Praying with faith

There is a difference between thinking about a desired outcome and praying for it. Praying involves faith. Jesus spoke about the Pharisee who prayed to himself (Luke 18:11). What is that but thinking out loud?

In modern English pray can mean to ask, meditate or hope. When Jesus spoke about prayer he meant the first. This kind of prayer has an object. No-one (except an unstable person) would request anything from someone out of earshot.

Most Christians believe that God knows everything. That makes prayer easier and more difficult. More difficult because we wonder why he requires us to ask since he already knows what we need or want. Easier because we can talk to him at any time and don't have to articulate our requests perfectly. He is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think (Ephesians 3:20). But will he? Having the power to do something is not the same as actually doing it. He wants us to ask.

The difference between prayers which are always answered and those which are not, is in the faith of the asker. Am I merely talking to myself and others who hear me or do I really believe that I am talking to God? There have been times when I have screamed at him to convince myself that he heard. On other occasions I have known him to hear even if my words were not audible. Somehow talking to him out loud can help one to move from thinking to praying.

Many times I have felt that he was not particularly interested in my prayers. As a rule God does not grant requests motivated by selfishness (James 4:3). However, Jesus taught us to pray for our daily bread. What we may include in that prayer is not always clear, for instance shelter, health, safety etc. Paul went to Jerusalem knowing that it would not be safe (Acts 21:12-14). Yet, on a previous occasion, he had requested prayer for safety (Romans 15:30-31).

It is comforting to know that some prayers offered with little faith are answered nevertheless. There was the man who asked Jesus to help his unbelief (Mark 9:24). Zachariah's request for a son was granted despite his lack of faith (Luke 1:13&20). The church prayed for Peter when he was imprisoned but thought it too good to be true when he was set free by an angel (Acts 12:5&14-15).

Are atheists fools?

Someone put up a billboard which quoted the first verse of Psalm 14: "The fool says in his heart: 'There is no God'."

A passer-by found the message on the board so offensive that he submitted a complaint, saying that the board implied that atheists were stupid. He did not believe in the existence of God but he did not consider himself to be "foolish" or "stupid".

The fact that he was a pilot proves that the passer-by was not dumb. However, a few classes in logic could have helped him interpret the sentence properly. The quoted sentence does not imply that atheists are fools, but the converse, namely that fools are atheists. Therefore only someone claiming to be a fool but not an atheist would have a valid reason to complain about the billboard.

Actually the sentence on the billboard does not do justice to Psalm 14:1 as it was written in Hebrew. Directly translated into English it reads "the fool says in his heart no god". The original language had no upper case letters or punctuation marks. It could therefore also be translated: "The fool says in his heart 'God, I say no to you'."

Whichever translation is accepted as correct, the verse describes character traits of a fool, not an atheist. The Bible ignores atheists, treating them as if they did not exist.