“God, sometimes it’s hard to obey, but help us to obey your word completely, even if it means we have to kill people.”
A killer prayer? Is that what it means to be a prayer warrior? Not sure about the theology, but let me give you a little background to this prayer…
After dinner tonight we were reading through Judges 1 as a family (lest you think our family more pious than we are, we’re lucky if we manage to do this about once a week).
Things we observed about Judges 1:
1) Difficult to pronounce names (Adoni-bezek, Kiriath-arba, Aijalon). When reading a name you don’t know, the key, just be confident. As Luther would say, sin boldly.
2) Adoni-bezek cut of the thumbs and toes of his enemies, so that’s what they did to him. An eye for an eye, a toe for a toe. We talked about this topic for a long time. We have 2 teenage sons.
3) Some tribes worked together (Judah, Simeon), others not so much.
4) The guy from Luz who showed mercy to Israel was shown mercy even though he was a Canaanite.
5) The Israelites were supposed to drive the Canaanites out of the land, but they didn’t complete the task very well. The Israelites weren’t good at obeying God completely. Noah remembered this fifth theme in his prayer.
Afterwards, I asked Noah, our younger son (he’s 16) to pray. He prayed the prayer I quoted above.
We laughed because we have a dark sense of humor. The earlier part of his prayer, that I don’t quote was good. He prayed for his brother’s job search, among other things.
In case you’re wondering about the appropriateness of Noah’s prayer, we weren’t shocked. I’m certain God wasn’t offended. God has a sense of humor.
In case you wondering what I think about the disturbing violence of the books of Joshua and Judges, I’ve written about the Canaanite Genocide for Relevant Magazine, you can check it out here. I also discuss it in God Behaving Badly, in the chapter on violence.
Do you make jokes in your prayers? What kind?