If right now you are in a situation where you are being asked to wait, or you are in a situation where it seems like God is turning down your prayers, you are lacking some information. Jesus will always give you what you would have prayed for if you knew everything He knows.
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I like that quote! Thanks for posting..exactly what I needed reminded of during this waiting time for me.
Tim Keller just has a way of saying things that is helpful. Many times they are things we may know, but the way he phrases it make the truth more practical.
So if I knew what Jesus knows, and the answer was to be “NO”, then I should pray for “YES” anyhow, since “Jesus will always give you what you would have prayed for if you knew everything He knows”.
Jesus himself knew the answer was to be “NO” and yet he prayed anyhow, because prayer is NOT about getting our wishes but IS about God perfecting us as he did Jesus.
Heb 5:7 “Who in the days of his flesh, having offered up prayers and supplications with strong crying and tears unto him that was able to save him from death, and having been heard for his godly fear, though he was a Son, yet learned obedience by the things which he suffered; and having been made perfect, he became unto all them that obey him the author of eternal salvation….
Jesus was not “lacking some information” which allowed him mistakenly to pray about letting the cup pass. (Surely Tim Keller is not an open theist which claims ‘God does not know the future’)
In fact Jesus was heard even though the answer was “NO”. He was perfected in the asking and by suffering a “NO”!
Don,
While what you say is true in the prayer of Christ, you are dealing with the exception. However, even in Christ God’s refusal to answer Christ’s prayer was the best thing that ever happened to the world!
In the context of trusting God in our prayer life, I believe Keller still makes a wonderful point for the believer. God delights in giving good gifts to his children. If you are a child and it seems God is withholding good gifts, there is a reason that you must not understand or be able to see at that point. Never doubt God though, He is always, in every situation, working all things for the good of those who are called according to his purposes.
Andy, I am trying to address two different issues: Logic and Exegesis
First, the illogic of the premise, “Jesus will always give you what you would have prayed for if you knew everything He knows”.
If I knew everything he knows (which would make me omniscient) two possibilities exist:
a) I should pray for and thereby obtain whatever I want since “Jesus will ALWAYS give….” even though at first the answer was “NO” but now becomes “YES” if the premise is true
b) I should not pray for what will not be granted, which negates the premise
This is a problem of logic. If Tim had said OFTEN or USUALLY or OCCASIONALLY then I could flip off the “inconsistency switch” regarding the premise. But ALWAYS forces us to examine the premise. According to the premise, omniscience KNOWING the answer to be “NO” is the sufficient cause to obtain “YES”, which conflicts with knowing the answer to be “NO”, unless one allows that, “God changed his mind”, or “Prayer changes things”. (perhaps another topic!)
I quoted Hebrews 5:7 to offer an example that disproves the premise that having omniscience itself gains whatever one asks.
Jesus knew all that the Father knew. One could suppose that at the time of his passion he did not know everything (a supposition I reject). He knew God’s will to be “NO” and prayed anyhow. He was not a hyper-Calvinist.
If this event were an exception that indeed did bring about the best good for the world of lost sinners, then what principle says that our experience however will not also be an exception? What text? Paul got a definite “NO” because his affliction was to magnify God’s grace (II Cor. 9:12). Like it did for Jesus, Paul’s “NO” changed him. “Most gladly, therefore, I will rather boast about my weaknesses..”
Secondly, the premise is a-Biblical.
What text(s) does Tim appeal to in order to validate the premise, “Jesus will always give you what you would have prayed for if you knew everything He knows”? Isn’t this speculation?
Instead we find directives for us to persevere in prayer, along with limits to what we should know:
Luke 18:1-8 “And he spake a parable unto them to the end that they ought always to pray, and not to faint… and yet he is longsuffering over them” (causing us to wait)
Isaiah 64:4 “For from of old men have not heard, nor perceived by the ear, neither hath the eye seen a God besides thee, who worketh for him that waiteth for him.”
Deut 29:29 “The secret things belong unto Jehovah our God; but the things that are revealed belong unto us and to our children for ever, that we may do all the words of this law.”
To wrap up. We are to pray-on anyhow, because prayer is NOT only about getting our wishes but IS about God perfecting us as he did Jesus and Paul.
I agree entirely with your last sentence! God is invested in the Christian’s life and future.
Our ignorance is not a reason to comfort ourselves that God is working a plan when it seems He has crossed our purposes. There are general principles that we know that get us through the dark times and times of waiting. We can encourage each other in trusting the character of God and his promises.
I Peter 5:6 “Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God, that he may exalt you in due time; casting all your anxiety upon him [in prayer], because he careth for you.”
Isaiah 49:13 “Sing, O heavens; and be joyful, O earth; and break forth into singing, O mountains: for Jehovah hath comforted his people, and will have compassion upon his afflicted. But Zion said, Jehovah hath forsaken me, and the Lord hath forgotten me. Can a woman forget her sucking child, that she should not have compassion on the son of her womb? yea, these may forget, yet will not I forget thee. Behold, I have graven thee upon the palms of my hands; thy walls are continually before me.
Reasoning from the greater to the lesser, Paul declares, “He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not also with him freely give us all things? Romans 8:32
Don,
What you are dealing with may be true, I believe you have simply missed the point of Dr. Keller’s statement.
This quote has to do with Trusting the Good and Sovereign hand of God as one of his children, rather than what we should or should not pray about.