Thank your for your thoughts and for your help. Your comments, and those of a few others, point out the fact that I did not emphasize a crucial aspect of my overall point. In the blog, it sounds like I am rejecting the idea of praying for the lost altogether, which I did not intend to communicate. I apologize.

In paragraphs No. 1 and 5, I too briefly mention that I am specifically addressing the “repetitive” and “ongoing” prayers for the salvation of the lost. I should have more clearly communicated that that praying for the lost is, as you suggest, important and ought to be a frequent practice when we interact with God. But your biblical example and the others we see in Scripture do not lead us in the direction of repetitive, ongoing prayer for others’ salvation. (I might even point you to several OT examples that seem to suggest the exact opposite: Jeremiah 7:13-17, 11:14, and 14:11-12; 2 Chronicles 6:32-33. I know that those situations are specific, but they are at least thought-provoking and relevant to this broader subject.)

Looking at Acts 26:29, I think that you unnecessarily jump to conclusions not supported by either that passage or Paul’s writing in general. Reading the opening of his letter to the Ephesians (to note just one example), we see how Paul understands the “saved” or “unsaved” status of a human being as something determined “before the creation of the world” and independent of human action. In that light, it would make no sense if he were here (before Agrippa) asking that that their salvation status be either confirmed or changed. He is more likely asking that the chosen in his midst would be awakened to the truth of their salvation and their redemption in Christ. And in either case, he is clearly neither suggesting nor modeling a repetitive, ongoing request for the salvation of others.

One more note about the latter point: He is certainly expressing his deep hopes and desires to God in prayer, which is something we ought to practice. But we might do well to avoid behaving like children who ask over and over, “Are we there yet?” or make ongoing requests for things their parents have consistently said “No” to. It seems more useful for us to express our hopes and desires, to bare our raw emotion and soul before God, and then to pay attention – to listen closely – to His responses. We communicate with others the same way. We ask. We listen. We change our inquiry. If we do not, we start to look a bit crazy and at least have an extremely strange relationship with the people we talk to. Can you imagine somebody always asking you to do the same thing? You might start to wonder if they were listening to your responses at all. Anyhow, the point is that that we listen and then shape our prayers and behaviors accordingly. That is what I finally realized was lacking in the situation with my sister.

Finally, your closing statement – “Our faith is to be in the Living God, not in theories about Him…” – illustrates the exact ambiguity that I think sparked this whole exploration of prayer in my mind to begin with long before you wrote those words. Have my thoughts somehow revealed a waning faith in the living God or a misdirected faith toward human theories? Is asking questions about prayer and suggesting answers to the best of our intellectual ability evidence of lacking faith? If we understand faith as a blind act of will to believe something that is either independent of reason or simply a choice to believe in spite of a paltry lack of evidence, then you might be onto something. But I do not think that is an accurate understanding of faith. As J.P. Moreland suggests, that is a “modern misunderstanding.”

“[B]iblically, faith is a power or skill to act in accordance with the nature of the kingdom of God,” he writes, “a trust in what we have reason to believe is true” (See Moreland, J.P. “Love Your God with All Your Mind” (NavPress: 1997), p. 25)

So, while I completely agree with you that our faith must be in the living God, I get frustrated when brothers and sisters in the face of a challenges so ripe with growth potential simply throw their hands up and cry out, “Just have faith!” only to return to the comfort of not having to think about things carefully. We need to employ our God-gifted skill to act – and think – in accordance with the nature of the kingdom of God and to consider carefully the things we pray for and why. Please know that, while I highlight your closing comments to point out my frustration, that frustration is with a larger, more general tendency that I encounter often. Your comments are much appreciated and are the exact opposite of frustrating, and I am thankful that you are carefully and critically thinking about these things, too. Keep it up! Thank you again for your help and for sharing your thoughts. (The thing I hate about this kind of blog-commenting communication is my inability to find out if you’re in my neighborhood so that we could have some coffee and work through this massive topic through a good, face-to-face conversation. Still, I appreciate your time and your openness.)

Thanks, too, to everyone else who has been participating in this discussion. Good times!

Bad News: It looks like I will be loosing my disability check in the near future…..because the Lord, my merciful CEO, has provide us a job at Burgerville! This is a huge Priase God and thank you all for being part of Team H.A.N.S–helping another norwegian succeed.

and since my CEO is Jewish I thought it appropriate to utilized this event as an excsue to throw a kingdom party. Therefore, you all are invited to join us at Bridgetwon Ministries: Operation Nightstrike tonight at The Liberation Street Church (2nd & Burnside). We worship our CEO and have pre-game instruction between 7-8. then we walk over to the Burnside Bridge and party with the Lord and his kind of people from 8-930. We will conclude the night with drinks (alcholic or nonalcholic…as for me and my household we will be drinking Guiness at Kells Irish Pub 112 Kells Irish Pub. and yes, even Monsantos people are allowed. thank you all so much for praying for me and holding me during this partiuclar in between times. Peace of the Lord, Hans!

It was nice to hear from you today Anne, I definately missed you and i missed hearing from the other bloggers as well. I look forward to the day when you feel safe enough to email me directly or even process by phone–I am so old school. Thank you for taking the time to review the Burgerville website and no, I still have not heard from them. I really look forward to hearing your response after you view Food Inc. and/or read something by Wendel Berry. Is there any thing you would like me to read or watch on our journey towards Gods objective truth?

There are also a number of Monsanto protest websites that you and your friends might be interested investigating. I am no scientist but many of my friends who are skilled in the scientific arts denounce Monsanto’s justification as pure propaganda. For instance, they say it is not possible to design this drought resistant gene and that the Indian experience in buying such said seeds proved worse and not better and that is why they protested by burning themselves. I am sorry to say but I really believe that your friends who work for Monsanto are morally responsible for supporting an organization is clearly the domination of global agriculture with cooporate profit as the highest value. and yet, assuming that Monsanto is babylon that conscious Christians must oppose, we must oppose it in a Godly way with the full confidaence that Jesus is not intimdated by this evil corporation. further, i think he is much more interested in the church obeying Him and warning all, Monsantos employees and Monsanto resister that we must all repent and be saved from the judgemnt that is talked about in Revelations, the feast of the birds. the problem in food distibution, I believe, is not inability of the earth to provide for us, or the fact that many of us live so extragantly; no, I believe suffering and death caused by hunger is due to our intellectual laziness and unwilliness to harness our God given creativity. actually inviting homeless to eat from our table; intentionally budgeting money in our entertainment budgets that teach folks how to actually cook from themseves. Monsanto is interested in agriculture as comodity; God I believe, is interested in agriculture as a venue to demonstrate his practical and extravagant love for humanity and yearns to cooperate with all people, but particularily His people as to how we can enter into each others suffering and abundance. What do you think? Hans

Praying for the salvation of Oprah and the two Hughs…Peace to all

Once again Anne i am so ministered to be your sharp mind and quick pen. Unfortunately I do not have the time to respond to many of your questions, especially in context of Rick’s blog and the sermon at Imago today. But am so glad to have another person like you to enter into both prayer and dialogue. For starters Anne I sugest you check out burgerville’s website and explore the vender section of Country Fresh Beef and then watch Food Inc. I am curious to see what comments you might have and how the Lord might use your impressions and reactions to bring me closer to the truth. One thing is for sure, i am in desperate need of Jesus and so thankful that I can learn to enjoy that place of desperation with other kindred spirits like yourself and do not have to be a lone ranger Christian. How is your sone doing, is there a way I can communicate with Him? And yes i would like to pray for a few specific leaders as we pray for each other? sorry I do not have time to go deeper all. Peace of the Lord hans

I don’t know that I could have ever seen slavery as a good thing, but I grew up in a different century, and the oddness of the Bible talking about it as commonplace disturbs me. But then when you look at the relationship many of us have in this modern world to our jobs, it differs from slavery only by degrees. Who you gonna serve, and is it really that easy? If Burgerville’s meat is really really bad for people because there are additives in their beef that none of us know about, will you still want to work there because you can serve the Lord while serving potentially bad burgers? How do we give that cup of cold water in His name? Does the water have to be perfect or it cannot be given in His name, and I’m not advocating that we start passing out tainted water, but it isn’t as cut and dry as just getting rid of Monsanto.

Does serving the Lord mean you don’t use your skills as a geneticist to create a more drought-resistant rice crop? I don’t think that I can make that call. We can neither eradicate sin, nor its effects, but we can ease the hunger pains of a few more people in this world with drought resistant rice crops. Is Monsanto going to try to patent that breakthrough and enslave the world by patenting the seed, yeah, probably. So we have to fight Monsanto, but the guys I know who are working on drought-resistant rice are the ones who grew up in parts of the world where people starved when their rice crop failed, so I see their work in a different light.

I know that ultimately you are correct about the fact that one’s goodness will neither put them in hell, nor keep them out of hell, and all the compassionate geneticists working hard to give us better rice yields means nothing without the saving grace of Jesus. I just wish I could see all of this more clearly on the days that I hate my job and hate certain people that I am forced to work with. Most days the good outweighs the bad, but there are days, and today has been one of them, when I am grateful for the words of David in the Psalms. I want to pray for retribution, not salvation for certain people, but even my prayers have to be guided by His grace, and so, again, I am caught in one of those places where He is the only answer.

You know, the Bible says where two or more are agreed, it shall be done…so let’s start a list of people we will pray together for to be saved. Let’s see, we have Oprah, and now the current CEO of Monsanto, Mr. Hugh Grant…guess it wouldn’t be fair to pray for the CEO and not the actor too, so that makes three. Yes, I am completely serious. Let’s do it. Wish I wasn’t still too mad to add my boss to that list…I have another list I want to add his name to, but that’s pathetic isn’t it, pray for the people I don’t know to be saved, and to hell with the ones I do? We are so F_____ without Him aren’t we?

Peace Hans…can’t wait to hear you got that Burgerville job.

I agree that their hearts will be shepherded as they watch parents and adults in the community worshiping God and treating each others with love, respect and fidelity.

But Jeff, I would love some suggestions for how parents can talk to their children in a way that speaks directly to their hearts. Thanks!

Dear Anne and All:

To paraphrase Don Miller in his Blue Like Jazz Opening:
Anne, for now we know each other annonymously on the landscape of bloggvile, but one day, we shall meet, including, Jesus, face to face. Your writing is so good and your responses are so kind it makes me want to write more economically and temper my comments with mercy which of course has triumphed over justice. I love your scientific insight and the fact that you know people, good people at Monsontos. Yes, I am sure there were many good people involved with the coporation of global slavery. Not to mention many believers who fought for the south and who now are in heaven and many nonbelievers who fought valiantly for the North and now are in Hell. It is never about ones goodness, good news remember, we all drawn. Still, the nice person who works for Monsontos needs to repent, quit, and publicly reveal the evil that exists in this corporation. and the church needs to find ways to economically support such galiant decisions. The liberals are wrong to think that to be on the right side of history assures ones salvation. But the conservatives are wrong to think that Jesus does not care if we are on the wrongside of history. As I protest, ponder, and prepare to be a leader in the ecclesiastically based movment against Monsontos I wear a Tshirt–”I am the problem and Monsonos must repent or face the vengance of the Lord.” Perhaps the current Monsontos CEO will read this, repent, and write a postmocern version of amazing grace. Forgive me if I have big dreams, they come from reading the bible! Ty for praying for my Burgerville career–I should know by monday. Love Hans