Frustrating, confusing, painful. Unanswered prayer can deepen or destroy an individual’s faith depending on the foundations on which that faith has been built.
I don’t know about you, but I’m pretty fed up with the neatly packaged & often patronising answers often offered to the complex & difficult issues that surround God’s silence in our time of desperation. So it is with great joy that I am enjoying a book that wrestles with this subject in an honest way, born out of painful, firsthand experience.
I highly recommend “God on mute” by Pete Greig & in this blog series I’ll seek to combine some of his thoughts with my own in an attempt to stimulate discussion on the issue of unanswered prayer. But perhaps today of all days it is appropriate to reflect on one of Jesus’ unanswered prayers.
“My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”
The lack of an immediate answer in the moment of our Lord’s greatest need may be chilling & challenging to the rose-tinted, flat-pack version of faith we are often sold in the church, but it also demonstrates that explanations to our suffering may not come at the time when we feel it is needed the most.
We will never suffer like Christ suffered on the cross, but we all have “Good Friday” times in our lives categorised by pain, disappointment, confusion or spiritual starvation that cause many of us to think & the bravest to ask, “God , are You deaf?”
I hope you find the next blog series helpful. As ever I’d love to hear your thoughts.
(Thoughts developed from Pete Greig’s “God on mute”)
I don’t know about you, but I’m pretty fed up with the neatly packaged & often patronising answers often offered to the complex & difficult issues that surround God’s silence in our time of desperation. So it is with great joy that I am enjoying a book that wrestles with this subject in an honest way, born out of painful, firsthand experience.
I highly recommend “God on mute” by Pete Greig & in this blog series I’ll seek to combine some of his thoughts with my own in an attempt to stimulate discussion on the issue of unanswered prayer. But perhaps today of all days it is appropriate to reflect on one of Jesus’ unanswered prayers.
“My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”
The lack of an immediate answer in the moment of our Lord’s greatest need may be chilling & challenging to the rose-tinted, flat-pack version of faith we are often sold in the church, but it also demonstrates that explanations to our suffering may not come at the time when we feel it is needed the most.
We will never suffer like Christ suffered on the cross, but we all have “Good Friday” times in our lives categorised by pain, disappointment, confusion or spiritual starvation that cause many of us to think & the bravest to ask, “God , are You deaf?”
I hope you find the next blog series helpful. As ever I’d love to hear your thoughts.
(Thoughts developed from Pete Greig’s “God on mute”)
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