It just wasn’t right. Peter had done a lot of weird and wonderful things over the past three years but he wasn’t going to let Jesus wash his feet. That was a servant’s job, and besides Peter had feet like a hobbit’s and while Jesus had certainly touched the fisherman’s heart, Peter didn’t want him touching his feet.
And as Peter protested Christ’s actions Jesus looked at him and said John 13:7 Jesus replied, “You don’t understand now why I am doing it; someday you will.”
You don’t understand now. If Jesus was to look down at me as I watched Curling during the Olympics he would have said “You don’t understand now; someday you will.” And that promise is real, because when I get to heaven I’m going to have perfect knowledge and I’ll walk through the pearly gates and go “Wow, now I know, I know why they sweep like that and why they shout.” I have tried, I’ve gone online and discovered that Curling was probably developed in Scotland around 1510 and that it was first played as a demonstration sport in the winter Olympics in Innsburg in 1964 and then again in Calgary in 1988. And became an official sport in the Winter Olympics in 1998. Where Canada won a Gold in the women’s and a silver in the men’s.
As for understanding the game itself, I went onto the internet and found the rules for the game. I looked at it and thought this isn’t that tough. And then I made a mistake, you know what they say about a little knowledge. I decided to read the final analyse of the game that the Canadian Women lost to the British on Wednesday Afternoon. “The Canadian skip failed to execute a hit and roll that would have allowed her to blank the first end. As a result, she was forced to take a single in and surrender the hammer. Britain then scored one in the third and stole two more in the fourth. With the two teams tied 5-5 in the 10th end, Britain was lying one when the two skips stepped into the hack for their rocks. Law put her first stone just in front of the British shot rock, but Martin elected to knock both out with her shot to leave the house open.
Law put her final shot deep in the eight-foot, leaving Martin the open draw for the win. And Martin made no mistake, easily putting her final rock in for the victory.”
It was then that I realized the only thing that I have understood about the game was when Jay Leno said “Did you see the curling today? Pretty exciting! The gold medal ended up going to a Brazilian cleaning team.”
However never one to give up, I pressed ahead in the quest for curling knowledge and then it all made sense because I discovered that curling wasn’t invented in Scotland that it was invented in the Holy Land. Really, the way I figured that out is by all the references to curling in the bible. Sure, I’m not kidding. First the rules of a brief overview of the rules: Each team is made up of four players: the lead, the second, the third and the skip. The skip is the captain of the team and calls the shots while mapping out strategy. He or she is the last to throw in a round or an "end."
The four players take turns throwing two stones each down the ice sheet with the goal of landing a stone in the target area of three concentric rings known as "the house;" taking out opposing stones; or setting up "guards," either to protect their stones or to prevent the opposition from penetrating the rings.
Here are the descriptions from the Bible. First we have instructions for the lead found in John 8:7 where it says: let him cast the first stone.
And then if the lead has two stones into the house there’s instruction for the second:
Ezekiel 38:7 be a guard for them.
And then in Isaiah we find this obvious curling statement Isaiah 14:23 "I will sweep with the broom of destruction."
And then the word describes the shots made by the third: Nahum 1:6 "The rocks are thrown down by him."
It also records the remarks of surprise and joy made by his Skip or the Captain: In Psalm 78:20 Behold, He struck the rock, and then in Job 14:8 "Their rock is removed out of place."
But the Bible only makes one comment about the activity of the Skip or the Captain of the team And that is found in the New Testament: Matthew 20:6 ‘Why have you been standing here idle all day?’
So now you understand curling, but what about the other questions we as Christians struggle with? Some of these things can be answered with the words that Christ spoke to Peter “You don’t understand now why I am doing it; someday you will.” And in some of those cases “Someday” will defined in temporal terms, next week, next year sometime in the future. But we need to understand that for some of the answers we are going to have to wait until we stand before God. And just as you will understand curling at that time you will understand the answers to the other questions as well. Now if I was to ask you what some of the questions were that you struggled with in your Christian life we could probably fill a fair sized list.
Questions About the Bible Some questions might deal with the bible, the word of God. Why did this happen or why did that happen, did a fish really swallow Jonah, What type of Salt did Lot’s wife really turn into, table salt, road salt, sea salt? And to be truthful there are some things in the book that I don’t understand, and things that I have to accept by faith. I’m not being trite there, but there are some things that you have to say “I don’t understand this but it’s in the word of God and I’m willing to wait until I talk to the author to get the answer.” In some cases it’s just a matter that I’m just not looking at right, when I ask somebody else they say, “Oh that’s easy.” And then they go on to explain it in a way I understand. Other times they say “That’s easy” and they go on to explain it in a way as to prove they don’t have a clue what they are talking about. If someone tells you they understand all of the Bible and there is nothing in it they struggle with watch them, “if they lie about that they will lie about anything.”
If there are some spots in the bible that you are struggling with give me a call, we’ll have a Tim’s and see what we can come up with. Here’s a website that you might be interested in, it’s www.carm.org and who knows you might find the answer to that tough question you’ve been looking for.
The next thing on your list might be Unanswered Prayer. The Bible says that God answers our prayer, in fact the bible promises that God answers our prayers. But you know and I know that sometimes that doesn’t happen. How come? One source I read listed a number of reasons for unanswered prayer in our lives and his list looked something like this:
1. Lack of Fellowship with God and His word
2. Not seeking to Please the Lord
3. Unconfessed Sin in One’s Life
4. Improper Motives
5. Not asking in God’s will
6. Don’t know how to pray
7. Lack of Faith
8. Misunderstanding of Faith
9. Wavering faith
10. Failure to apply spiritual Authority
11. Lack of Perseverance
And well those are undoubtedly reasons, I don’t think it’s super productive to tell people “The reason that your prayers aren’t being answered it you. You have no faith, or the wrong faith or you’re just plain sinful.” Well thank you very much.
But without getting personal there are some reasons for unanswered prayer and probably the one that explains most situations is the limits of prayer. Now I know that we like to think that the power of prayer is unlimited, and in theory it is. But for all practical purposes there are limits on prayer that are imposed by God himself.
Limit #1 God’s design for the world In this point we could say that prayer is limited by God’s will, but we all have different ideas of what God’s will is, so let’s stick with the limit of God’s design for this world. God’s design for this world is that we would accept him as our Saviour and so when we die we will live with Him for all eternity. From time to time I hear people talk about healing and occasionally they will say that God wants everyone to be healthy and within certain limits I still believe that. However the bible does say in Hebrews 9:27 And just as it is destined that each person dies only once and after that comes judgment. People do not live forever, that’s a plain and simple fact of life, and because of that we shouldn’t be surprised when prayers for healing are not always answered. I believe in the power of God to heal, and I know that God does heal people, but I also know that not everyone is healed. And people die, Jesus died and was raised to life again. Our hope is a resurrection hope, that’s God’s design for the world and our prayers are limited by God’s design. That doesn’t mean that you don’t pray for healing, but pray knowing that God is in control.
Limit #2 God’s design of the world A pastor came into his church one day and noticed a boy at the front praying, he went over to comfort the child and when the boy was done the pastor asked him, “I know you were praying but why did you keep repeating Tokyo, Tokyo, Tokyo?” To which the boy responded, “I just finished my geography test and I was praying that God would make Tokyo the capital of France.” Probably not going to happen. There have been times that I’ve prayed for 48 hour days and unlimited energy so that I could accomplish all I wanted to do. But the sun still set at the usual time and I still needed my rest. Step off a building you will get hurt, because gravity isn’t just a good idea, it’s the law.
God created this world with certain laws in effect. We need our rest, and the we need the universe to be a stable place to live. Design and order are necessary. I know that in the book of Joshua, Joshua prayed and God made the sun stand still but when we pray for such things we must know that we’re praying for a miracle. And a miracle doesn’t require God to violate a "natural law" so much as it requires God to violate the consistency of the universe. We should not be surprised when our prayers for miracles sometimes go unanswered.
Limit #3 The will and decisions of other people God didn’t violate your free will to force you to become a Christian and he won’t violate the free well of others to force them to become a Christian. Nor will God force people to give up alchol or drugs or a destructive lifestyle. The greatest gift that he ever gave us was the freedom to make choices for ourselves and he isn’t going to take that gift away from someone else simply because you pray for it, no matter how noble your motives are. We should not be surprised when some of our prayers for others go unanswered.
Limit #4 The existence of other people How should God decide who’s prayers to answer. I remember watching the Women’s hockey the other night when the Canadians won the Gold, and I wondered how many American players had prayed that they would win? Do we presume that more Canadian players prayed then Americans. Probably the great example of this is weather. How many people pray for specific weather requests? We are probably all guilty of that aren’t we. Lord let it be a nice day for my wedding, let it be a nice day for the picnic, let it rain for the crops and snow for the skiers.
What would happen if God granted everyone’s weather requests? Can you imagine it? I mean the weather would have to be different about every hundred feet! It would have to be rainy in this field and it would have to be sunny out behind this house. It would have to be eighty four degrees down Main Street and there would have to be a ten foot pile of snow in every child’s back yard! It would be ridiculous! And we shouldn’t be surprised that isn’t how things work! The Bible tells us that God is concerned about us as individual people but it also tells us that God is concerned about nations and groups of people and on some level that means God has to be concerned about all of us together.
Outside of the limits that are on prayer we also need to realize that God created the universe and most of us can’t even program our VCRs. This would lead me to believe that God is smarter then we are. Often prayers aren’t answered because it wouldn’t be in our best interest. Just for a minute ask yourself what would happen if every prayer you had ever prayed had been answered. Who would you be married to, what would you be doing for a career, where would you be living. Sometime we just have to believe that God knows best. Maybe St. Teresa of Avila had it right when she said There are more tears shed over answered prayers than over unanswered prayers.
What should we do when our prayers aren’t answered?
That wasn’t all that helpful was it? Learning why our prayers might not be answered. So what do we do when the sick friend or loved one doesn’t seem to be getting any better, and the wayward child still hasn’t come back to God. Does the fact that there are limits on our prayers mean that we should just give up? By no means. Here are a few suggestions.
1. Be Patient
First of all and maybe most importantly, be patient. Many of the things that we pray for we expect to happen overnight. "Lord teach me to be patient" we pray one evening and expect to have the patience of Job by daybreak! Be patient!
2. Trust God’s Wisdom and Goodness
Be patient but also trust God’s wisdom. Every child knows that there are times when parents say "no" and demands that parents don’t fulfill. When it looks like a prayer isn’t being answered don’t get your knickers in a knot! God hasn’t fallen off His throne. The angels sent to guard you didn’t take a wrong turn on the trans-Canada and wind up in going to Florida for the winter. Whatever is happening for whatever reason God knows. Trust His wisdom and goodness.
3. Ask for Illumination
If a prayer isn’t being answered and God knows why and what’s happening then we should also ask for illumination. We’re often told "don’t question God." True, it isn’t healthy to doubt God’s intentions, but often I hear this kind of thing said of situations when we should ask God. If God knows then we might stand to learn something if we ask. Think about a child who begs continually to eat sweets. What would happen if they asked why? Think of what they might learn about nutrition and discipline and about always getting what we want! Think of how much more they could know than that "mean old mom won’t let me have what I want." It’s the same way with God. When we don’t get what we ask for it’s a good idea to ask for more information.
4. Keep Praying
Perhaps the best thing we can do when a prayer goes unanswered is to continue praying. Keep praying! It’s easy to get discouraged when a prayer hasn’t been answered. It gets hard to keep praying when we don’t see direct results, but we ought to keep praying because the Bible and our experience both tells us that God answers prayers. Every time we pray there is the real possibility that God will do something about our request. It’s a live possibility every time we pray!
Be patient! Trust God’s wisdom and goodness! Ask for illumination! Keep Praying!
And as Jesus said “You don’t understand now why I am doing it; someday you will.”
PowerPoint may be available for this message, contact me at denn@bccnet.ca
The limits on prayer came from "The Challenge of Unanswered Prayer" which I found at www.hopemountain.com
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