Does God Really Care Who Wins the Game?

Prayer. To me, this is one of the most unique endeavors a human can undertake. Think about what prayer is...a conversation, often silent, between you and the Creator of the Universe. In the first place, I am amazed that we can even get an audience with God. In your sphere of influence and using your best connections, who is the highest ranking or most famous person you could have a one-on-one conversation with right now? Call the White House and ask to speak to President Obama. Call the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association and tell them that you would like to speak to Billy Graham. You get my point.

God does not, like an annoyed parent around a pestering child, irritatedly say to us OK, OK, what is it? No, he desires to hear from us. All the time. According to the world population clock, as I write these words, the population of our planet is 6,987,718,467....nearly 7 billion people. At this very moment, I wonder how many are having a conversation with God? How can God "hear" and engage in that many conversations simultaneously? Well, He is God and when I stop thinking like He has limitations that we humans have, I can simply be in wonder that He can do anything.

What do you pray about? I know our prayers are not just requests that we make of God. In our prayers, we acknowledge Him for who He is. We express our adoration. Maybe, not often enough, we say how we have fallen short or how we have been disobedient or confess things for which we seek forgiveness. We thank Him for the blessings in our life. We thank Him for what He has done. We thank Him for Christmas and Good Friday and Easter. But, we also spend a lot of our prayer time making requests.

God, heal my friend's grandmother. Lord, help me repair this damaged marriage. Father, let this pregnancy not end like the last two that ended in miscarriage. Help me do my best on this exam...by the way, I need at least a B or I will lose my scholarship. God, protect my cousin who is in Afghanistan.

Many, many years ago, I was asked by a co-worker to play on his church's softball team. In those days, I was a pretty good player and so I agreed. We always had a team prayer prior to the start of the game and I can still vividly remember the coach of the team asking God, in every single one of those pre-game prayers, to give us base hits. ...base hits. And he didn't even qualify it with that often used (but, in my view, unnecessary) caveat..."if that would be Your will." In a world of suffering and war and disease and poverty and hunger and strife and a 50% divorce rate and childhood leukemia, he is asking the God of the Universe for base hits. I'll be honest...that sorta bugged me. Many of us have considered prayers we have heard or even spoken ourselves and thought "God has bigger things to worry about than whether your team wins the game."

Really? If your child came to you and said, Daddy, the thunder scares me. Do you say, honey, I've got a tax return that I need to complete and I also need to finish my presentation for work tomorrow...I don't have time for that and even if I did, being scared of thunder is nonsense. Come back to me when you have something really important to discuss. Mommy, can I have a hug? Can't you see that I am busy right now? Why don't you go watch TV until supper is ready.

God is never too busy. And there is no request from your heart that He does not want to hear. He delights in you and me. He is the Father that has all the time in the world to listen to you. He is the Mother that is never too busy to hold you and hug you and listen to even your most silly concern.

Do you ever make deals with God? God, if You will make this situation turn out the way I want it to, I promise I will ______________. Pretty sure most of us have done that. We ask God to "intervene" in the course of human activity and history and adjust the rudder to turn the ship of inevitability just enough to change the result that is otherwise obvious. When my father-in-law, Ed, was in the latter stage of his cancer, I struggled with what to ask God to do. I wanted a miraculous healing to take place knowing that the doctor's prediction ran counter to that. So, do I pray for healing or do I pray that God will take away his suffering and pain and mercifully let him die? God, please heal him, but, if not, then I ask that you please allow him to not experience any more of this terrible pain. Thinking back, I only asked for two possibilities. What if there was a third? But, in my heartbreak, I was being honest and I think God asks that of us. Tell me what is on your heart...I'll deal with the rest, I think He says. Even when we do not know what to pray...God tells us in Romans 8: 26,27: "In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us through wordless groans. And He who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for God's people in accordance with the will of God."


Ed battled cancer for many years. We prayed and prayed for his outcome with cancer to be different than what actually occurred. But, God was glorified through Ed's ordeal. I shared a story at his funeral:

I want to share one last story. Ed re-entered the hospital 8 days ago and was very sick. On Monday of last week one of his co-workers at Augusta Regional, a good friend, went to visit him. She had been reading her Bible and their conversation turned to that. She had been reading about Noah; and Ed, with oxygen tubes up his nose, morphine and antibiotics running into his arm, began to talk to her about God flooding the earth because of man’s wickedness, but sparing Noah and his family. He went on to explain how God sent His only Son to pay the price for our sin and provide a way for us to be forgiven and enjoy eternal life with Him. Dying of cancer in a hospital bed, Ed led his friend to the Lord and she professed her faith in Jesus Christ.

What if God had answered my prayer the way I asked Him to? Would Ed have had that opportunity to share Jesus Christ with her? We'll never know.

God is glorified through football wins and tragedy, newborns and cancer, triumphs and disasters, graduations and incarcerations. I want my prayers to be honest...if it is on my heart, I want to share it with Him. But in all that I ask for, I always want God to be glorified in the outcome. If that is done by His saying "yes," that is wonderful. If, however, He is glorified through "no" or "not now", then so be it. That's my prayer.

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