Everyday, our news feed crashes into us with stories of death and destruction. As I write this, the wars in Gaza and the Ukraine still rage. We pray for peace, but nothing seems to change. Things just keep getting worse.
When we pray against evil we face a situation similar to when we pray against death. As with death, in this life evil has not yet been fully or finally defeated. Jesus is Lord, but his rule and reign have not been universally established upon earth. So, as with death, our petitions concerning war, genocide, and atrocity, our prayers against evil, have to be framed eschatologically. For we do know that the lordship of Christ will one day be established:
But each in his own order: Christ, the firstfruits; afterward, at his coming, those who belong to Christ. Then comes the end, when he hands over the kingdom to God the Father, when he abolishes all rule and all authority and power. For he must reign until he puts all his enemies under his feet. (2 Cor. 15.23-25)
For this reason God highly exalted him
and gave him the name
that is above every name,
so that at the name of Jesus
every knee will bow—
in heaven and on earth
and under the earth—
and every tongue will confess
that Jesus Christ is Lord,
to the glory of God the Father. (Phil. 2.9-11)
All our prayers against evil have been answered in Jesus Christ. But until that time when every knee bows in the Kingdom of God desolations are baked into our experience of petitionary prayer. We will pray for wars to cease, but the nations will continue to rage against God and his Anointed (Ps. 2.2).
Taking stock, what I have been suggesting over these last two posts is that most of our desolations in regards to petitionary prayer concern praying against death and evil, and that these desolations concern the "time" of our lives. The time of our petitions, a time when death remains at large and the nations still rage, means that petitionary prayer is inherently desolating.
Simply put, ours is a time when it is very frustrating and disconsoling to be engaged in petitionary prayer. Given the time we are living in we will pray for people and they will die. Every one of them. More, we will pray fervently for wars and atrocities to cease, but evil will roll on. And in the face of all these failed petitions, we can grow weary, angry, and disillusioned. Given this, a proper theology should at least prepare you for the emotional experience, for the weariness, anger and disillusionment. You need to enter the experience of petitionary prayer with eyes wide open, knowing what time it is and what we can expect as a consequence. Otherwise, we, rather naively, invite immature believers into an experience they are, quite frankly, unprepared for and unequipped to handle.
But just as important as preparing us for desolation, a theology of petitionary prayer also highlights the eschatological aspect of God's answers to our prayers. Eschatologically, our prayers against both death and evil have been answered. Our petitions are therefore offered up in future hope. A theology of petitionary prayer prepares us for this mixed experience of both lament and hope.
More on these points in two more posts to come...
