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How Spiritual Disciplines Work: How to Detect Answers to Prayer

The Discipline of Journaling

The last three articles have focused on the nature and importance of spiritual disciplines, and we have investigated some specifics about the disciplines of witnessing and solitude/silence. I want to close this series on spiritual disciplines by taking a look at the importance of identifying and remembering answers to prayer.

In my more than 35 years as one of Jesus' apprentices, I have experienced literally hundreds of specific, detailed answers to prayer which have strengthened my faith considerably. I, along with others, experience unanswered prayer as well, but in all honesty, I (and my family and close Christian friends) have seen enough specific answers to prayer that it is no longer reasonable for me to doubt that prayer actually works.

Of the two tasks — identifying and remembering answers to prayer — the latter is relatively easy to discuss, so I will spend most of my time providing ways to identify answers to prayer.

As for remembering answer to prayer, the most effective way that I have accomplished this is by keeping a prayer journal. The point of this journal has not been to write in it every day, but to record the content (and date) of important prayer requests. When I receive positive answers, I then note the date and circumstances associated with them.

Over the years, I have accumulated an incredible record of God's answers to my prayers, including those times when He answered me in ways different than what I had asked. From time to time, I will look back through this journal, and when I do, my faith is deeply strengthened. This record has been so crucial to me because, if I had never logged these incidents and the incredible, supernatural details surrounding them, they would have been forgotten, leaving me with a much weaker view of prayer's effectiveness.

Help from the Intelligent Design Movement

That said, let's turn to some reflections about recognizing answers to prayer. Interestingly, we can get help in this regard by insights derived from the Intelligent Design movement.

Recently, William Dembski has written a book in which he analyzed cases which validate the inference that some phenomena are the result of purposive, intelligent acts carried out by an agent.¹ Among other things, Dembski analyzes cases in which insurance companies, the police, and forensic scientists must determine whether a death was an accident (no intelligent cause) or brought about intentionally (done on purpose by an intelligent agent).

According to Dembski, whenever three factors are present, these various investigators are rationally obligated to draw the conclusion that the event was brought about intentionally: (1) The event was contingent; that is, even though it took place, it did not have to happen, (2) the event had a small probability of happening, and (3) the event is capable of independent specifiability; that is, a number of features of the event are specified prior to and independent of the event itself taking place.

To illustrate, consider the game of bridge. Now imagine that one of the players is holding a random set of cards — let's call it hand A — while the dealer is holding a perfect bridge hand. Now if that happened, we would immediately infer that, while hand A was not dealt intentionally, the perfect bridge hand was and, in fact, represents a case of cheating on the part of the dealer. Is our suspicion justified? In order to answer this, let's apply the three factors cited above to the situation.

First, neither hand had to happen. There are no laws of nature, logic, or mathematics that necessitate that either hand had to come about in the history of the cosmos. In this sense, each hand and, indeed, the very card game itself, is a contingent event that did not have to take place.

Second, since both hand A and the perfect bridge hand have the same number of cards, each is equally improbable. So the small probability of an event is not sufficient to raise suspicions that the event came about by the intentional action of an agent.

The third criterion, however, provides the factor that does give us a sufficient reason to raise these suspicions. The perfect bridge hand can be specified as special independently of the fact that it happened to be the hand that came about, but the same cannot be said for hand A. Hand A can be specified as "some random hand or other that someone happens to get." Now that specification applies to all hands and does not mark out as special any particular hand that comes about. So understood, A is no more special than any other random deal. But this is not so for the perfect bridge hand. This hand can be characterized as a special sort of combination of cards by the rules of bridge quite independently of the fact that it is the hand that the dealer received. It is the combination of contingency (this hand did not have to be dealt), small probability (this particular arrangement of cards was quite unlikely to have occurred), and independent specifiability (according to the rules, this is a pretty special hand for the dealer to receive) that justifies us in concluding that this is most likely a case of intelligent design; the intelligence behind this design, of course, is that of the dealer.

So, how does this apply to identifying answered prayer?

Application to Recognizing Answered Prayer

Now the same thing takes place in specific answers to prayer. To illustrate, early in my ministry, while attending a seminar in Southern California, I heard a presentation on how to pray in a more specific way.

Knowing that in a few weeks, I would be returning to Colorado to start my ministry at the Colorado School of Mines in Golden with Ray Womack, a fellow Campus Crusade worker, I wrote a prayer request in my prayer notebook — a prayer which was known only to me. I began to pray specifically that God would provide for the two of us a white house that had a white picket fence, a grassy front yard, a close proximity to the campus (specifically, within two or three miles), and a monthly payment that was no more than $130.

I told the Lord that this request was a reasonable one on the grounds that (a) we wanted a place that provided a homey atmosphere for students, was accessible from campus and that we could afford, and (b) I was experimenting with specific prayer and wanted my faith to be strengthened.

I returned to the Golden area and looked for three days at several places to live. I found nothing in Golden and, in fact, I only found one apartment for $135/month about 12 miles from campus. I told the manager that I would take it and she informed me that a couple had looked at the place that morning and had until that afternoon to make a decision. If they didn't want it, then I could move in the next day.

I called late that afternoon and was informed that the couple took the apartment which was the last available one in the complex. I was back to square one. Now remember, not a single person knew that I had been praying for a white house.

That evening, Kaylon Carr (a Crusade friend) called me to ask if I still needed a place to stay. When I said yes, she informed me that earlier that day, she had been to Denver Seminary. While there, she saw a bulletin board on which a pastor in Golden was advertising a place to rent, hopefully to seminary students or Christian workers. Kaylon gave me his phone number, so I called and set up an appointment to meet the pastor at his place at nine the next morning. Well, as I drove up, I came to a white house with a white picket fence, a nice grassy front yard, right around two miles from campus, and he asked for $110 per month rent. Needless to say, I took it, and Ray and I had a home that year in which to minister.

This answer to prayer — along with hundreds of others that my Christian friends and I have seen — was an event that was (1) contingent and did not have to happen according to natural law; (2) very improbable; and (3) independently specifiable (a number of features of the event were specified in my prayer prior to and independent of the event itself taking place).

C O F F E E  S H O P

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How have you seen God answer prayer? Have these criteria been present?

Join the discussion!

Meeting these three criteria are not necessary conditions for being judged to be an action by God (God can answer general prayers that are not too specific), but they do seem to be sufficient, and as such, answers to prayer in my life have increased the rational justification of my confidence in Jesus Christ. And by recording these in my prayer journal, they are an ever-present source of encouragement to me in my life as Jesus' apprentice.²