Prayer

And yet, the man who spoke these has a point - these kids were literally praying when they were shot. So we have to ask, does prayer even work? Is God even good?

This is what we wrestle with most in the world. In Christian theology, we call this "theodicy" - the problem of evil in the world in the face of the existence of a good God. 

If God is so good, why are our lives still broken? If God is so good, why does evil seem to win? If God is so good...

Why do children get shot even while they are actively praying? 

The God that I serve - the God that I love and the God that I know loves me - is not a talisman. He's not some good luck charm. He's not some rabbit's foot that I carry around with me, some necklace that I rub my fingers on to ward off the spirits. 

That's what I think the world doesn't understand about real faith - it's got more substance to it than the world wants to believe. It's got more soul. It's not some magic potion or some magic words or some magic place. The faith that I have doesn't build a barrier between me and the world, it doesn't change my life in an instant, it doesn't protect me from the things that everyone else has to deal with by virtue of being a fallen human being in a broken world. 

God doesn't make my life milk and honey; He takes me to a land flowing with milk and honey. 

He takes me through the wilderness, across the sea, over the mountains, around the enemies, over the river and through the fortified walls to a place where...guess what...the land doesn't just flow the way that the world taunts that we'd want it to. We still have to work for it. 

There's milk there, but you have to grab hold of the udder to get any. There's honey, but you have to harvest it. There's wine, but you have to press the grapes. There's grain, but you have to thresh it. There is fruit from these trees that give us life, but we still have to go pick it. 

God doesn't just walk His people into a life of full provision and no effort; this abundant life He's given us, we still have to live it. 

And that means that sometimes, there are mountains. Sometimes, there are wildernesses. Sometimes, the water has to come from a rock and the quail has to fall from the sky and we have to look around at the dew in the morning and ask, "What is it?" (manna) It means that sometimes, the fruit we pick will be rotten on the inside, no matter how perfect it looked. It means that sometimes, the grapes will be sour and the grain will be weak and the udder will be dry. 

Because that's the world we're living in. We're surrounded by the things God wants to give us, but He doesn't just hand them to us. 

So to claim that this God should somehow make our lives shiny and perfect and protected from all the bad stuff in the world, that's not how it works. Prayer isn't superstition. It's not magic. 

It's love. 

And that's far, far better.