Communicating With God

We’ve been talking about how God communicates with humankind in the context of Jesus’s promise to send prophets, teachers, and sages to keep us informed. Last week, we talked about prayer, that common universal experience of contact with God; something as old as mankind itself, found in every age, amongst all people. It’s remarkable then, I think, that the disciples—those closest to Jesus and most familiar with his mission and with his message—would ask Jesus to teach them to pray. The response of Jesus—the Lord’s Prayer, the Pater Noster in Matthew 6—was a communal prayer (all plural pronouns as we mentioned last week) indicating that a life of prayer is a life in service to others. 

In Romans 8:26, Paul says that we don’t know how to pray, that we’re inadequate when it comes to communicating with God. We have usually taken that to mean a failure to understand what to say when we pray or how to say it, or whether we should sit when we pray, or stand, or bow down, or kneel. But it may be that what it really means is that we don’t know what to expect from prayer. 

What should the end product of prayer actually be? What outcomes should we anticipate? Prayer brings health primarily to the soul, not necessarily to the body—something we easily get confused and mistaken over. The thing always found when we seek it, the thing always opened when we knock, the thing that is always given when we ask, is in Romans 8:28: That all things will work together for good for those who love God and who have been called according to his purpose. 

What we need to learn, it seems, about prayer—about communication with God—is concerning the outcome of prayer, the end product and the expectation of prayer. To illustrate this point, I’d like to reiterate and recall for you what I heard last week in our discussion in this very class concerning the outcome of prayer. These are points of view in no particular order concerning prayer and communication with God:

• God has a plan. But it’s a mysterious plan. We don’t know what the plan is because we can’t understand God and God’s ways are not our ways. 

• God has no plan. Plans are a human construction. They are time bound and linear while God is timeless and eternal. 

• Prayer is effective because the righteous man says effective prayers—as long as it’s set in faith. And it’s even so effective that done in the right way it can change God’s mind (or maybe his plan if he has a plan) as illustrated by the story of Hezekiah. 

• God answers some prayers for healing and not others because God wants to heal those who need to repent, which would assume that those unhealed are already repentant and ready for heaven. 

• God lets some die to relieve their suffering. This seems to assume that healing will not necessarily make their suffering go away.

• God answers prayer if it is prayed in faith. Faith is the key element and with enough faith, prayer will be answered. If prayer is not answered, it may be because it is prayed without enough faith. 

• Prayer—communication with God—is not about answers. It’s about assurance. God is like your mother, he is there to kiss your booboo but not necessarily to make it go away, just to make it feel better. 

• We shouldn’t ask for anything specific; that way, we won’t be disappointed. 

• Prayer is for the soul, not for the body, and we’re misguided when we make prayer about individual physical needs. After all, in the Lord’s Prayer, the only physical need that’s mentioned is bread, and in the original Greek it’s more a thanksgiving for bread than a demand or request for bread. 

• We don’t need to pray at all, because the Holy Spirit will pray for us if we can’t. 

• We don’t need to pray because God is working all things together for good behind the scenes and we don’t know how to pray anyway, as Paul says in Romans 8:26. 

• The Lord’s Prayer implies that to pray unceasingly is to live a life of prayer in the service  of others. 

And finally:

• God knows our every need so communication with him is his prerogative, not ours. He’ll reach out to us when he thinks it’s best for us to hear from him in our time of need, so just sit back and wait for God’s initiative—that’s all you need to do. 

There’s probably more but those are the ones I could remember of your ideas about outcome and prayer. Are they all right? Are they all wrong? Are some right and some wrong? Maybe Paul was right when he said we don’t know how to pray. 

As I was thinking about communicating with God, my thoughts turned to two stories about Jacob and his communication with God. The first one is the stairway or ladder to Heaven. The setting is that Jacob is fleeing the wrath of his brother Esau, from whom he has stolen the elder’s birthright and tricked his father Isaac into giving his blessing. Esau has vowed to kill him, so Jacob takes off for the house of his uncle Laban, who has daughters suitable for marriage. On his way into exile, full of fear and uncertainty and doubt, he has a dream at night of a ladder (some translations say stairway) to heaven: 

 Then Jacob departed from Beersheba and went toward Haran. And he happened upon a particular place and spent the night there, because the sun had set; and he took one of the stones of the place and made it a support for his head, and lay down in that place. And he had a dream, and behold, a ladder was set up on the earth with its top reaching to heaven; and behold, the angels of God were ascending and descending on it. Then behold, the Lord was standing above it and said, “I am the Lord, the God of your father Abraham and the God of Isaac; the land on which you lie I will give to you and to your descendants. Your descendants will also be like the dust of the earth, and you will spread out to the west and to the east, and to the north and to the south; and in you and in your descendants shall all the families of the earth be blessed. Behold, I am with you and will keep you wherever you go, and will bring you back to this land; for I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you.” Then Jacob awoke from his sleep and said, “The Lord is certainly in this place, and I did not know it!” And he was afraid and said, “How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven!” (Genesis 28:10-17) 

Note the key to communication with God: This is God’s ladder. It stretches between earth and heaven and what are on the rungs? Messengers—angels. What do messengers do? They take messages. Communication with God is a matter for divinity. This is God’s ladder, God’s messengers, and God’s message. Unlike the Tower of Babel, which was Man’s attempt to build a stairway to heaven—which could never be completed—God’s ladder is a complete transition between earth and heaven. 

The messengers go both ways, from heaven to earth and from earth to heaven. You have a message for God. God has a message for you. This is a dream for all of us. It pulls back the curtain to show us something about communication with God. It is God-ordained and reassuring. It is a two-way communication. It contains also a universal message (verse 15): “I am with you wherever you go.” The experience of communication with God is awesome, Jacob says, and unambiguous. This is the house of God. 

Jacob stays in exile with his uncle Laban for 20 years. He marries the two daughters. But his life of trickery and deceit continues at Laban’s house where he flim-flams Laban out of all of his best flocks. His life is one of premeditated deception. But like the prodigal son, he longs to return to his father’s house. And so he gathers his family, his flocks, and his servants, and heads back home. 

At the brook Jabbok he discovers that Esau is coming to meet him with 400 men. Here he encounters God again, this time on the way back home, just as he had on the way into exile. And this time communication with God is a struggle, a struggle for life itself:

 Then Jacob was left alone, and a man wrestled with him until daybreak. When the man saw that he had not prevailed against him, he touched the socket of Jacob’s hip; and the socket of Jacob’s hip was dislocated while he wrestled with him. Then he said, “Let me go, for the dawn is breaking.” But he said, “I will not let you go unless you bless me.” So he said to him, “What is your name?” And he said, “Jacob.” Then he said, “Your name shall no longer be Jacob, but Israel; for you have contended with God and with men, and have prevailed.” And Jacob asked him and said, “Please tell me your name.” But he said, “Why is it that you ask my name?” And he blessed him there. So Jacob named the place Peniel, for he said, “I have seen God face to face, yet my life has been spared.” Now the sun rose upon him just as he crossed over Penuel, and he was limping on his hip. Therefore, to this day the sons of Israel do not eat the tendon of the hip which is on the socket of the hip, because he touched the socket of Jacob’s hip in the tendon of the hip. (Genesis 32:24-32)

Jacob’s physical struggle with God serves as a metaphor for humankind’s mental wrestling with God. 

Jacob’s name is associated in Hebrew with deceit and duplicity, and such was his character. He ended up facing retribution for usurping Esau’s birthright. In a cowardly act during the night before what he assumed would be a violent confrontation with Esau, Jacob sent his family ahead of him as a human shield. It was at this, his lowest, point that God engaged him in the most intimate of sports, wrestling, which has a high degree of physical contact—arms surrounding, legs intertwined, sharing of sweat. Although God was able to dislocate Jacob’s hip with a single touch, he seemed unable to overpower him completely. Perhaps he did not want to. 

There has to be some meaning in such a bizarre story. Perhaps the meaning is in the struggle, not in the outcome. In other words, perhaps God engaged Jacob metaphorically as he engages all of us in a wrestling match, not to overpower, not to conquer, but to have an intimate encounter in and of itself. God’s plan is to force us to struggle through our doubts and fears in order to reach a place beyond them. It is not a curse to struggle with God: It is a blessing. 

In Jacob’s case, it resulted in a complete change of character, reflected in the change of name that God gave him: Instead of Jacob the deceiver and supplanter he became Israel, one who (in its Hebrew connotation) struggles intimately with God and struggles with the ideas that God wants us to understand.

Intimate conflict with God serves to allay our fears about what is happening to us and confirms that God answers even though he refuses to answer questions directly: He answers with his blessing, with his removal of our fear and with his willingness to wrestle with us for as long as we are willing to wrestle with him. The story of Jacob is the story of us all: Selfish, self-centered, self-promoting.

We not only employ these characteristics in our secular life but also, regrettably, in our spiritual life as well. Little do we comprehend how these evil traits influence our walk with God. It is easy to fall into the trap of self-centered piety, Bible study, prayer life, and interpersonal relationships, even while holding the noblest and most righteous intentions. 

As we become aware of how fallen we truly are, God encounters us in our darkness, in our fear, and in our moments of greatest doubt. As with Jacob, and as with so many other stories in the Gospels, God seeks that intimate experience to point out to us our need for self-awareness. The struggle brings it out. The very thing that we seek and think we need most—that is, a clear, full-frontal, life-enhanced view of God—is nevertheless found in our doubt, our fear, and our darkness. And yet we become enlightened as Job became enlightened. 

Jacob spent his entire life running away from himself until eventually, in darkness, he found not only God: He found himself. In finding ourselves, we also find God. Jacob sought to know God, even asking God that most personal of questions: “What is your name?” The question is not a simple one, it is a loaded question. It is not meant to ask “What do people call you?” or “What is your moniker?” In Hebrew, your name tells everything about you—your tribe, your family history, your legacy, something about your personality, even perhaps your occupation. It tells us something about you almost entirely. 

Jacob is not privy to knowing everything about God, so God never answers his question, never reveals his own name. God is not the answer man, he is the questioner. And when God asked Jacob his name, a whole new insight overcame Jacob: He saw himself not only for who he was—a supplanter and a deceiver—but more importantly, his newly found self-awareness led him to seek God’s blessing. 

This is the value of humble self-awareness. It shines an exposing light on our wretched human condition, and sounds the call to wake up and seek the blessing. And what is the blessing if it is not the true and righteous birthright? Jacob had spent his entire life regretting the stolen birthright, the empty birthright that he and his mother had conspired to steal. The new blessing was not a product of Jacob’s own hand. It was not a result of his duplicitous efforts. It was a blessing full and free, from the hand of God. It was neither more nor less than God’s everlasting mercy and grace. 

The story of Jacob and his struggle with God provides an important framework or template for our fresh look at the conflict that we call life and to understand something about how we communicate with God. We find ourselves afraid and lonely, uncertain of the future, and end up bargaining with God. What happened to Jacob provides some insight into how God works. All of us—you and me—are Jacob, being ground down by life, but we shall see (as Jacob finally saw) that wrestling God is the solution, not the problem. That we would under unexpectedly meet God in the darkness in our times of greatest distress and that he would engage us in a contest turns out to be the Gospel, the good news that the blessing is at hand. 

So what do these stories teach us about communication with God? 

• First, communication comes when we least expect it, in the darkness, in our loneliness in our fear, God seeks to communicate with us.

• Second, we can’t judge communication or gauge communication with God on the basis of how easy it is. We look for the easy life and have in our souls the notion that if God communicates with us it will make our life better. But it might be an awe-inspiring experience as it was for Jacob and the ladder. Or it might be that it feels like a struggle to the death. 

• Third, our encounters with God leave us changed forever. Changed physically—Jacob limps for the rest of his life. The very thing that Jacob wanted from God, which was to be able to outrun Esau, is now rendered impossible due to his disability. God exchanged his physical effort for dependence upon him.

• Fourth, it leaves us changed spiritually as well, with a new identity, a new name, a new purpose, a new revelation about God. 

• Fifth, the Stairway to Heaven is God’s stairway, it is his path, it is flooded with his messengers, bearing God’s message and taking messages to God. 

And: 

• Sixth, God’s grace assures us that where we ever we are on the path of life—whether we are fleeing into exile away from the father’s house, or whether we are returning to the Father’s house; whether we have premeditated evil, or we have repentance—if we’re seeking reconciliation the message is always the same: “I am with you wherever you go. I will give you a blessing.” 

So I’d like your thoughts today about communication with God based on our conversation last week and this study of the communication of God with Jacob, about what to expect from prayer, what outcomes should we anticipate from a God who is not like Santa Claus trying to find out who’s naughty or nice, but a God who communicates with us through his grace.

David: I have to comment on the statement that God is with us wherever we go. He wasn’t with the Babelonians building their stairway to heaven. Interestingly, I just watched NASA administrator Bill Nelson speak to the press after the successful launch of the $US10 billion James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) this morning. He said that the telescope will enable us to see back in time to the Creation. He quoted Scripture: “The heavens tell of the glory of God; And their expanse declares the work of His hands.” (Psalms 19:1) So my question is: Is the James Webb Space Telescope a new Stairway to Heaven?

Bryan: It does make you wonder if the JWST isn’t a modern day tower of Babel—Man chasing after knowledge. 

But if prayer is our way of grasping at an intimate relationship with God, then how do we go about it? In the past 18 months or so I have read the book E.M. Bounds on Prayer twice. It is a compilation of seven books written by E.M. Bounds during his lifetime. He was born in 1835 and devoted his life to the ministry, book writing, and research on prayer. I tried to utilize the principles he brought forth in this very powerful book. 

His take on prayer was that it is a direct conversation and you have every right to ask and receive the miracles and blessings the Bible talks about. This was pretty amazing to me, but it also led to a lot of frustration, because after about a year and a half trying to pray his way I didn’t really feel much different than I did before. 

I’m not sure how some people (such as E.M. Bounds) can get so much out of prayer when it seems others get so little. I’m left with the conundrum of whether we should ask for specific things or just be thankful for what we’re given and try to make the most of what we have. So even though I think it was a very good book, it was frustrating in the end. For him, it was very fulfilling; for me, not so much.

Michael: I was reading some of the discussion on faith in this class in January and February this year. I think Dr. Weaver was saying that faith is, in a way, maybe trying to see things God’s way. It was interesting that there was a lot of pushback, with people saying we can’t see things God’s way—it’s too hard. But what I find really interesting is that when the topic switches from faith to prayer, it seems we can change God after all. I don’t understand how to reconcile that when discussing faith we can’t see God’s way but when discussing prayer we get the miracles described in the Bible. Something does not fit.

Don: Should we teach our children to pray for things?

Pushpa: I don’t know about “things” but I believe we should teach kids to pray regarding life situations. Not “I want a car, I want a big house” but something like “I’m going through this, I’m sick, help me heal”—that kind of thing. I think we should teach that. We should also teach them that God knows better and whatever his answer is we should be willing to accept it.

Reinhard: Scripture teaches: 

Train up a child in the way he should go, Even when he grows older he will not abandon it. (Proverbs 22:6)

I believe we need to teach our children how to pray. Of course they go through stages in life.

With regard to Michael’s question: I think faith has something to do with our communication with God. The more faith we have through our life experience, the more we are in tune with what God wants from us. I see results from prayer. Maybe not everything we ask God will be fulfilled but overall God gives us (in my experience) not necessarily what we want or think we need but what is best for us. 

But there are moments when there is no time to pray. Nearly 30 years ago I was suddenly pushed backwards down some concrete steps. If I had not been able to twist my body as I fell I might have landed on the back of my skull and could have died. I think God always comes through to help us. He is our protector, our shield. 

This was just one of many events in my life experience when God came through to help in time of need. When we have a relationship with God, when we have faith in him, I think no matter what situation we face God will be with us. 

David: What is interesting about Reinhard’s story, as in the case with Jacob, is that there was no prayer involved. (I assume you didn’t pray as you were flying through the air.) It just happened in the blink of an eye. You didn’t have time to pray. But you already had faith and God was there when you needed him. It was the same with Jacob: There was no prayer involved.

Reinhard: Jacob’s life was not perfect. He tried to steal Esau’s birthright, with his mother as co-conspirator. Sometimes life is a mystery. God chose Jacob to become the father of God’s Chosen People. God works in our lives just like he did in Jacob’s. He uses imperfect human beings to accomplish his will. We see God interfere in Jacob’s life. He had 12 children who were the original children of Israel. 

So through Jacob, even with his imperfect life and the bad things he did, we see God’s hand working through his remnant people to show his plan of salvation to people. The lesson is that although we are imperfect in life, there are times God uses us to carry out his purpose, and then maybe other people can see through us, and we can see through other people, that God loves his people. That is an example to strengthen us, to bring us closer to God, through our life experiences.

Anonymous: With regard to the relationship between faith and prayer, Dr. Weaver said last week that communication with God is like the autonomous nervous system that’s always working in the background and is invoked by the soul in distress. Since God is working always, as Reinhard’s story shows, even when there is no prayer, with faith, God intervenes. He is our spiritual nervous system working in the background, and he comes to help right away.

But what about people who don’t have faith? I believe he’s there for them as well. They don’t have any concern for God, but when, when they’re in distress, God comes in and helps even though they have no faith. Now, how could that be? People with faith and people without faith—God is there for both sides? 

What is the relationship and what is the outcome of faith (not of prayer, in this case)? I was enlightened by Dr. Weaver’s remark that the outcome of prayer is to keep the light lit, to have our faith fulfilled, and to have God’s grace appropriated. 

It is great what prayer does. But what about people who don’t have faith? God’s grace is is always working in the background, always keeping them, helping them, being there in their distress—like Jacob, who probably wasn’t a faithful guy (I don’t know), but God came at the right time and did great things for him without prayer. How do you explain that?

David: “Blessed are the poor in spirit.” Are the poor in spirit those who have no faith?

Anonymous: A daily devotional from Amazing Facts commenting on this verse said that the poor in spirit are those who come to God with nothing. They don’t have any credit to give to God. Absolutely nothing. We’re asking for God’s help and salvation, as the devotional says, without having anything to give in return, without having any credit. That’s the poor in spirit.

David: But Jesus didn’t say, “Blessed are the poor in spirit provided they pray.”

Anonymous: There has to be some kind of connection. The poor in spirit do pray. But feeling their unworthiness and their nothingness, they feel they don’t qualify for anything. So God works on their behalf, because they’re poor in spirit. But does that mean he’s answering their prayers? Or is he dealing with them just like anybody else? He’s helping everybody. He’s there for everyone.

Neldeson: So many times, you hear people out there who don’t have any relationship with God calling his name. If something happens, they cry: “God help me!” I don’t know if God is in their life but they seem to know something about God because they keep calling his name whenever bad things happen, or are about to happen, that they cannot handle. So what about that?

Michael: We seem to be reaching the conclusion that it doesn’t matter who prays or who worships; that God cares for everyone because we’re all his sons and daughters. 

Don: You guys have just blown this whole thing up! We had such a nice little system whereby, for people with good and strong faith, God answers prayer, and for people with bad faith or no faith, God does not answer prayer. And now you guys blow the whole thing up saying it doesn’t really matter if you have faith or even whether you pray at all! God is God he can do whatever he wants!

Anonymous: That’s exactly right. I don’t know why God keeps me praying for years for someone and I don’t see any change. Today I finally figured out he’s working on me, not on the person I pray for. I always perceived it as being about that person, but today I see that he’s working on me. I’m blind like like Jacob, but God, in his grace and mercy, shows us things beyond our understanding. 

I wonder if that’s a result of my years of prayer? Or is it my faith, that I always put in him? Or as he is working on me, is he also working on the other person? I don’t know. But I’m thankful. I’m definitely thankful for the way he deals with me. He has his perfect moments and circumstances, and even in the psychological frame we are in, it all works together. 

Bryan: Dr. Weaver asked the question: Should we teach our children to ask for things in prayer? The Bible tells us that we should ask for specific things in prayer. Asking builds a relationship, and we are told to ask for specific things and have faith that the things we ask for will be achieved. We’re told that multiple times. Maybe what it means is to have the faith of a child. Adults are cynical—we learn to be cynical as we grow older, but children don’t have any of that. 

I hear my grandkids as they pray. They ask for things. If you’re a praying family, I think it’s natural to teach your kids to ask for things in prayer. We ask for blessings, we ask for health, we ask for help for sick people, we ask for blessings on the food, we ask for things continuously. So I think it’s a natural thing in prayer, to ask for things. 

But children ask in a different way than adults ask. Maybe that’s what adults can learn from children in prayer. It’s a miracle for the child if the thing they asked for happens—they find their teddy bear, or whatever it is—some simple thing. The faith of a child can teach us a lot, I think, when it comes to prayer. It does matter whether you ask for things or not, but how you ask matters, and what you expect from that also matters. 

“Thy will be done” is what it’s all about and children understand that intuitively, but as we age we kind of get away from that. Maybe that’s the struggle. We try to control things when it’s not really in our ability to do that. Children really don’t. I think it’s a good thing. We should teach our children to ask for things in prayer.

Neldeson: I like that statement about the little children. I think children are so innocent in the way they ask for things. It comes from their heart, and I think that’s a lesson that we should learn as grownups.

Don: We’re going to continue this discussion on communication with God. We have some work to do on the secrets of God. We’ve noted God promise to send us prophets in the last days to disclose his secrets. What might they be?

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