POISONED PRAYER: The tragic results of not reversing the law of cause and effect

I've had a particularly large amount of feedback from last month's article about the serious consequences of not realizing that in the "spiritual" order, the law of cause and effect works in reverse; in short, that the effect has to come before the cause. This was powerfully expressed by Jesus in the heart of his teaching on prayer in Mark 11.34: When you pray for something believe it is already yours and it shall be so..."

A lot of disappointed hopes, shattered dreams and human tragedy hover around the failure to realize this basic dynamic. Many years ago in Ireland I knew a beautiful woman, happily married with a wonderful husband and young family. In any scheme of assessment this lady would certainly have qualified as a "spiritual" person of a very high order, conscientious in passing on the highest ideals and behavior that she knew. Yet, at the age of thirty-three she developed breast cancer and died, leaving behind a desolate family.

Moving on

This past Tuesday I received a telephone call at 6:05am. My wife answered as I heard her immediately break down into tears crying, "Oh no, oh no, oh no!" Our dear friend’s 22 year old son was killed in a car accident. He was driving home from a church meeting and was blind-sided by a young woman driving a car traveling 90mph. He was killed instantly. There were allegations that the girl driving the car was under age and was heavily intoxicated. The greatest fear of every parent had occurred; they would have to bury their child.

I flew out with two other friends to be with them during this unimaginable time. Our plane landed a bit late and we arrived at the funeral home as my friend was speaking to a standing crowd of 500 plus people. Her words resonate heavily in my heart as I write this column. "We have to find a way to move on, to find a purpose, to find meaning in our lives once again." She spoke from a place of knowing and seemed to recognize that this type of experience could not have "just happened" by a stroke of bad luck…that her son who had just graduated from college and was preparing to go to medical school was randomly killed by a drunk driver.