I remember, as a teen, asking my dad what the purpose of prayer is if everything that happens is God’s will. What’s the point of praying about something if he’s already decided what’s going to happen?
My dad wisely pointed me to the story of James and Peter in Acts 12. King Herod had arrested several of the leaders of the early church, including James, who he put to death with the sword. He then arrested Peter and planned to execute him as well. My dad pointed out to me that the biblical account makes no mention of the church praying for the release of James. Perhaps they assumed that he would be delivered supernaturally, just as the apostles had been previously freed from prison by an angel (see Acts 5:18–20). But, after his death and Peter’s arrest, the church began to fervently pray (see Acts 12:5). In response to those prayers, God sent an angel to free Peter from prison, and he escaped execution.
My dad told me he did not believe it was God’s will for James to die. Perhaps, he said, James was not delivered because the church did not pray. Then, when the church began to intercede, Peter was delivered.
My dad’s point that day was simple: Over and over, scripture shows us the role we have to play in bringing heaven to earth and being ambassadors of God’s will. We all live with genuine choices about whether we will partner with God’s will or not. And when the bad things happen, we are on shaky ground if we blame God for evil and credit the work of the enemy to God’s will.
Theologian Michael S. Heiser puts it this way:
Evil does not flow from a first domino that God himself toppled. Rather, evil is the perversion of God’s good gift of free will. It arises from the choices made by imperfect imagers, not from God’s promptings or predestination. God does not need evil, but he has the power to take the evil that flows from free-will decisions—human or otherwise—and use it to produce good and his glory through the obedience of his loyal imagers, who are his hands and feet on the ground now.
All of this means that what we choose to do is an important part of how things will turn out. What we do matters. God has decreed the ends to which all things will come. As believers, we are prompted by his Spirit to be the good means to those decreed ends.[1]
God’s will for us is always for good, for life abundant. Believing this enables us to be the ones who walk through life’s disappointments and losses to become difference-makers for his kingdom, because we know that what we do and pray really does matter.
Theologians and philosophers have argued and will continue to argue over the nature of sin and sovereignty. My goal is not to delve deep into those theological arguments, but to look at the simple truth about God’s nature as revealed in scripture.
He is a good God, a loving father who gave all to rescue us from our lostness in sin and to provide the abundance and freedom of life in him (now and in eternity). Anything that falls short of this is a misrepresentation of God’s heart.
He is the God who has good plans for our lives, who has provided everything we need, who fervently works on our behalf (see 2 Pet. 1:3; Eph. 2:10; Phil. 1:6).
When faced with things we don’t understand, with realities that are not aligned to the goodness of God’s will, let’s cling to the truth of who God says he is. In the face of disappointment, we must believe he is not the author of brokenness or despair.
He is the comforter, the helper, the one who is with us in the valley of the shadow of death.
Note:
1. Michael S. Heiser, The Unseen Realm (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2015), 66.
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