Prayer. That's something I've been uncomfortable with for a while now (I had a very dear friend pass away in the same way RHE did - and that was a turning point for me, one that led me to being unsure of the "how" of prayer). I appreciate (and relate to) how this is written:
From the article by Mike Morrell------>
Why did she of all people have to leave us, God? What about all that prayer?
I wasn’t alone in asking this question. My friend Chris Boeskool asked it, even before she passed away, and I was annoyed at the time:
"It feels to me like these prayers for healing paint a picture of a God on a throne… A God who has plenty of water for a kid dying of thirst, but who is like, “Sorry, you didn’t say PLEASE.” It feels like a physician who has the cure for a deadly disease, but requires the sick person to get 10,000 signatures first. Or to get a hashtag trending. It feels like being back at that Holy Spirity, charismatic church, and having to listen to people talk about “Storming the Gates of Heaven,” or “Holding God to his promises.”
It feels like “Everything happens for a reason” and “All part of God’s plan” and “God never gives us more than we can handle.” And if I’m being honest, it feels like the reason I can’t go to church anymore.
It feels like what led me to read Rachel’s work in the first place."
It feels like what led me to read Rachel’s work in the first place."
But I got it. Even Rachel has expressed similar wrestlings:
"I became a stranger to the busy, avuncular God who arranged parking spaces for my friends and took prayer requests for weather and election outcomes while leaving thirty thousand children to die each day from preventable disease." (In her amazing Searching for Sunday: Loving, Leaving, and Finding the Church.) ~ If you’re sad about Rachel Held Evans (and other un-answered prayers).
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IIRC, Richard Rohr had written something a while ago very similar to what Tripp Fuller is quoted as saying in the interview with RHE - that God isn't omnipotent or else we'd have to attribute all the evil in the world to God and His plan as well (but I haven't been able to locate that article).
Personally - as of right now - I do see God as being omnipotent in the large scheme of things. That His greater plan won't be deterred by human limitations....and that His irresistible love WILL win out (in the end).
.....but that's one thing about death - it sure brings us to wrestle with what we believe and how those beliefs actually work when exercised in reality.
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IIRC, Richard Rohr had written something a while ago very similar to what Tripp Fuller is quoted as saying in the interview with RHE - that God isn't omnipotent or else we'd have to attribute all the evil in the world to God and His plan as well (but I haven't been able to locate that article).
Personally - as of right now - I do see God as being omnipotent in the large scheme of things. That His greater plan won't be deterred by human limitations....and that His irresistible love WILL win out (in the end).
.....but that's one thing about death - it sure brings us to wrestle with what we believe and how those beliefs actually work when exercised in reality.
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