Praying for Parking Spaces ??

Christina Holder at the new Breakpoint blog - the Point (great blog by the way - I encourage you to read it if you aren't doing so) has a post called "Praying for Parking Spaces," which is based on a sermon of Lon Solomon this past weekend at McLean Bible Church in McLean, Va.  Apparently, Lon Solomon was trying to refute the principles in Gary Friesen's book Decision Making and the Will of God.  This is well travelled ground here at Jollyblogger.

Way back in May of 2004 Rusty Lopez wrote a post on the subject that got me going (btw - come back to the blogosphere Rusty, we'll gladly take you back).

Then I wrote about it here.

Rusty followed up here.

Parablemania addressed it here.

Rebecca Writes wrote about finding the will of God here and here.

Since that little exchange my friend Keith Plummer entered the blogosphere and has written about the subject here.

I wouldn't be back on the subject except for the fact that these words from Lon Solomon really torqued me off.  Don't worry though, I won't hold Christina responsible, she's just the messenger, although she does seem to endorse what he said.

Per Lon Solomon:

Friesen contends that God is like a lifeguard who watches over His children and expects them to stay within the boundary ropes of his moral law--those principles and commands addressed in the Bible. He expects His children to obey these limits, but inside the boundary ropes, they are free to swim as they please. In other words, Friesen is saying God does not care about our choices for situations that are not specifically addressed in the Bible, such as whom to marry, what house to rent or where to attend college, Solomon says.

In response:

But Solomon says that Freisen’s theory "cheapens God’s role" in our lives. It lessens our dependence on God and goes directly against Jesus' own words in John 15:5, when he said, "For without me ye can do nothing."

Apparently Pastor Solomon then goes on to talk about how God wants to be involved in every detail of our lives, to the point that he prays for parking spaces in Washington, DC.

I can sympathize with the agony of trying to find a parking space in DC, that's why I usually take the Metro when I go.  But this badly misrepresents Friesen.  Solomon makes Friesen out to be a near deist who doesn't care about the details of our lives, and this is not the case.  It's been years since I read Friesen's book but if memory serves me correctly there is nothing in there to suggest that God doesn't care about the details of our lives, it is just that God equips us on a daily basis to make proper decisions. 

Christina gives a list of Scriptural passages that Solomon cited to prove his point that God wants us to pray for parking spaces, but the list completely misses any hint of context or historical redemptive significance in the examples cited.  One example is that Jesus stayed up all night praying before choosing the twelve - that's a matter of huge redemptive historical significance - Jesus was praying on the eve of choosing those who would reconstitute the twelve tribes of Israel - you just can't jump from that praying for a parking space.

Another thing is you don't find examples of this in Scripture.  While we can certainly admire the desire to see God in the details of life, you just don't see this kind of prayer exemplified in Scripture. 

Also, I don't know if Friesen hits this very hard, but the Scripture is very clear about God's revealed will in many places - that we be conformed to the image of Christ, that we carry the cross, that we please Him.  If we are going to pray for things like parking spaces these things must be filtered through the revealed will of God.  For instance, if you really think you need to pray for a parking space, then you ought to filter it through the lense of God's revealed will.  You ought to ask how this contributes to my task of carrying the crosss, of self-denial, how this will conform me to the image of Christ, and so on and so on.

The thing that troubles me the most about this is that it endorses a kind of prayer for personal advantage and convenience.  I may get the plum parking space but if I get it, that means someone else will get a worse parking space.  Given Jesus words of condemnation of Pharisees who want the best seats at the table in Matthew 23, wouldn't that translate to the parking space situation in such a way as to cause us to want to pray that others get the better spots?

I'm saying all of this to argue against what I would call "prayer for personal advantage."  To be honest I don't pray for parking spaces.  I usually go into a parking lot and take whichever space I see first  - sometimes I get the good spots and sometimes I get the spots in the back and later find out that there were better spots I could have gotten.  Either way, it's no big deal.

In the Lord's prayer, Jesus tells us that, when we pray for ourselves, we are to pray for our most basic needs, like food.  He doesn't give us an example of praying for other things which are to our advantage, and certainly not when something to our advantage would put someone else at a disadvantage.

And along those lines I think the biggest concern here is that this admonition to pray about details like parking spaces may take our minds off of bigger things like the kingdom of God.  If the Lord's prayer teaches us anything it teaches us to make the coming of the kingdom of God the primary thing in our prayers.  My fear is that if we get all excited about praying for parking spaces and other assorted whatnot, we're going to lose sight of praying for the coming of the kingdom of God.

And in conclusion, I have nothing against Lon Solomon - I know he's a wonderful, godly man who pastors a great church - I know some folks who go there and the ministry has been great.  Lon Solomon's a greater Christian and pastor than I will ever be, but this one really torqued me off.

Technorati Tags: Religion, Theology, Christian, Christianity, Prayer

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Comments

[Jeremy Pierce]

Did you mean to link to this post?

[David Wayne]

Yep - thanks for the correction. I had just copied and pasted out of my old post on that - forgot you had changed the url.

[Spooh]

Ever read Phillip Jensen's 'Guidance and the Voice of God' - its the same idea as Friesen, just much more manageable length-wise. I read Friesen and Jensen during a time when I was greatly struggling with this whole guidance issue and they turned out to be two of the most liberating books I have ever read. Seek righteousness and leave the parking spaces up to God's providence.

[David Wayne]

Wonderful - thanks for the tip Spooh - that is a problem with Friesen - it's a very long book

[Jeremy Pierce]

I believe Bruce Waltke has a book with a similar point. I've never gotten a chance to look at it, though.

[Diane R]

I pray for parking places all the time and 9 out of ten times get them nearby. So what about the tenth time? I ws actually thinking about this the other day. And this is what came to me. If there are parking places, God can guide me to them. But if there are no parking spaces, then there aren't any. And so what is God going to do? Force someone to leave a store against their will and remove their car so there will be a space? No. God won't do that.

I rest my case...:)

[connie]

It's okay to ask, as long as you remember that sometimes the answer is "no."

Oh, and sometimes He gives me a good parking spot without my asking! It's important to recognize the goodness of God in the little things.

It has been my experience that God is as active in our lives as we permit Him to be-including guiding such decisions as who to marry. If I had been left to my own devices on that one it would not have been pretty!

[Joel Haas]

Bruce Walte - Finding the Will of God: A Pagan Notion?

[GL]

Connie,
You write, "It has been my experience that God is as active in our lives as we permit Him to be-including guiding such decisions as who to marry."

It has been my experience that God is as active in our lives as a Sovereign, loving God can be. I realize that I'm quibbling over words and perhaps it doesn't really matter, but I think the word choice probably does matter. The one who permits is the one with power and/or authority. That's not us when we're discussing interaction with the King.

I think we often fail to recognize the King's activity in our lives, and we fail to submit to the King's revealed will. But I don't think we have the ability to deny permission to the King. He does what He pleases.

[connie]

Gil, forgive my admittedly unclear choice of words. But what I meant was this: How many people submit their choice of a spouse to God? Their choice of career? And so forth...Too many people decide what THEY want and expect God to sanctify it.

Can God use our poor choices and develop His will throughout? Of course. But again,I have found out the hard way it is much better to cooperate with Him in the first place.

He is a God who cares about the small as well as the large issues of our lives. He wants ALL of us. I daresay He doesn't pick what brand of breakfast cereal I should buy, but who knows-perhaps He IS nudging me toward oatmeal instead of sugar frosted whatchamajigs, for healh purposes.

Jesus did only what He saw His Father doing. Probably none of us has quite the same unbroken fellowship with the Father as Jesus, but believe it or not that should be our aim.

And in the process, nothing wrong with a good parking spot once in awhile-because sometimes God just wants to do something nice for a beloved child. Which is what we as believers truly are.

[DLE]

I've always thought Friesen's book to be deficient. The god depicted in the book seems to have his hands tied. He's apparently done working in human history, so he sits back and lets his creatures figure it all out. The miraculous all but disappears in the hands of this kind of god.

But that's not the God of the Bible.

Take one simple for instance: God told Abraham to move. Now one can argue that Abraham didn't know the specifics of that call, and that would comprise the argument that undergirds Friesen's book. But the fact remains that God miraculously broke into the life of Abraham several times and gave the patriarch supernatural insights into the future.

If taken to its logical outcome, Friesen's book makes such an intervention of God into your life and mine impossible. Friesen would deny this, but the natural outcome of a god who does not guide personally must dictate that this god either no longer guides me or no longer guides anyone at all. Both of those explanations, however, either limit the real God or make Him a picker and chooser when it comes to which of His children He truly loves. So much for God not being a respecter of persons!

Does Solomon go too far? Well, the Bible does ask us to pray constantly, so even praying for a parking space would fall into that kind of continuous prayer. Plus, it takes every thought captive by submitting one's life, even in the smallest fragments, to God.

If one doesn't go Solomon's way, then the progression is to the other side: we don't need God at all in our daily living other than to give an imprimatur for everything we decide to do on our own. That makes for an incredibly small god and a very important man.

If we don't expect God to guide, then He won't, just like Jesus could not do any miracles in his home district because no one took him seriously.

[Jeremy Pierce]

God did tell Abraham some specific things, but it happened so very rarely throughout his very long life, with many decades in between sometimes and no further word from God. Keep in mind also that he was one of the more important people in salvation history, and God was announcing hugely important things that would end up as crucial passages in scripture. He also didn't have any scripture of his own, never mind the completed body of revelation we have. In the end, I don't think the fact that God spoke to Abraham says very much about what we should expect.

[Allen]

David,

Many thanks for the comment over at the Point. I hope my post did not seem improperly flippant about the matter in question: to what degree we are to make requests of God regarding inconsequential matters. It is certainly true that much of the Church does not pay enough attention to doctrine, and we end up with something like “the theology of my predisposition” which has real, negative consequences. But sometimes I fear that many of us swing too far the other way, such that we have certainty about relatively tangential matters about which the Bible hardly seems concerned, and we end up creating theology that requires considerable – and dicey – extrapolation from the Bible to support. Not only do we have such absolute certainty, but we subsequently castigate anyone who doesn’t reach the same conclusions we do. As a result, we create divisions in the Church that simply need not be.

Frankly, the whole Calvinism vs Open Theology vs Neither/Mystery debate is one such matter, in my opinion. This question about how much God is concerned with our daily, amoral questions is another such matter to me. But yet we the Church – or at least certain segments thereof – become overwrought about these issues, call one or another theology’s subscribers or teachers “heretics”, threaten to throw one or another out of evangelical organizations … for what? Why do we do this? Pride, perhaps? Regardless of the reason, when we read John 17, don’t such matters seem a bit silly in comparison to the critical need to maintain Unity?

Of course there are matters of primary doctrine over which we must be ready to divide the Church, if we cannot agree. There are many others that deserve no such angst. I submit that “praying for parking” fits in the latter category. To be fair, neither you nor anyone else has said “let’s divide the Church over whether or not we can pray for parking.” I guess I don’t even see the point of having an argument though…

That said, theology really isn’t my beat, nor do I intend to make it so. But at least this should provide some understanding behind my earlier response.

I should also point out that I have read some of your own posts in which you too express your conviction that we oftentimes don’t play well together over matters of theology, and that we should avoid needless disagreement (the post that comes to mind was speaking about Reformed theology). So I am not at all putting you in the category of those who rail against others unnecessarily over matters of theology. I simply thought that your concern over Christina’s post was not entirely warranted.

[David Wayne]

Allen - that's great and thanks for bringing the discussion over here. I hope my post didn't come across too strong because I don't want to accuse Lon Solomon of being a heretic - as I said, I know he's a greater man than I. I'm hoping this is received over at The Point as a constructive debate.

This just hit a hot button of mine is all. I do think we are awash in individualism and trivialities in evangelicalism so I fear that we often have a self-centered faith that is obsessed with bringing God into our world in such a way that we forget that God is constantly about the business of getting us out of our world into His.

Again, thanks for the discussion and please convey to any of your friends over at The Point that I offer this in the spirit of constructive debate and beg forgiveness where I have come off throwing stones.

[Allen]

David,

No problems whatsoever - none at all. Honestly, we're all big fans. And the humility in your approach has been evident to all of us. Great discussion - we look forward to many more.

It looks like my post on The Point acknowledging your comment and directing folks over here won't get released until the morning. Just FYI.

All the best,

Allen

[DLE]

Jeremy,

But you are just as important in God's plan as anyone else save for Jesus. We sell ourselves short when we think that God had big plans for the patriarchs, but not for you and me. That sells God short, too. Any servant of the Lord is capable of doing as much as he is able to accept from God.

We also forget that the Holy Spirit dwells in us at all times, something the patriarchs did not possess. This is the purchase of Christ for those of us in the New Covenant. If anything, we should be hearing more from the Lord now that he dwells in us, not less. That is the fruit of a life guided by the Spirit. Anything less is not Christianity.

[Patrick]

James Petty's book, Step By Step(P&R), is an excellent read on this topic.

[Jeremy Pierce]

DLE, you are right, but you are talking about intrinsic value. In terms of instrumental value, certain people, certain periods of time, certain events, and so on are more important than others in terms of their influence in salvation history. God does speak directly to people in scripture most often in such circumstances. The more important point is that Abraham went long periods of time (i.e. several decades at a time) without hearing anything from God, and this is without having any scripture to guide him. How much more should we consider scripture sufficient to guide us into everything necessary for life and godliness. If we had such an attitude, we would appreciate other ways God might speak more fully, because it is special. I think too often we just expect scripture not to be sufficient, and then we wonder why we haven't heard from God in some special way.

[simon]

The opening chapter of Terence Tiessen, "Providence and Prayer" (Downers Grove, Ill: InterVarsity, 2000, good book to read) used this same question to start his discussion. I have not finished the book but I think in many discussions about the will of God far too many people took a far too individulistic view (which I am presumming has to do with their soteriology) which eventually led to more or less a subjective decision process. I have suspicious with this line of reasoning.

[Anyone Anywhere]

Wouldn't God be spending his time better attending to suffering and hungry souls rather than some selfish egomaniac wanting a better parking spot? With billions of people on Earth, it would only make sense that He prioritize prayers. Your need to walk a little less (even though you're probably overweight and need it) would fall somewhere down with the little girl praying for a new Barbie doll.

[Anyone Anywhere]

Wouldn't God be spending his time better attending to suffering and hungry souls rather than some selfish egomaniac wanting a better parking spot? With billions of people on Earth, it would only make sense that He prioritize prayers. Your need to walk a little less (even though you're probably overweight and need it) would fall somewhere down with the little girl praying for a new Barbie doll.