fleeing into the wilderness, he finds a lone juniper tree to sit under, granting some shade from the hot sun. Here, he prays to the Lord that he might die. Elijah had hit rock bottom and, seeing no way out, he wanted to pack it in on his own terms.

However, the Lord didn’t see it that way. Over and over in scripture, we find that it’s when an individual thinks he’s worthless and useless that the Lord can use that individual to His glory. Think about it. Elijah had fled from Jezebel to save his life. Now he was safe from Jezebel but he wanted to die. Go figure!

As Elijah sat under that juniper tree, he was under three very dark clouds: exhaustion, hunger and discouragement. The dark cloud of exhaustion was fairly easy to dispel. He went to sleep and rested.

Golly, wouldn’t it be nice if all our problems were so easy to solve? The dark cloud of hunger was solved in a pretty unique way. An angel touched Elijah and woke him up, saying, “Arise and eat.” When Elijah looked, he saw the meal prepared for him and ate his fill. Two dark clouds were lifted under that juniper tree. As a matter of fact, the angel’s food, which Elijah ate, nourished him for the next forty days and forty nights. It was during this time that Elijah journeyed to Mount Horeb.

You remember Mt. Horeb. That’s where Moses encountered the burning bush. Do you remember what God instructed Moses to do first? God told Moses to take off his shoes because he was standing on holy ground. Elijah now stood on that same holy ground, only he didn’t look for a burning bush. No, Elijah was still under the dark cloud of discouragement, so he looked for and found a cave to hide in. It was in that dark, dismal cave that God came asking, “What are you doing here, Elijah?”

To which Elijah replied, “Lord, the children of Israel have forsaken your covenant with them, they’ve thrown down your altars, they’ve killed your prophets and Lord, only me, I’m the only one left and they want to kill me.” That dark cloud of discouragement had taken a heavy toll on Elijah, and God knew enough was enough. God told Elijah to leave that cave and walk to higher ground, to stand atop Mt. Horeb and watch. As he stood up atop that holy ground, he watched a great wind arise, but God was not in the wind. Then he saw an earthquake break rocks in pieces, but God was not in the earthquake. Then he saw a great fire, but God was not in the fire. Then Elijah heard a still, small voice. That still, small voice is where Elijah found God, and that voice told him he was wrong about him being the only one still faithful to God.

Only God knows how many are faithful to Him. Elijah thought he knew, but he didn’t know at all. And so it goes, even today. Elijah thought he was the only one left faithful until God informed him there were 7,000 others. Elijah was only off by 99.9%! That’s probably about how far off I’ve been in my estimates on various subjects. It was this belief on how many faithful were left, it seems to me, that was the crux of Elijah’s irrational fear and discouragement.

What a marvelous lesson for us! Instead of wasting our time and effort making silly estimates and hiding in caves, let’s walk shoeless, upon holy ground, go up the mountain, experience the wind, earthquake and fire, but listen for that still, small voice.