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AI In Our Future: Part 1  – Thinking Differently

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My last article was a gentle introduction to this new series, ‘AI In Our Future’. Before I introduce two key concepts, I’d like to share a story with you:

When the World Moved On

The morning light cut through the blinds, too clean,  indifferent. David sat at the dining table in his work clothes, even though there was nowhere to go. The habit of decades refused to die easily. Outside, the neighbour’s alarm chirped, a car reversed, and somewhere down the street a delivery drone buzzed low. Ordinary sounds of a city moving on without him.

He stared at his hands — steady, capable, but suddenly useless. “Good with numbers,” his retrenchment letter had said, as if that were an outdated technology. Over coffee gone cold, he tried to open a spreadsheet he’d made for job leads, but the screen’s blue pulsing notifications reminded him that the world no longer needed clerks.

His wife Nomsa lingered by the window. Her phone rested untouched on the sill, vibrating occasionally with messages from former colleagues. She hadn’t replied all week. It wasn’t shame — it was something deeper, a quiet unravelling of who she believed herself to be. For years, reports, deadlines, and mentoring younger staff had been her rhythm of purpose. Without them, time felt wide and formless.

From the corridor came the sound of Amahle’s school shoes tapping on the tiles. She was sixteen. “They say the new maths tutor at school’s an AI,” she said, slipping toast into her mouth. “It marks our papers in seconds.” She laughed without irony, but there was an anxious tremor in her voice. “At least it can’t get retrenched.”

Nomsa forced a smile, but the words landed like stones. At the far end of the kitchen, their son Liam sighed over his laptop. His graduation photo still hung above the counter, showing a young man in robes, eyes full of untested promise. Now, he was writing proposals for potential clients who preferred the “AI-hybrid freelancer plan.” Deep down, he wondered if he was already obsolete.

That evening, the house seemed heavier. Job portals glowed unanswered. A half-cooked supper congealed on the stove. David finally spoke. “You know,” he said quietly, “I used to think my work meant I mattered — keeping order, balancing accounts, being needed. Now …” His voice trailed off. “Now I don’t know what I am.” Nomsa placed a hand over his. “Maybe that’s what we need to find again — not the jobs, but what we are without them.”

The couple sat in silence, not hopeless, but hollowed, waiting for meaning to return, or for faith to remind them that dignity is not a job title, and worth is more than a login. (AI-generated)

That’s a rather sad story, isn’t it? Unfortunately, it’s already painfully real for so many people in my country, South Africa. Right now, most unemployment isn’t because AI has taken jobs – it’s because of our struggling economy and difficult socio-political situation. But in the very near future, AI is likely to become a major driver of joblessness. The story is also a graphic summary of the rest of this article.

Now, perhaps you are thinking, “Ah yes, Chris, I know something about AI, and I don’t think things will be much different to when computers came along – two jobs created for every one lost.” Well, maybe. But there’s that troublesome word: maybe. Maybe this will happen, or maybe that, or maybe something else entirely… or maybe we just don’t have the right mental tools for assessing what all these ‘maybes’ really mean.

So the first topic I want to address is something I’m calling Exponential Ectopia.

Exponential Ectopia

“Say what now?” I hear you ask. Well, you shouldn’t have heard that term before because I’ve just invented it (as far as I know). ‘Ectopia’ is a condition, when applied to an eye, where the lens is misaligned, commonly causing short-sightedness. ‘Exponential’ means getting faster and faster. Put them together, and you’ve got our collective problem: we’re short-sighted about how rapidly things are accelerating.

Here’s the thing: we are practically hard-wired for a way of thinking about the future. We make an estimate based on what happened before and project it forward.

We subconsciously construct a mental graph where the angle shows a rate of change we’re used to. Trouble is, change no longer happens in that nice, steady, linear way — it’s exponential. The rate of growth doesn’t stay constant; it doubles, then doubles again.

Let me give you a concrete example: There’s a dam near where I live that became infested with Kariba weed. On day one, there were just a few plants bobbing about. By day two, they were appearing in different places. By day 12, the dam was a quarter full of them. By day 16, it was half full. And by day 20? One hundred per cent of the dam was covered in floating weeds! The coverage doubled every four days.

Now, if that’s hard enough for us to wrap our heads around, here’s the kicker: AI and its related technologies are doubling in capability every seven months. Their rate of exponential growth started small and seemed to have a nice, gentle slope. But like those weeds, the rate of change took off, and now we’re in what I can only describe as an exponential tizzy, with little capacity to comprehend what’s actually happening.

Humans are naturally designed for slow, linear thinking. In the past, this was an asset and helped us to function well in a slowly changing environment, but things are different now. Our brains are brilliant at many things, but grasping exponential change isn’t one of them. We can only juggle a handful of items at once, which is why even smart people consistently misjudge compounding effects — like accumulated investment interest – often by about half.

So when you catch yourself thinking, “AI can’t possibly be changing that fast; I’m sure we’ll have years to adapt,” please think again! It is like looking at the Kariba weed in the dam on day sixteen and thinking, “Well, it’s taken 16 days to get half choked up, so we still have over two weeks to find a solution.” Unfortunately, you would be totally wrong, because in four days the dam will be full of weeds! Exponential Ectopia leads to complacency and a dangerous lack of preparation. It’s far better to err on the side of realistic expectations, even when it’s a disturbing prospect. Better to recognise that the light at the end of the tunnel might actually be a rapidly accelerating train and prepare to jump, than to be caught unawares.

Beyond this perceptual problem, there’s another psychological challenge we need to be aware of: Change Trauma.

Change Trauma

Here’s the truth:

we simply don’t know with any certainty whether Artificial Superintelligence will bring good or bad changes to us and our society. What we do know is that change – whether positive or negative – can be deeply traumatic when it happens too quickly or too intensely for a person or community to process and adapt.

We’re pretty certain that AI is bringing unimaginably rapid change into our world. So we can be equally sure that there will be real trauma involved. What does this look like? Well, a few things:

  1. First, there’s the disruption to our sense of stability. Change destabilises our routines, our identities, and our expectations — basically, everything we’ve built our daily lives around.
  2. Then there’s the feeling of losing control. Events start to feel like things happening to us rather than developments we’re navigating alongside. We lose our sense of agency.
  3. Our brains also experience cognitive overload. Too many new variables hitting us almost simultaneously exceed our working memory and our capacity to adapt. This leads to confusion, anxiety, or mental paralysis — we just freeze and end up doing nothing positive.
  4. Finally, there’s a mismatch stress. When what’s familiar and what’s suddenly required are miles apart, our brains trigger stress responses similar to trauma: fight, flight, or freeze.

Having some idea of what’s coming down the tracks, and at what speed, helps us both to cope and think clearly about how we should respond. Can you imagine the irony? Superintelligent AI turns out to be genuinely beneficial, but we’ve shredded ourselves mentally because the speed and magnitude of the changes were just too much for us to handle.

Conclusion

But here’s an even greater irony, one that troubles me deeply: Jesus-followers suffering unnecessarily during times that could actually be productive and faith-building. Think about it. Jesus told His disciples, and that includes us, that he will never leave or forsake us, that he’ll be with us until the very end of the age, and that we shouldn’t fear because he has overcome the world.

These aren’t just nice-sounding verses for quieter times. They’re solid promises for exactly these kinds of moments. I’d encourage you to read passages like Matthew 28:20, Hebrews 13:5, Romans 8:38–39, and 1 Peter 5:7. Let them sink in. Let them become not just familiar words, but anchors for your soul.

Throughout this series, I’ll be giving you glimpses into what we can reasonably expect regarding AI and some idea of the timelines involved. More than that, though, I want to bring you practical wisdom that will help build your confidence and strengthen your faith for the times ahead. Not a flimsy optimism based on hoping technology works out, but a deep hope rooted in the One who remains sovereign over every algorithm and every acceleration.
God bless you, my friend

As with my last article, here is a debate by tw0 AI characters. Please drop me a line if you find this approach helpful or unhelpful.

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AI – The Good, the Bad, and the Mysterious

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By now, everyone knows that AI stands for Artificial Intelligence and that it is causing both excitement and alarm.  It is one of the technological subjects that interests me, but I will resist the temptation to waffle on about how it works, and other aspects that most people are just not bothered with. Instead,

I want to focus on two things: what everyone needs to know about AI, and then what might interest Christians in particular.

Some things that should concern all of us

A much-lauded positive result of applying AI is that it frees humans from performing low-level or repetitive tasks, thereby creating more time to be creative and innovative. In First-World countries with low unemployment rates, this could be a positive development. However, in Third-World countries with high unemployment rates, perhaps it is not.

I live in a Third-World country where the expanded unemployment rate is over 42%. The total population, including an estimate of unregistered immigrants, is about 65 million. So, that means that about 28 million people do not have employment! So, for millions of people, the fact that AI is doing the routine and repetitive work is not good news.

To exacerbate the situation, according to some research findings, a large percentage of the country’s total population, and not just the unemployed, is estimated to be incapable of facing the cognitive challenges of a rapidly increasing AI-driven economy.

In my country, the state avoids terrible hardship or anarchy by paying out huge amounts of taxpayers’ money in monthly allowances and subsidies to unemployed people. The problem is that the government has run out of money, taxpayers, and loan financing!

So, what is to be done? For starters, where precision and accuracy are not paramount, the private sector could forgo the additional profits that come from employing AI to do low-grade tasks. That is highly unlikely because businesses in South Africa need to compete with overseas companies if they are to survive. Secondly, both private and public sectors could upskill as many low-IQ education people as they can, and this is where AI can help a lot. AI is great for designing and implementing educational and skills training programmes. This would require massive and rapid organisation, funding and expertise, so this too is very unlikely to happen in the near future. Private home owners could also help by employing people with cognitive challenges to work as domestic helpers, gardeners and so on, and responsibly help them get by if they can. Some people who live in large houses often employ the minimum number of domestic helpers on the grounds that they can’t afford it, yet they eat out frequently and go on expensive holidays. Perhaps we should all rethink where we stand on this? Even if there was an immediate and country-wide change of heart, this strategy would be a drop in the unemployment ocean.

How we all should use AI at a personal level

For most of us, AI is probably best used for quickly getting information on almost anything, and it beats Search Engines hands down. It is also great for comparing and evaluating options, critiquing assertions. summarising and so on. Another great use for AI is to treat it as a discussion partner. Ask it questions and then interact by challenging or qualifying its responses or your questions. This yields the best results while still fully engaging our brains, personal experience and knowledge bases.

How not use AI, in my opinion, is to set it tasks and allow it to do our thinking for us. This is ethically questionable and also detrimental to us.

A recent study was conducted by a top American University, which tracked 54 participants writing essays over four months.  They were allowed to use AI as much as they wanted.  They then compared the results to a control group that did not use AI and found that the AI-assisted group displayed lower brain activity, particularly the mental activity linked to creativity and memory. Moreover, the reports claim that there was an 83% inability to accurately recall what they had written! Another 2025 study of 666 participants found a marked correlation between frequent AI use and critical thinking scores. Younger users showed higher dependence and worse performance.

The study did not prove permanent brain decline, but that the danger of ongoing dependence on AI is nevertheless real.

Ethical Considerations

A question that our experts and legislators are currently grappling with is ‘To what extent can ‘creators’ claim ownership or take credit for something they produce with the help of AI?’ I write a lot, so I will use that as an example. On one end of the spectrum is the use of spelling and grammar checkers in products such as Microsoft Word or Grammarly (forms of AI). I am both dyslexic and a lousy speller, so for me these aids are essential. They don’t save me time because I have to make so many corrections, but they save face and reputational damage.  These aids are as necessary to me as audio-to-text applications are to some physically impaired people. I do not regard these aids as presenting an ethical problem. What is more, I have no problem with using AI to scan my work for tone or content that could cause offence or be misunderstood. I have, on occasions, also asked AI to adapt my writing to be better understood and related to by certain age groups or types of people. It is at this point that things get a little dodgy for me.

Would I ask AI to write an article, or even a book, for me by just giving broad guidance and a few parameters? No, I wouldn’t normally do this, and if, for some reason, I did, I would clearly disclose that it was AI-generated. I would certainly never consider submitting an AI-generated document for peer review or educational credits. Publishers, writers’ associations, and educational institutions have already set clear standards, but we all need to settle for ourselves what is ethically and legally acceptable and what is not. And, of course, the same would apply to artistic works or innovations.

The broader societal impact of AI

I have recently watched several AI experts talking about the future effects of AI on society. Some have waxed lyrical about the hugely positive influence AI is having in the fields of medicine, pharmaceutics, and so on, where it performs admirably in helping doctors diagnose more accurately and assisting surgeons in delicate and difficult procedures. It helps in developing aids for the disabled, finding new cures and seems to have many other clear benefits to humanity. I am sure they are right about this, and we will all benefit from the rapid advances being made. On the other side of the coin are the equally rapid AI-led advances in lethal arms development, narcotics creation, and techno-crime of every sort. AI is also being used to trick us into giving access to our banking accounts! I get about 5 emails or SMS attempts to defraud me every day, as well as sporadic telephone calls trying to get me to allow access to my bank accounts! Of late, they have been getting sophisticated and deceptive with the use of AI, making them even more convincing.

Beyond financial deception, there is a more subtle and troubling effect of AI that impacts our mental and spiritual well-being. At this level, the impact of AI, as I experience it, is almost entirely negative.

The other day, I stumbled on a YouTube video where a so-called professor of applied mathematics claimed to have had a near-death experience where Jesus gave him five warnings to the world. Strangely enough, he was presented as an avowed and vigorous atheist. He said that these warnings would be observed by everyone around the world and would all occur in January 2026.

I used AI to research and analyse the video and unsurprisingly found it to be an AI-generated fake. I also discovered that there were dozens of variations of the theme flying around the internet – an imaginary elderly woman claimed a similar experience, as did a soldier, a Jewish scholar, a boy, a political advisor, and many more.

This example is not an isolated incident, but part of a rapidly growing pattern. Why do people do this? The main reason is no doubt that they get paid money by advertisers and media companies, depending on the number of views they get and the duration of each view. Also, it is easy to get a suite of AI applications that produce high-quality and potentially convincing content. One person can produce up to ten of these videos a day by using AI! To make matters even worse, these videos can sow fear or morbid satisfaction for some folks – some even call it ‘fear-porn’, can you believe it?

A global concern

Some of what I have described so far may sound like a uniquely South African crisis, but the same dynamics are beginning to surface globally – and at a scale that could affect every nation.

Some of the same AI experts I have mentioned watching also debated a big concern for all thought-leaders, politicians, and top business executives. If AI does away with as many jobs as it seems it will, then how do the jobless survive? The apparent answer is that the governments of the world will have to pay a universal income allowance to everyone on the planet- a sort of dole or social grant on steroids. So apparently, we will all be able to get along just fine without earning a living. But here is the thing. Who would pay for these multi-gazillion-dollar grants? Why the governments, of course. And where would they get the money to do this? Well, in taxes from the tech giants, who make obscene profits from producing the AI that is the cause of the problem. It sounds a bit like a snake-eating-its-own-tail metaphor. This whole scenario raises a question that is not merely financial, but profoundly human and spiritual.

Beyond the economic questions lies a deeper human issue – one that goes far beyond employment figures and government policy.

How would we all retain a sense of dignity, worth, self-identity, and self-respect? Why would we want to earn university degrees? How would we fill the hours of each day?

The answers from the experts were that, as the transition from labour to AI will take place gradually, companies, universities, and the like would have time to restructure themselves and reengineer their systems and reward mechanisms. However, AI is developing with alarming speed, Quantum computers are coming online to push AI to even greater achievements, and AI itself is on a fast track to becoming better in every field than almost all humans. It may not be long before not only the simple and repetitive jobs will be done by AI, but almost ALL jobs will be done at never-before-seen levels of competence. This is not imaginative thinking. Elon Musk has made the statement that Grok AI is already able to solve approximately 40% of problems on multi-disciplinary PhD-level benchmark tests.

Well, it looks very much like we just don’t have time to slowly adjust and evolve into ways of living and working that will satisfy basic human needs of worth, dignity, and purpose. Therefore, we must prepare ourselves for the traumatically changing times ahead and consider deeply how to prepare our children and grandchildren for the premature arrival of the future. Most of all, we need to look to Jesus for meaning and identity and understand that we are loved and valued children of God, irrespective of our perceived lack of usefulness. A strong daily relationship with the Lord through prayer and bible reading will be of paramount importance. Healthy giving-oriented relationships with others around us will be vital, and local church involvement will be more important than ever. We can, and should give priority attention to these things NOW.

Something mysterious to consider

In an article like this, I have to limit both scope and depth because of the complexity of the subject, but here is a theological reflection to make it even more ‘deep and complex’.  There are two well-known passages in the Old Testament, one in Isaiah and one in Ezekiel, that most Evangelical scholars agree are addressing the evil spiritual being motivating the two pagan Kings who are the initial subjects of the prophecies.

Isaiah 14:12-14 reads, “How you have fallen from heaven, O morning star (Lucifer), son of the dawn! You have been cast down to the earth, you who once laid low the nations! You said in your heart, “I will ascend to heaven; I will raise my throne above the stars of God; I will sit enthroned on the mount of assembly, on the utmost heights of the sacred mountain. I will ascend above the tops of the clouds; I will make myself like the Most High.””

Ezekeal 28:12-16 reads, “‘You were the model of perfection, full of wisdom and perfect in beauty … You were anointed as a guardian cherub, for so I ordained you. You were on the holy mount of God; you walked among the fiery stones. You were blameless in your ways from the day you were created till wickedness was found in you … So I drove you in disgrace from the mount of God, and I expelled you, O guardian cherub, from among the fiery stones. Your heart became proud on account of your beauty, and you corrupted your wisdom because of your splendour. So I threw you to the earth; I made a spectacle of you before kings.”

Lucifer, Satan, the fallen Archangel, wanted to be like God and rule the creation with no accountability to the one true God. This has remained his burning ambition to this day. Now consider what he would have to counterfeit to persuade the people of Earth to believe that he is God, not the Lord Jesus Christ, who is the true ruler of creation.

Well, what are the defining attributes of God? His Omnipotence (all-powerful), Omniscience (all-knowing), Omnipresence (everywhere), and Omnibenevolence (perfectly good). He would also have to seem able to create life. So, if he could produce a new form of ‘life’, never seen on Earth, a digital life, then he could perhaps persuade people to believe that he was a true creator.

An Artificial Superintelligence (ASI) could be the basis for a claim to Omniscience. The AI developers are competing fiercely with each other to produce just such a god-like AI. Now pair this with Quantum computing and the World Wide Web (internet), and you have a deceptive claim to Omnipotence and Omnipresence. The really tricky one for him to pull off would be to convince people that he was perfectly good (Omnibenevolent). Well, Paul addresses this in 2 Thessalonians Chapter two – here is an edited version of verses 1-12: “Don’t let anyone deceive you in any way, for that day (the second coming of Jesus) will not come until the rebellion occurs and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the man doomed to destruction. He will oppose and will exalt himself over everything that is called God or is worshipped, so that he sets himself up in God’s temple, proclaiming himself to be God … The coming of the lawless one will be in accordance with the work of Satan displayed in all kinds of counterfeit miracles, signs and wonders, and in every sort of evil that deceives those who are perishing. They perish because they refused to love the truth and so be saved. For this reason, God sends them a powerful delusion (The Great Deception) so that they will believe the lie …”

The powerful delusion will include the lie that Satan is actually absolutely good and has their best interests at heart. AI could certainly demonstrate that attribute … for a while.

OK, enough Christian conspiracy theory. I include it here mainly to point out some possible spiritual implications of something like ASI. I plan to include this idea when I write on the forces driving AI development and deployment in 2026-2028.

Conclusion

AI is mysterious and quite awesome, even as it is now. It could be a power for great good or evil. It will undoubtedly change our lives radically and rapidly. One of the greatest challenges to Jesus followers is ‘Will we depend on the Lord or on AI? Will we derive our sense of dignity and worth from Jesus or Artificial Intelligence? Will we believe the lie or hold to the truth?”‘

So, now all I need to do is run this article through my favourite AI and ask it to rewrite the parts that need improving … nah, I don’t think so 😊

Postscript

We have just entered 2026, a year full of hope, fear, and … change. Some of the change will no doubt come from domestic and political economics and politics, but there will certainly be huge technological changes. Artificial Intelligence leads the charge into 2026, bringing with it the urgent need for sober reflection and deep spiritual renewal. Therefore, I plan to write a series of articles covering topics like:

  • The need to be aware of the implications of Artificial General Intelligence
  • The problem of blindness to the exponential nature of change in our day
  • What Jesus said about the times we may well be living in
  • The church of Acts 1-8 as a guide to church and Christian life today
  • Symbols and apocalyptic imagery in the book of Revelation

For those who like to listen more than read

I usually produce an audio/podcast of my articles two weeks after I publish them, but this time things are different. Even if you don’t usually listen to my TruthTalks, click on the audio link below for what, for most of you, will probably be a new experience. It is two AI-generated characters, a man and a woman, discussing this article in what they call a Deep Dive. All I did was upload the article to Google NotebookLM, and AI did the rest.

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Insights from Isaiah: Part 7 TruthTalks

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“Oh Lord, please guard my heart from becoming so immersed in the ways of this world system that I, even inadvertently, stop depending on you and rather rush to my own solutions to my problems.”

A great reminder for the new year – focus on God is one of many of the truths Dr Christopher Peppler highlights in this TruthTalk. It is the last of the Insights from Isaiah series, but if you would like to read it from the beginning click HERE for the first post of the series, or listen to it from the beginning, please click HERE.

Please don’t forget there is always the audiovisual page which contains all the episodes and more on one compact page. Happy new year all, here’s to a God-centred and God-dependant 2026.

Best, Admin

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Insights from Isaiah: Part 7

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Although we are only halfway through the book of Isaiah, this will be the last in the Insights from Isaiah series. I intend to go back to my usual pattern of selecting passages or topics that the Holy Spirit illuminates or that are of current interest or concern. For instance, my next article will probably be on the practical relevance of Artificial Intelligence (AI) to you and me at this critical time.

Isaiah 30: 15, 18, 19(b)

I am selecting verses from a larger context, so let me sketch that out. This verse is part of the passage where God rebukes Judah and their king, Hezekiah, for turning to the Egyptian Pharaoh rather than to him. The Assyrians were threatening to invade Judah, and this made the king and his people very fearful.

Through the prophet, God warns his people that he is going to punish them for their disobedience and betrayal. However, as is God’s way, he immediately spells out the alternative: “Only in returning to me and waiting for me will you be saved. In quietness and confidence is your strength. Isaiah 30:15 NLT Then follows what must have been a heart-wrenching statement, “But you would have none of it.” Aeons later, Jesus Christ, God the Son, stood looking out over Jerusalem and uttered similar words of lament: “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing. (Matthew 23:37) NIV

“Oh Lord, please guard my heart from becoming so immersed in the ways of this world system that I, even inadvertently, stop depending on you and rather rush to my own solutions to my problems.”

The NIV version of the bible phrases the first part of Isaiah 15 as, “In repentance and rest is your salvation, in quietness and trust is your strength,” So clear. So simple. Yet so hard to consistently apply!

The words of hope and encouragement through Isaiah continue in verse 18, “Yet the Lord is waiting to show you mercy, and is rising up to show you compassion, for the Lord is a just God. Happy are all who wait patiently for Him.”  God is good and will never fail to honour his covenant with us. His justice demands our corrective punishment when we deserve it, but when we repent and seek him again, he rises to welcome us back.

We are all familiar with the story of the Prodigal Son. Every day, the father sits looking out at the horizon, hoping to see his lost son returning to him. Luke 15:20 is the record of what happens when the father catches sight of his son: “But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him; he ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed him”. The application to us is clear and obvious – when we repent and return to God, he rises up, runs to us, and throws his arms around us.

Isaiah continues this theme of grace and compassion in vs 19,

“How gracious he will be when you cry for help! As soon as he hears, he will answer …”

Although these are wonderful words of encouragement, they present us with some real problems, for instance, “If God hears me, then why has he not answered me? Is it because I am so sinful that he has given up on me and blocked his ears to my cry?” The second part of that question is easy to answer. We may give up on God, but he never gives up on us. Nobody who cries out to God is irredeemable, no matter what sins they have committed. However, the first part of this question is real for all of us at one time or another. We have all experienced praying earnestly in times of confusion, pain or indecision, and it seems that God does not hear us. This is a confusing, painful life experience, so we need to find a satisfactory answer. The ‘wait is also an answer’ response is only of help to us if we have ‘heard’ the Lord saying this to us. “‘God’s ways are higher than our ways and his thoughts, our thoughts'” (Isaiah 55:9) is true, but not really helpful.

So, let me offer some ideas that may help you find peace when it seems that God did not answer in your moment of need. By the way, in many cases, God does respond almost immediately to our prayers. So, we should not assume that a lack of immediate response is the norm. But when he doesn’t seem to come through for us in something very urgent or onerous, we tend to forget the times that he did.

When we think God doesn’t answer our prayers

  • Sometimes we get prescriptive with God, and try to tell him exactly what we need and how and when he should satisfy our need. Some Faith teachers encourage us to do this (e.g. ask for a red bicycle, not just any bicycle), but to me, this speaks of magic and manipulation rather than trust in God.
  • If we ask God to do something that violates someone else’s freedom to choose, or we ask for something that is contrary to God’s nature, character, or declared will, then we should not expect a favourable response.
  • I think that one of our biggest problems could be that we just don’t understand the difference between time in the heavenly realm and time in our physical realm. In our dimension, time is linear, chronological, and forms part of the space-time construct underpinning the creation. In the heavenly dimension, time does not exist as we know it. I call Earth-time Chronos-time and Heaven-time Kiaros-time. Kiaros-time is when the moment is right, when all things come together as they should.
For example, a young woman wants a good husband and repeatedly asks God to meet her need. He knows the perfect life-mate for her, but the man is in another country and focused on completing his doctoral degree. How can the woman’s prayer be answered to her satisfaction until the man is free from study commitments and somewhere where the two can meet? I think that many, if not most, of our ‘unanswered’ prayers fall into this category.
  • I might sound a little unfair here, but I think it is also true for many of us. When we pray, we mostly ask God to do something and seldom ask him to speak to us. Perhaps he wants to explain the reasons, timing or other considerations, but we are so focused on what we expect the results to be that we do not wait and listen. We pray and then immediately get reinvolved in the distractions and demands of our lives. Perhaps if we took time to wait expectantly on him, the Lord would lead us to a scripture or ‘speak’ in some other way into the situation that engages us.

For me, the starting point for dealing with disappointments and unmet expectations is to reaffirm that God is good and truly cares for us. We cannot foresee tomorrow, let alone the longer term, but God can. We are limited in our understanding, but God isn’t. If he doesn’t seem to be answering us or providing for us then we can be sure that there is a good and godly reason for that, and so all is well.

I want to conclude this article with two biblical examples of people who must have experienced just what we do when our prayers do not seem to be answered, only on a scale few of us ever do. One is from the Old Testament and one from the New.

An Old Testament Example:

Joseph, son of Jacob, was sold by his brothers into slavery. I think that he must have prayed earnestly when that happened. The response he got was that the Arab traders sold him as a slave to an official in the Egyptian government. He surely continued praying! Then the man’s wife accused him of sexually molesting her, and Joseph was thrown into prison, where he remained for thirteen years! Was he still praying? The last two years of his prison term were after he had interpreted the royal wine taster’s dreams, and the man had promised to ask Pharaoh to set him free (famous last words). Then, at last, he was hauled before the Pharaoh to interpret his dream, and as a result was freed from prison and then appointed as the second-highest official in all Egypt! Did God love and care for him? Yes, he did, although there must have been times when Joseph thought he had been abandoned.

From the New Testament:

The other man was the Apostle Paul. He had a blinding encounter with the ascended Jesus Christ on the road to Damascus. Once he was divinely healed of his blindness, he sought out the disciples in Jerusalem and was rejected. So he went off to Arabia and Damascus for three years (I am sure he was praying). Then he tried to connect with the Apostles, but his life was threatened by others, and he fled to Tarsus, where he remained for another seven years. Did he pray during those years? Absolutely! In fact, it was during that time that the Holy Spirit transported his spirit to the Heavenly realm, where he learned everything he needed to become the replacement twelfth Apostle of the Lord Jesus Christ. In the years that followed, Paul planted churches, raised leaders, worked wonders, and wrote 70% of the letters that make up the doctrinal part of what became the New Testament. Did God love and care for him? Yes, he did, although there must have been times when Paul thought he had been abandoned.

Take heart, dear friend. God is good, and he cares. He hears you when you pray, and one day when you look back, you will say, “Lord, you made a way for me that I never could have foreseen and a result I could not have anticipated. Thank you, Jesus!”

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Insights from Isaiah: Part 6 TruthTalks

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In this penultimate podcast on the Insights from Isaiah series, Christopher highlights just one insight – but it’s a good one containing encouragement and hope, so listen to it now by clicking the play button at the bottom of this post. If you would prefer to read the original post, then click HERE.

 “God has said, “Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you.”   So we say with confidence, “The Lord is my helper; I will not be afraid. What can man do to me?”

Until next time, admin

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About Me

My name is Christopher Peppler and I was born in Cape Town, South Africa in 1947. While working in the financial sector I achieved a number of business qualifications from the Institute of Bankers, Damelin Management School, and The University of the Witwatersrand Business School. After over 20 years as a banker, I followed God’s calling and joined the ministry full time. After becoming a pastor of what is now a quite considerable church, I  earned an undergraduate theological qualification from the Baptist Theological College of Southern Africa and post-graduate degrees from two United States institutions. I was also awarded the Doctor of Theology in Systematic Theology from the University of Zululand in 2000.

Four years before that I established the South African Theological Seminary (SATS), which today is represented in over 70 countries and has more than 2 500 active students enrolled with it. I presently play an role supervising Masters and Doctoral students.

I am a passionate champion of the Christocentric or Christ-centred Principle, an approach to biblical interpretation and theological construction that emphasises the centrality of Jesus

I have been happily married to Patricia since the age of 20, have two children, Lance and Karen, a daughter-in-law Tracey, and granddaughters Jessica and Kirsten. I have now retired from both church and seminary leadership and devote my time to writing, discipling, and the classical guitar.

If you would like to read my testimony to Jesus then click HERE.