No such thing as unanswered prayer

Our Father, who is both Omnipotent and everywhere, is not in some way, shape, or form, limited by what He can do. He can do anything, cause any action, respond in any way that He sees fit. It isn’t like we call Him up and leave Him a voice mail or text Him hoping that He will see the message and respond.

Instead, when we come to our Father in prayer, seeking His help in some circumstance, and nothing changes, the trajectory or direction of events remains the same, that is in fact an answer. At least for this very moment, and we do not know about the future, the answer is that this circumstance that you are in is exactly where He wants you to be.

The issue within the fundamentalist churches that needs to be addressed is not just that people need to have more faith, but that the church needs to better respond to it’s parishioners at life’s critical events, the prayers that are generated as a result, and when the answer is NO at the moment when the prayer is responded to.

Copyright © 2009 by Thomas E. Kennedy

Tribulations , the outcome, and personal responsibility

“Trust in the Lord will all your heart, and don’t depend on your own understanding. Seek His will in all you do and He will direct your paths.” Proverbs 3:5-6.

Now what are the sorts of things we learn as a result of the tribulations that our Father allows to be unleashed upon us? For sure, these are transformational events, meant to mold us.

Let’s say you have some sort of task where you work that is your primary responsibility and that things are not going well. In fact, things are going terribly. Maybe it is a business relationship with another firm that needs to provide you with a product that your company is paying for, but is unable to deliver.  You know this is a critical moment and a major trial going on in your life. So in the back of your mind you begin praying in earnest for our Father’s help.  “Please help me to deliver on the responsibilities that I have regarding this business relationship” you pray. At this moment, you have all of our Father’s power behind you, you have deliberately sought His will for your life for this particular problem.

And then, what happens? Nothing. For whatever reason, our Father’s will for your life at that moment is that the problem getting this product from the outside firm isn’t resolved, they fail at delivery. His answer is “No, I won’t change the circumstances.”

 And whose Personal Responsibility was it that the situation didn’t work out? Well, it actually isn’t yours. It is our Father’s will and outcome for your life at that moment in those circumstances.  The above scripture releases you from the responsibility for the outcome for no matter what it is you did to try and make the relationship work out, to get the product delivered to you, it was our Father’s will that it fail.

So what is the transformational effect from having gone through this particular trial? That you are silly to set goals for fear that our Father has other plans, and that all you can do is Be There in your life each day and only count on Him for what you need.

Because your personal responsibilities as a believer in Christ, other than to follow diligently after Him, don’t exist. It is HIS will that propels your life forward.

I’ll bet you haven’t heard this message from the pulpit before…

Copyright © 2009 by Thomas E. Kennedy

Are you being transformed by tribulation?

Our Father’s purpose for all believers is to transform His people into new creatures in Christ. And in scripture, we see numerous examples:

James 1:2-4, 12

Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds,

because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance.

Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.

Blessed is the man who perseveres under trial, because when he has stood the test, he will receive the crown of life that God has promised to those who love him.

Hebrews 12:6-7, 9

because the Lord disciplines those he loves, and he punishes everyone he accepts as a son.”

Endure hardship as discipline; God is treating you as sons. For what son is not disciplined by his father?

Moreover, we have all had human fathers who disciplined us and we respected them for it. How much more should we submit to the Father of our spirits and live!

 

As a general rule, the greater the crisis, the greater the challenge to your faith and how you see your life in relation to our Father. His will is steady in that this transformation must take place.

And it is no great surprise for those of us who diligently seek our Father’s will for their life, that this willingness to open ourselves up to the onslaught springs from His hand alone.

Copyright © 2009 by Thomas E. Kennedy

It’s not about making bad decisions, that would be easy to fix

I make a deliberate separation between believers who simply make bad decisions and suffer as a result from those that make the right choices but nonetheless live in the midst of constant trials and tribulations that push them to the breaking point.

For example, if you go out and max out your credit cards and get called all day and all night from collection agencies, well, that is a self made trip down torture lane. Even if you try and blame our Father for that, we all know He will be sympathetic but nonetheless you made a series of bad decisions and now the consequences are from your own hand.

The second group, however, are not so fortunate. Seemingly, even as they seek our Father’s will for their life, the level of tribulation they experience proceeds to get worse. We see it, for example, with health conditions of people in constant and unrelenting pain, where the individual either lives with the pain or is so medicated that their life isn’t there own.

Or with the parents of sick children. I can’t count the number of troubled believers I’ve talked to over the last eight years who put on such a brave front to the family, friends, and congregants, but are just breaking terribly inside. So racked by turmoil that they don’t know which way is up, guilt ridden that somehow what is happening to their beloved son or daughter is their fault. They ache. And no matter how often you tell them to “trust in the Lord” and to “give it to Him,” they can’t. They don’t have the power to terminate the connection between themselves and their son or daughter, and wonder if maybe there is something wrong with them because they can’t live anxiety free.

Well, what parent could?

Copyright © 2009 by Thomas E. Kennedy

Not the normal Christian experience

As a general rule, as believers we all go through our times in the Desert of our lives, and during these times our faith carries us through, the belief that our Father is with us is strong. At times we will have our doubts and wonder if our Father is off somewhere having a coffee break while we are kicked to the curb, but those are times of a short duration. Ultimately we come through the other side of the trial, our faith and trust in our Father even stronger.  As is said in Jeremiah…

Jeremiah 17:7-8
“But the person who trusts in the Lord will be blessed.
The Lord will show him that He can be trusted.
He will be strong, like a tree planted near water
that sends its roots by a stream.
It is not afraid when the days are hot;
it’s leaves are always green.
It does not worry in a year when no rain comes;
it always produces fruit.”

If this sounds like you, then you are part of the normal experience as a believer in Christ. It is highly scriptural, supported in both the Old Testament writings as well as New.  We know that the transformation from our sinful nature to that of becoming Christ like occurs through the rough and tumble nature that our Father brings to us.  And as a result, this blog and book in development is not really for you, as it is applied to your own life.

But what I am talking about, and will be dealing with extensively here, is about those believers who come to the point not of hope, but of hopelessness. They come as part of the countless numbers that arrive at New Hope or the Share and Care forum inside the ministries of the Crystal Cathedral. They are near the end of their rope, in absolute despair.  Many are contemplating suicide. They have looked into the Abyss, and the Abyss has looked back.

Copyright © 2009 by Thomas E. Kennedy

Permanent Brokenness and it is All Your Fault

A common concept in Christian literature is the idea of being broken, of losing something or someone of great importance as a lesson to change some area of our life, or our entire life, to be given over to our Father.  We see this a lot in the form of a catalyst, for example, that brings people to a point where they ask that their sins be forgiven and that they ask Christ to come into their life. I think for many of us coming from the more fundamentalist churches this process is in fact how we came to know Christ.

 Beyond this, we have the well known story of Job, found in the Old Testament book of Job. Now Job was a righteous man. Job chapter 1,

“ In the land of Uz there was a blameless and upright man named Job, who feared God and avoided evil.” And he was wealthy both in family and resources. “and he had seven thousand sheep, three thousand camels, five hundred yoke of oxen, five hundred she-asses, and a great number of work animals, so that he was greater than any of the men of the East.”

The connection here is that his righteousness and what he had were interconnected. A common interrelationship, by the way, of Old Testament theology…

Now God and Satan make a bet. Satan tells God that Job follows after our Father and is righteous because of what our Father has given him, but God disagrees and gives Satan great latitude in taking Job’s life apart. Job chapter 1,

 

“But Satan answered the LORD and said, “Is it for nothing that Job is God-fearing? Have you not surrounded him and his family and all that he has with your protection? You have blessed the work of his hands, and his livestock are spread over the land. But now put forth your hand and touch anything that he has, and surely he will blaspheme you to your face. And the LORD said to Satan, “Behold, all that he has is in your power; only do not lay a hand upon his person.”

In summary what happens next is that all that Job has is taken away, his family and his assets and resources. Job chapter 1

“Then Job began to tear his cloak and cut off his hair. He cast himself prostrate upon the ground, and said, “Naked I came forth from my mother’s womb, and naked shall I go back again. The LORD gave and the LORD has taken away; blessed be the name of the LORD!” In all this Job did not sin, nor did he say anything disrespectful of God. “

Now fast forward through the book, and apart from his friends who were found lacking in trusting our Father, we find that Job is in fact restored. Job chapter 42,

Also, the LORD restored the prosperity of Job, after he had prayed for his friends; the LORD even gave to Job twice as much as he had before.

Then all his brethren and his sisters came to him, and all his former acquaintances, and they dined with him in his house. They condoled with him and comforted him for all the evil which the LORD had brought upon him; and each one gave him a piece of money and a gold ring. Thus the LORD blessed the latter days of Job more than his earlier ones. For he had fourteen thousand sheep, six thousand camels, a thousand yoke of oxen, and a thousand she-asses. And he had seven sons and three daughters,

What a great ending.

Now, it is your turn. Some great crisis erupts in your life, perhaps a chronic illness or the loss of a child. And suddenly your world, like Job’s is turned upside down. And you pray to the Lord and go to your friends or your pastor and seek help from everyone and everything you can turn to. And yet nothing changes. The situation doesn’t improve. The brokenness remains.

Now why is that? Well, it isn’t God’s fault that you are never restored. It is in fact something in Your life that is preventing you from getting past this crisis. Do you have unconfessed sin in it? Have you been earnestly praying to our Father? Are you seeking His will alone for your life?

Does this sound familiar? It should because it is a constant among the fundamentalist faithful that I am part of that if we can’t fix your problem or if our Father doesn’t help you, that the crisis you are in the midst of is due to something you are lacking in your relationship with Him.

Talk about a guilt trip. Too bad you don’t have the righteousness of Job…

 

 

Copyright © 2009 by Thomas E. Kennedy

 

 

Blaming the victim

What do you do if the crisis you are in the midst of isn’t resolved by “giving it to the Lord?” In my volunteer work with the Crystal Cathedral, people, and mostly believers who I have worked with, who were near suicidal, reached that particular point. They were so pressed by some set of circumstances that they were about to give up. And unfortunately, I know some of them did. What do you say, what platitude do you deliver to try and help them? What if the loss is so great, is it their lack of faith that prevents them from dealing with the crisis in front of them? I think not. I think it is a cop out when church leadership blames the individual in the midst of the tribulation for being unable to cope with the circumstances that they are dealing with. “Well, you know if such and such had more faith, they wouldn’t be so stressed with the fact that they have lost their child.” Or “if they had more faith they could leave the husband that was beating them up.” Or “they wouldn’t be an alcoholic if they trusted in the Lord…”

As believers at least among the fundamentalist sects, we are taught that trials are the crucible upon which we are transformed from the mere mortal to the Likeness of Christ. In fact, I can go to crosswalk.com and do a search of trials and tribulations and come up with 11 specific scriptures that talk about the benefits of both.  And in the vast majority of cases, believers successfully, with our Father’s help, come through the trial stronger in the Lord.

But this unfortunately isn’t always the case.  Over the eight years that I have worked as both a counselor with New Hope and then with the formation and administration/Shepherding of the Share and Care forum inside One Community, people, and again mostly believers, have come to us so overburdened and overwrought that they found themselves at the edge of their belief in God. Or even worse,  at the end of their life. Many times, the problems have been going on for years. Health issues, psychological problems, recurring family schisms, the death of a parent or even worse, a child, haunts these believers. Like a dripping of water on a rock over time the water etches a pattern of self loathing and puts doubts into their mind about our Father and themselves.

 

 

Copyright © 2009 by Thomas E. Kennedy

 

 

In The Beginning…

This blog is directed to believers in Christ who are struggling or know people who are struggling with major crises in their lives. The theme of this blog, and it is the basis for a book in development, and under copyright, is that things don’t always work out. This runs counter to the mindset of many churches that sugar coat the tribulations that people have by saying “give your problem to the Lord and everything will work out…” While I personally believe that when each of us as believers cross the Jordan and find ourselves home in Heaven for all Eternity, that at that moment everything will have worked out. And that is great, but it doesn’t help deal with the very intense problems that we face both given to us directly by our Heavenly Father but also those that are self created.

We are going to explore all of the writings in both the Old and New Testament to see how our Father has used trials in tribulations with the nations as well as for the individuals themselves. It will paint a picture of the battles that I’ve seen over the years both personally and as a volunteer counselor for the Crystal Cathedrals’ New Hope counseling service that deals with people in crisis, both suicidal and at extreme crisis, as well as my work as the Administrator and Shepherd to One Community’s Share and Care forum, also under the Crystal Cathedral ministry.

A little bit about me. I grew up in California, became a believer at a little Assembly of God church in Stockton 40 years ago, and am Charismatic with two Gifts of the Spirit, for those people interested in that background. I have a Bachelor of Arts in Communications from the University of the Pacific and an MBA from the Claremont Graduate University. I am being trained as a classical pianist and oversee astronomy observatories world wide.

Copyright © 2009 by Thomas E Kennedy