On My Knees: Rebuilding our confidence in prayer

by Chris Band

God’s knowledge of the eventual outcome didn’t therefore arise from a divine predetermination of Moses’ action but rather from God knowing what Moses would freely choose to do in that moment . If Moses hadn’t interceded as he did, then God’s knowledge of the event would have been different. God’s foreknowledge thus had no influence on Moses’ action, nor did it in any way undermine the authenticity of the choice that Moses had to make.

Though co-eternal with the Father, Jesus fully entered into the human experience of time. And we see that his divine knowledge of the past and the future did not invalidate his experience of the present.

What all these incidents make clear is that biblical history is not a straight line but is rather a meandering route, because God’s actions are in part responsive to us. What is also clear, wonderfully, is that his purposes will ultimately be fulfilled, just as surely as the rivers reach the sea.

But, as Polkinghorne states: God’s perfection is not the static holding of the topmost metaphysical peak, but it lies in the total love of his unfailing action. It is the perfection that belongs to life and not to lifelessness.4

An unmoving watch may have its place in a timeless universe, but it is all but useless in a world where the seconds tick by. In the same way, we might rightly question what comfort there would be in journeying through life with a God who is continually unable or unwilling to respond, in real time, to the desires expressed in our prayers. God in his power could have chosen to relate to us in such a way, but his love has embraced a different path.

And God’s ultimate purpose for us, which is also unchanging, is that his divine nature might be recreated within us. To this end he desires to draw us ever closer to his Son. For those who are already Christians we call this movement “sanctification”; for non-Christians we may call it “mission”. But the direction is the same, ever Christward.

All who are familiar with satnav technology are well aware that there is usually an optimal route for reaching a particular destination. If we choose to ignore the directions and deviate from the ideal route, it doesn’t switch itself off in disgust but recalculates the journey to find the new route, starting from our current location. In the same way, God doesn’t write us off or force us out of the driving seat when, ignoring him, we steer our own way through life. He takes us on from where we are.