I don't know if you've seen the film "O Brother Where Art Thou?" I think I'm right in saying it's a slightly odd take on Homer's "The Odyssey". Anyway, in the film the main character, played by George Clooney, is consistently derisive of God and faith in God. However at the end of the film he finds himself about to be killed, and falls to his knees and prays a desperate prayer both for forgiveness and salvation. As he is about to be hanged a damn breaks and the flood of water washes him and his companions to safety. They are convinced it was an act of God, but he again writes God off.
Many people, and you may be among them, when they find themselves in a desperate situation will pray a desperate prayer. "God or whoever you are, if you are up there, please help me." My question is; can we have any hope of God answering that kind of prayer?
If we think of this kind of prayer in terms of me asking my dad for help perhaps it will help us. My dad is called John Hawthorne. He is good dad and I love him very much. He has cared for me, spent a large amount of time and money on me. He consistently has me in his thoughts and care even though I am now a dad myself. He is a generous and loving man. I can go on to describe to you what he looks like, snap shots of his life history, (such as memories of growing up in Coventry during the WWII,) his current projects, who he is married to, his other children (my sisters). In short my dad is a specific person, who has a specific character and personality and history. Throwing a prayer in the air in the hope that God, whoever he may be, will answer it, would be a little bit like me randomly opening the phone book and dialling a number, or several numbers and saying, "Dad, I don't know if you're there, or what you're like, but I need help."
For a dad who has not only been the means of my birth, but also the main influence on my life and main contributor to my survival and development, who has poured out his love on me and continues to, would that not be a massive insult? It would be a disgraceful thing to do to him. He would have every right to take offence if he heard what I was doing. Surely the same is more true with God. He gives us life and breath and our very being. Every good gift comes from him. He makes himself known to us by becoming a man, Jesus Christ, and gives proof of this to all of us by raising Jesus from the dead. And yet we have the audacity to think that God will respond when throughout our whole lives we have ignored and pushed him to one side. It is quite remarkable when you think it through, and yet we still pray that prayer. When we have come to an end of ourselves and we have nowhere left to turn, just in case we cry out to "whoever may be up there."
So you might expect me to now say, "No. God will not listen." But actually I'm going to say, "Yes. He may well listen!" How do we know? What happened when Jesus died is how we know. From the time of the fall of man, people had been barred from the presence of God. A flashing sword and mighty cherubim (not sweat little babies with wings, but mighty and dangerous angels) guarded the way back into God's presence. When the tabernacle and then the temple were built, the curtain that separated the most holy place, (the place of God's presence with his people,) had woven into it cherubim. The imagery was clear - you are not allowed into God's presence. And that was even for the priests who served in the temple. However when Jesus died something very curious happened. As he cried his last cry, breathed his last breath and gave up his spirit "the curtain in the temple was torn in two, from top to bottom." Jesus by his death opened the way for us to come to God, to know God, to find his unstoppable mercy. Thieves and murderers (like the guy on the cross next to Jesus) could find forgiveness. Everyone from the highest to the lowest, from the most devout Jew who knew God intimately, to the least religious Gentile (a word for non-Jew) has the chance to come into God's presence because of what Jesus accomplished through giving up his life.
When we pray the desperate prayer, we have right to expect an answer. We are not doing God a favour by finally praying. But if you will rely on him being exceedingly merciful perhaps he will. Only if he answers, (and he answers in many different and unexpected ways,) and you find yourself brought out of the situation don't do what George Clooney's character did, and write God off again. Run to Jesus in thankfulness and begin discovering there is plenty more mercy waiting for you!
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