Thursday 27 March 2014

Unanswered prayer

I've come across few heartbreaking instances of the phenomenon of "unanswered prayers". Some surfer kids became worried after they saw middle size fish jump out of the water, and thought there might be a shark in there. So they prayed to Jesus to keep them safe. One of them got attacked by the shark that was indeed there and died half an hour later on the beach in front of his 16 year old mates. One diocese in New South Wales wanted to launch a couple of schools to keep the rumour of God alive in 21st century Australian society. For a variety of reason, including their inability to recruit able managers for those schools, they ran into so much debt that it bankrupt the diocese, with the good people in the pews now facing the prospect of losing everything (churches, church halls, rectories) and their whole notion of church as they know it. Now ummm, all of this was undertaken prayerfully enough. But how much of the "answers" we hear back are just our wishful thinking? How can we know? I'm not a fan of having to deal with horrendous confusion when I'd really like some guidance from on high. But hey, I'd rather that than delude myself I'm "hearing" anything back like the godly folks whose stories I've just retold. As time passes, I'm starting to think that this subjective "relationship with Jesus" business is kind of abusive to me. What kind of relationship have I got with someone who never talks to me, or so infrequently that it makes the long silence all the more unbearable? I don't know anybody in real life who treats me this badly, who can be so indifferent to my cries for help. Now granted, I'm all subjective here, maybe I've understood it all wrong, maybe that's not how it works. But I'd sure like to know how it works then... And I'd like to know where to get some proper guidance, and a bit of feedback too. It's so hard to handle all the decisions completely on my own, with no GPS so to speak, and to have to take so many wrong turns and detours, out of total lostness, on this road.