Unanswered prayers

It’s hard to explain unanswered prayers. We pray and pray and pray some more, and yet the cancer doesn’t go away, the job doesn’t come, the relationship never heals. Then at the same time, we hear stories of inexplicable healing: “God answered our prayers!” Someone less qualified than you gets a job: “It was an answer to prayer.”

It’s easy to get mad at God about unanswered prayer. Why them? Why not me? Did they pray harder? It isn’t fair.

Recently a family friend of ours who didn’t smoke and ran 5 miles a day passed away after a several-year bout with lung cancer. Her initial prognosis gave her only months. Yet, what ultimately killed her were complications from a lung transplant. The light at the end of the tunnel that was to finally bring life killed her – while hundreds, if not thousands, of people prayed for her. It isn’t fair.

Two years ago my step-brother and his wife had their first child – a beautiful baby boy. He was born with an underdeveloped heart, lungs, kidneys and liver. He underwent who-knows-how-many surgeries. As soon as the doctors thought they had one thing under control, something else in his body would fail. With more people than I can count praying for him, he never left the hospital. 77 days. It isn’t fair.

And I’m not going to downplay those events. I don’t understand them. I can’t even begin to know why God seems to answer some prayers but ignore others. I probably never will on this side of heaven.

It’s easy to get mad at God about unanswered prayer. And not just in those extreme life-and-death situations, but in everyday life. But I know this: prayer is two-sided. It involves listening to God far more than it does speaking to God. At least it should. And if prayer goes both directions, then where does the tally lie on unanswered prayers? Who has left more prayers unanswered? God? Or us? I would venture a guess that I’ve left far more of God’s prayers for me unanswered than he has mine. We get angry at God when he doesn’t answer our prayers. How does he feel when we don’t answer his? While that doesn’t make them any easier, doesn’t make it any more “right,” maybe unanswered prayer isn’t so unfair after all.

 

Why I’m Weird

Last week there was a training conference for our state in Bozeman. While there were several people from this part of the state going, they were all females. And all of our vehicles only seat two people. So I had to tell my boss that I wasn’t willing to carpool and that I would drive myself.

Which eventually got around to his boss which resulted in me having to write a statement describing why I’m weird like that. Here’s that statement:

Recently a situation arose in which it would have been practical for me to carpool with a female employee. I was unwilling to do so, however, because I have set boundaries in my life which will not allow me to spend time alone with a woman other than my wife.

The issue is less one of “right and wrong” as much as it is an issue of wisdom. The scripture says to “be very careful…how you live – not as unwise, but as wise” (Eph 5:15).

I value my marriage. I fully intend to be true and faithful to my wife for the rest of my life. I never plan on having an inappropriate relationship with another woman. Here’s what I know, though: I could.

One study revealed that between 50 and 60% of married men engage in extramarital sex at some point during their relationship.1 Yet around 90% of men believe that adultery is morally wrong2; only 8% of men say that they would have an affair if they knew they wouldn’t get caught3. Somewhere in there exists a disconnect.

Because I value my marriage and because I understand our human nature, I intentionally live my life with moral margin to protect me and my family from moral failure. We all have boundaries which we set, or are set for us. Legal boundaries, cultural boundaries, moral boundaries. Yet at the same time our culture and our human nature drive us to push up against those boundaries.

When the speed limit is 65, nobody goes 57 (nobody under the age of 70 anyway). When you were a teenager and your parents told you to be in by eleven, nobody walked through the door at 10:20. You came in at 11:00 or 11:15. When we’re on a diet and counting calories, nobody leaves 300 calories on the table. But when it’s the speed limit or counting calories, there are no huge consequences if you go past your limits. But when moral boundaries are crossed, there are lasting consequences. Marriages dissolve. Kids grow up only seeing their dads every other weekend. Emotional scars form that last a lifetime.

That’s why I set my boundaries well below the point where there are lasting consequences if I go over them. Scripture also commands us to “flee from sexual immorality” (1 Cor 6:18). It’s for this reason there are a number of situations I have pre-decided that I simply will not allow myself to be in. Among these is that I will not be alone with a woman other than my wife. I will not ride in a car alone with a woman. I will not eat a meal alone with a woman. Approximately 62% of the men that have an affair are unfaithful with someone they work with.2 And far too often the affair starts over something as innocent as a business lunch together or riding to a conference together. While I am certainly willing and able to work with members of the opposite sex – both employees and producers – I’m not going to put myself in a position where I can be tempted. I’m going to have intentionally set boundaries which will keep me out of these situations. And if that means I have to turn down a lunch invitation from a female coworker or I have to drive a separate vehicle or ask another person to be present at a meeting, then that’s what I’m going to do to protect my marriage.

As I said before, it’s not truly a matter of “right and wrong” as much a matter of wisdom. Is there anything wrong with eating lunch alone with a woman other than my wife? No. Is there anything wrong with riding in the car with a woman? No. It’s not necessarily a “sin.” It’s just incredibly unwise for someone who values his marriage. The statistics prove it. And I believe we’re commanded to live wisely.

1 (Atwood & Schwartz, 2002 – Journal of Couple & Relationship Therapy).

2 http://www.menstuff.org/issues/byissue/infidelitystats.html

3 http://www.divorcepeers.com/stats31.htm

4 (Glass, S. (2003) Not just friends: Protect your relationship from infidelity and heal the trauma of betrayal. New York: The Free Press.)

 

I ate this last week.

That is all.

 

Mirror neurons just changed my life

I just watched a nearly 8 minute clip on www.ted.com on the science of what are called mirror neurons.

The human brain is filled with 100 billion neurons, each of which makes several thousand contacts with other neurons located in its vicinity.  Mirror neurons are a small percentage of neurons which don’t control any action of our own, but rather react to the similar action being performed by another human being.

For instance, in the motor cortex of the brain, a small group of neurons are responsible for the actions which we perform.  For instance, if I want to throw a baseball, the motor cortex neurons will fire a signal which will cause my arm to move in the action I desire.  Mirror neurons, on the other hand, fire when I see someone else perform that same action.  Essentially, these neurons are performing a virtual reality simulation of the action that I’m seeing someone else perform.

On the other hand, there is a region of the brain called the samatosensory cortex, which is responsible for responding to touch.  This is the region which feels pressure, heat, cold, etc.  Likewise, there are mirror neurons in the samatosensory cortex.  When we see someone being touched, mirror neurons fire in our brain that send a signal that we are being touched.  The reason we don’t feel that touch, however, is because sensors in the skin fire back to the brain simultaneously letting it know that it’s not actually being touched.

This is where it gets crazy though.  If you remove or anesthetize the arm, for instance, so that it’s incapable of sending those signals back to the brain, when you see someone else being touched in that arm, you will quite literally feel the sensation that you’re seeing them experience.  Without the skin’s signals being fired back to the brain, mirror neurons quite literally dissolve the barrier between you and another human being.

We are very literally neurologically connected to every other human being with whom we come in contact.

If that’s not an argument that life isn’t meant to be lived in isolation, I don’t know what is. Over and over again scripture commands us to live our lives in communion with one another.  Galatians 6:2, James 5:16, 1 Peter 4:9, all of 1 John…  the list goes on.

The amazing thing about this is that we’re actually hard-wired to live this way.  It’s in our neurology.  Yet so often we go to great lengths to avoid it.  We need to get back to the way God designed us, both physiologically and spiritually.  Dissolve the barrier.

 

Google enters the smartphone market

Google is expected to unveil its own smartphone, the Nexus One, today.  From the reviews I’ve seen, there’s nothing particularly revolutionary about this phone.  In fact, it seems to pretty much be the same as every other smartphone on the market.

Yet, at the same time, I still find myself subconsciously expecting that there will, indeed, be something truly great about this phone.  Why?  Because I trust the Google brand.  They have a history of putting out revolutionary products.  They’ve earned my respect.  So even when something comes out that appears rather bland on the surface, I still have some level of trust in what they’re doing.

On the other hand, the Church has the most revolutionary offering of all time. Yet when many people hear it, they’re still skeptical.  Why?  Trust.  The Church hasn’t earned the trust of the outside world.  If anything, they’ve earned distrust.  The Christian Brand carries a label.  It often carries with it a negative cognitive recognition in the mind of those outside the faith.

So just as we trust Google’s unrevolutionary product based on their reputation, so we tend to mistrust the Church’s revolutionary message based on its reputation.

The question is, how do we change that?