The Objective Reality of Answered Prayer

Now what is synchronicity? It is simply a fifty dollar word coined by a former disciple of Sigmund Freud, named Carl G. Jung, which simply means “a meaningful coincidence.”

“Syn” is a language piece from the Indo-European language which means “together with,” and “chronos” is the Greek word for “time.” A synchronicity, then, is when two or more things happen to happen at the same time.

Now why did that concern Jung? Why a fifty dollar word for something that can happen all the time? Well, Jung noticed that, contrary to the way Isaac Newton said the world worked, there are things that happen together that seem like they cause one another, but do not.

In the world according to Isaac Newton, when things happen, it’s because one thing causes another to happen. Isaac Newton’s world is the world of the billiard table. If a billiard ball moves, it’s because either someone has struck it with a pool cue, or because another billiard ball that was already set in motion has struck it. You can even have a “break” situation where one moving billiard ball causes all the others to start moving.

The faith of Isaac Newton is that if we see things “happen together,” it is because one caused the other to happen, and that if we investigate the physical world deeply enough, we will find out exactly how. This is the faith Isaac Newton bequeathed to the modern world, which is called “science.”

Jung’s contribution was to bring back into the notice of modern minds the fact that this is not the whole truth. Jung noticed that there were things that happen together in time that do not cause each other. At least not according to Newton’s billiard ball model. Here are some examples of the kinds of things Jung had in mind, taken from various Internet sources (And yes, I know some of these sites are pretty weird, and that Jung was a pretty weird bird himself. I will get to that later):

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synchronicity

“A well-known example of synchronicity involves plum pudding. It is the true
story of the French writer Emile Deschamps who in 1805 is treated to some plum
pudding by the stranger Monsieur de Fontgibu. Ten years later, he encounters
plum pudding on the menu of a Paris restaurant, and wants to order some, but the
waiter tells him the last dish has already been served to another customer, who
turns out to be M. de Fontgibu. Many years later in 1832 Emile Deschamps is at a
diner, and is once again offered plum pudding. He recalls the earlier incident
and tells his friends that only M. de Fontgibu is missing to make the setting
complete, and in the same instant the now senile M. de Fontgibu enters the room
by mistake.”

http://www.flowpower.com/What%20is%20Synchronicity.htm

“Earl was trying to track down an out-of-print book called The Adventures of
Marco Polo. He scoured two used book stores in New York City, had no success,
and caught a taxi to a third. The cab driver was unusually chatty, and during
their conversation, Earl glanced at his license on the dashboard. His name?
Marco Polo!”

http://www.ropi.net/st/personal_stories.htm

“I had a man in my office and he gave me a document that said "Lancashire and
Cheshire Institute". It was a sort of certificate. My wife is from Cheshire and
I'm from Lancashire so I asked him, "Are you Lancashire or Cheshire. (This all
takes place in Australia I must add.) He says he is from Cheshire. There are few
big towns in Cheshire, it’s mainly little villages. My wife Wendy asked him
where he was from and he named a tiny village that has maybe four houses. Wendy
said her sister had lived in Primrose Cottage and he said "so did I" It turned
out that this man used to play with Wendy's sister was he was a kid. Now - there
are 6 billion people in the world and we are 12,000 miles from England. So what
are the chances. And what if I HADN'T asked about Lancashire or Chesire. Or if I
hadn't requested to see his educational papers. It is all quite weird. These are
just three of many many things like this that have happened.. I have no idea
what is happening, but am convinced that there is something going on that we
don't yet understand. Wayne Smith - Perth, Australia”

Now to be sure, these coincidences are not very meaningful (except, perhaps, to the people they happened to), but that last one gives us the reason they are so noticeable. It’s the matter of the odds of the coincidence happening. That is very noticeable, and it seems to give the lie to the idea that Newton’s explanation of the world is the whole one. Indeed, as Meg Lundstrom writes, “Often synchronicities are simply a lark, a wink from the cosmos.” They are little winks that tell us our universe is not all Newtonian.

Now, what has synchronicity to do with answered prayer and the Bible? Very simply, answered prayer in the Bible, and answered prayer in our own lives, is a special case of synchronicity that is infinitely more meaningful. Take the case James sites:

James 5:16-18
16 Confess your faults one to another, and pray one for another, that ye may be healed. The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much.
17 Elias [ Elijah ] was a man subject to like passions as we are [ he was an ordinary human being like we are ], and he prayed earnestly that it might not rain: and it rained not on the earth by the space of three years and six months.
18 And he prayed again, and the heaven gave rain, and the earth brought forth her fruit.
(KJV)

Droughts are not uncommon. They happen all the time. And praying happens all the time too. But when Elijah the prophet of God prayed, a drought began that lasted three and a half years, and which ceased when he prayed again. This was a sychronicity. And it was a mightily meaningful one because it testified to the one true God of communication, time, and history. It is He who both winks, and stares unblinkingly, at the children of men, and not “the cosmos.”

Do synchronicities still happen to those who know the one, true God? You betcha. Take, for example, George Muller. Here are a series of Internet links that give some slices of what his ministry was like (his total story is absolutely fascinating).

http://www.wholesomewords.org/biography/biorpmueller.html

“George Müller (1805-1898) was a Prussian-born English evangelist and
philanthropist. A man of faith and prayer, he established orphanages in Bristol
and founded the Scriptural Knowledge Institution for Home and Abroad.”

http://www.wholesomewords.org/biography/bmuller2.html

“Among the greatest monuments of what can be accomplished through simple faith
in God are the great orphanages covering thirteen acres of ground on Ashley
Downs, Bristol, England. When God put it into the heart of George Muller to
build these orphanages, he had only two shillings (50 cents) in his pocket.
Without making his wants known to any man, but to God alone, over a million,
four hundred thousand pounds ($7,000,000) were sent to him for the building and
maintaining of these orphan homes. When the writer first visited them, near the
time of Mr. Muller's death, there were five immense buildings of solid granite,
capable of accommodating two thousand orphans. In all the years since the first
orphans arrived the Lord had sent food in due time, so that they had never
missed a meal for want of food.”

“Greatest of all Muller's undertakings was the erection and maintenance of the
great orphanages at Bristol. He began the undertaking with only two shillings
(50 cents) in his pocket; but in answer to prayer and without making his needs
known to human beings, he received the means necessary to erect the great
buildings and to feed the orphans day by day for sixty years. In all that time
the children did not have to go without a meal, and Mr. Muller said that if they
ever had to go without a meal he would take it as evidence that the Lord did not
will the work to continue. Sometimes the meal time was almost at hand and they
did not know where the food would come from, but the Lord always sent it in due
time, during the twenty thousand or more days that Mr. Muller had charge of the
homes.”

http://chi.gospelcom.net/GLIMPSEF/Glimpses/glmps036.shtml

“The history of the Bristol orphanages is page after page of answered prayer.
Nothing was too small to bring to the Lord in prayer, for nothing was too small
to be under God's care. In his prayers, Mueller would confidently set his need
and his case before God: ‘He is their Father, and therefore has pledged Himself,
as it were, to provide for them; and I have only to remind Him of the need of
these poor children in order to have it supplied.’”

http://www.uvm.edu/~sbross/biography/muller.txt

“His basic aim was to have a work--something to point to as visible proof that
God hears and answers prayer. His heart went out to the many ragged children
running wild in
the streets, but that was a secondary reason for starting
the orphanage.”

But the following is my particular reason for bringing up George Muller. It is one particular incident out of many that happened to him:

http://www.uvm.edu/~sbross/biography/muller.txt

“A well known story indicates the kind of life that was lived.

One
morning the plates and cups and bowls on the table were
empty. There was no
food in the larder, and no money to buy
food. The children were standing
waiting for their morning
meal, when Mueller said, "Children, you know we
must be in
time for school." Lifting his hand he said, "Dear Father,
we
thank Thee for what Thou art going to give us to eat."
There was a knock on
the door. The baker stood there, and
said, "Mr. Mueller, I couldn't sleep
last night. Somehow I
felt you didn't have bread for breakfast and the Lord
wanted
me to send you some. So I got up at 2 a.m. and baked some
fresh
bread, and have brought it." Mueller thanked the man.
No sooner had this
transpired when there was a second knock
at the door. It was the milkman. He
announced that his
milk cart had broken down right in front of the
Orphanage,
and he would like to give the children his cans of fresh
milk
so he could empty his wagon and repair it. No wonder,
years later, when
Mueller was to travel the world as an
evangelist, he would be heralded as
"the man who gets things
from God!"

Now what is this? It is a synchronicity, combined with a communication. A milkman’s wagon just happens to break down in front of Muller’s orphanage just when Muller most needs to have a breakfast for his orphans. And there is a communication link between Muller and his baker, courtesy of God. Muller puts his request out on the front door of his mind, and it shows up on the back door of his bakers’s mind. And there is apparently a time reversal when this communication occurs. The request is put on the baker’s back door before Muller puts in on his front door.

This is what I call the objective reality of answered prayer. It is something external to oneself that one can point at and say “There! Answered prayer at work!” But that would still not be objective enough for most people, because most people will reply, “Oh? Well, I think that’s just a coincidence.”

There is a published diary of one Elsie Koll, a missionary to China, called The Golden Thread (Owosso, 1982, and Overcomer Press). It has been called “a book that will help you learn to trust the Lord.” It is a record of a series of synchronicities that happened to this Christian lady during her career as a missionary.

The life of Oliver Cromwell (the 17th century Lord Protector of Engand) consisted of a series “providences” which he absolutely believed came from God.

Only another person who prays to receive answers will believe these things are not mere coincidences.