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I have found that faith in prayer is something that (for me) needs to be based in reality. What I mean about this is, every day I walk across my floor without even thinking it will be there because, well it always has been there and my 'faith' knows it will be there tomorrow. When I HOPE for something, I may not have faith it will be there, but I wish it was. You get faith by seeing something manifest itself into reality, IMO. But what if, one day, I begin to walk across the floor and an earthquake happens and the floor is no longer there? I would "lose" my faith, wouldn't I? To make the step from hope to faith is a heueueuege leap, and it requires the knowledge that it WILL happen.
I always found it interesting when Jesus' friend, Thomas ("Doubting Thomas") did not believe that Jesus had come back from the dead. Always sermons and examples are made about Thomas for his lack of faith. But when you read the story of when Thomas encounters Jesus, Jesus did something quite curious. He invited Thomas to put his hands on the wounds to see that they were real. He said in essence, "Check it out Thomas, see for yourself whether or not this is real..." Yes Jesus did turn to the people with him and say it would be wonderful for people who were not in Thomas' place to believe without seeing what Thomas had seen. But Jesus also seemed to understand that in order to believe, most of us have to see it for ourselves or we cannot have the faith it will happen.
And this is for a good reason IMO. How many wing nut friends do you know who believe in the end times and just 'know' it will happen? Even though the end times idea was begun by 19th century preachers, and really is not something thought of by early Christians in the way the 19th century theologians think it just IS going to happen.
If you read the story of Jonah, you might come to a different conclusion about prophecy and what it means. The story of Jonah was meant as an allegory, a passing on of wisdom, it does not matter to me if it is a historical account or not. The story of Jonah is about a man who ran from his call to talk about the consequences of some people's behavior in Nineveh (interestingly this is in Iraq). He goes through a hellish storm while fleeing, gets thrown overboard, and gets swallowed by a whale. When he is finally thrown up on the beach, he decides perhaps he had better prophecy as he was called to do in the first place. Again Jonah is used by religion to point out his lack of faith.
This is where the story usually ends in Sunday School, but it is *not* the end of the story! What happens next is very significant because Jonah continues on to prophecy to all the people until he encounters the king. When he tells the king what is about to happen to Nineveh, a miracle happens. The king listens! He realizes the behavior of his people and himself is not good. So the king orders that the entire country change their ways and mourn for their bad behavior. So Nineveh was saved. But then, Jonah was mad! He had made a fool of himself, he had gone through hell, for what? Now God was going to save the city and make a liar out of him! So Jonah goes out into the desert to sulk.
If the 'kings' of the world would put aside their greed and use their power to make things better for everyone, then maybe we would never have to face an end. The end is the consequences of their *not* listening to what they should be doing. More frightening to me are the people who are busy MAKING the end of the world happen because they foolishly believe the inevitable end of the world, is "God's Word". How scary to see people who pretend their avarice, warmongering, and their selfish ways are somehow doing God's will! As it was for Jonah and the king of Nineveh. That king could have acted the same way as we see our modern day leaders behaving and then yes, we WILL encounter global warming, poverty, war, and starvation.
So praying for our enemies might be a way of putting our hopes into action, thus creating faith. I hope that some 'king' somewhere will listen and then better things are to come. I am not sure my philosophy is right, but it works for me, especially since praying for good often brings about good ~ though not always in the way I had pictured it. Many would say having faith that the world will get better is unrealistic ~ and to be honest, when I look around me at the way our leaders are leading and the people follow, I have to say, yes, it looks like having any faith that anyone in power would listen, is folly all right. I can imagine this is the way Jonah felt too when he faced a powerful king who might take this dire message as an insult and kill Jonah, lol. Then I have to have the faith that, even though it is not the way I think it should be, it WILL be better with prayer, starting like a stone dropped into water with my tiny circle and then spreading to the rest of the universe.
The point to me of the story of Jonah and Thomas is that having faith means not believing in some predestined outcome so much as knowing whatever outcome there is, will be made into good. Our prayers will help this along the way, as we use our God-shaped Love to help form the Universe into something better than it was. I think the 'end of the world' is like anything set into motion in physics ~ "for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction..." It is about the changing of hearts, not about something that is destined to happen.
My 2 cents
Love,
Cat In Seattle
Cat In Seattle
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