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“What is 3R Thursday?”
3R Thursday is a short devotional that contains Ramblings, Ruminations, and Reflections published most Thursdays to equip Christians with practical theology and Biblical philosophy.
Previous devotionals can be read here.
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3R THURSDAY: The Paradoxical-Problem Prayer
The further away you are from a problem, the bigger the problem appears.
Distance between you and the Problem.
The closer you are to the problem, the smaller it seems.
This is paradoxical.
Typically, when an object is further away, it appears smaller.
The mountain on the horizon
We know the mountain is towering, yet we can cover it with our hand.
The setting sun.
We know the sun is massive, yet we can block it with the brim of a hat.
The rising moon.
We know the moon is big (and bigger in Texas), yet a budding leaf can hide its grandeur.
The boat out there on the ocean.
We know the boat is huge, yet our modest sand castle can dwarf the cargo carrier.
It’s all about perspective.
As such, the problem you face appears larger precisely because you are pushing it further away. As soon as you begin working on the problem, the problem seems more manageable and thus smaller than you initially thought.
Why do we push our problems further away? Why do we inflate their magnitude in our minds? Why do we avoid and procrastinate?
It’s all about perspective: The God we serve is greater than the Problem we face.
Christian, do you ever minimize the majesty of God in favor of some childish notion of an old man in the sky? In The Divine Conspiracy, Dallas Willard points out this notion, which is ultimately a hinderance to our prayers:
Confusing God with his historical manifestations in space may have caused some to think that God is a Wizard-of-Oz or Sistine-Chapel kind of being sitting at a location very remote from us. The universe is then presented as, chiefly, a vast empty space with a humanoid God and a few angels rattling around in it, while several billion human beings crawl through the tiny cosmic interval of human history on an oversized clod of dirt circling an insignificant star.
Of such a “god” we can only say, “Good riddance!” It seems that when many people try to pray they do have such an image of God in their minds. They therefore find praying psychologically impossible or extremely difficult. No wonder!
Good riddance, indeed!
Isaiah reminds us that we serve the Creator of the ends of the earth:
Have you not known? Have you not heard?
The Lord is the everlasting God,
the Creator of the ends of the earth.
He does not faint or grow weary;
his understanding is unsearchable.
He gives power to the faint,
and to him who has no might he increases strength.
Even youths shall faint and be weary,
and young men shall fall exhausted;
but they who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength;
they shall mount up with wings like eagles;
they shall run and not be weary;
they shall walk and not faint.
This is the God that we serve.
This is the God that we worship.
This is the God that created the heavens and the earth.
He created those mountains and yet you’re worried whether he can provide an office space for your new business.
He created the sun and yet you think he is unable to provide for your family.
He formed the moon and yet you think he is unable to answer your prayers.
We pray to the God that split the very fabric of reality, creating Everything from Nothing, ripping apart the very notion we have of “life” in favor of life everlasting, sending his son—fully God, fully man—into this world so that we may know him; so that we may repent from our sins and turn to him; so that we may have life and have it abundantly.
This is the God that we pray to.
But an office space is too big for God to solve, right?
But generating new clients is not worth his time, right?
But building a thriving business for his glory is impossible for him to do, right?
No, Christian, these are simple lies that distract us from confronting the Problem and praying for God’s divine sovereignty.
You push these problems away and thus they appear bigger.
The problems are still there. You can’t ignore them. And the beauty is as soon as you choose to confront those problems and pray to God, those problems rapidly shrink.
So pray without ceasing. (1 Thess. 5:17)
Pray at all times in the Spirit. (Eph. 6:18)
For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith—that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.
Hope you have a blessed week.
See you next Thursday,
CFW
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