Is Driving the Mars Rover Like Praying?

In many respects, Matt Heverly, 36, has responsibilities similar to those of many of us. He has to get his kids to day care, handle the banking, get his car serviced, take out the trash, mow the grass and so on. But he also drives on Mars.

Well, it's not quite like driving his Toyota, but it's driving nonetheless.

Heverly heads a team of 16 rover drivers at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, who together are responsible for steering the SUV-sized rover named Curiosity that NASA landed on the surface of the Red Planet last month. The six-wheeled, plutonium-powered vehicle is equipped with cutting-edge scientific instruments designed to analyze the Mars surface and send data back to Earth.

To perform its work, the rover has to move from place to place, and Heverly and his crew make that happen. While they speak of "driving" the rover, the term can be misleading. There's no steering wheel or joystick, and in effect, Heverly and his team members drive "blind." They direct the rover to its next location by typing hundreds of commands into a computer. The "drivers" then go home and return to their daily at-home responsibilities.

The teams working with Curiosity have to work around the problem of time -- that is, it takes 14 minutes for signals to get out to Mars and 14 to get back. By the time they receive confirmation about the signals they've sent, the events have already happened. They can't "drive" in real time. When the Mars day begins, the commands are sent to the rover by radio transmission, meaning that the rover is operating on the computerized instructions while the drivers are mowing their lawns and helping their kids with their homework.

"We definitely win the coolest job contest at cocktail parties," said John Wright, one of Curiosity's drivers. As an example of party conversation, Wright said, "What do you do? Oh, you're an investment banker? Isn't that special. I drive on Mars."

One job drawback, however, is the fear that one of them entered an incorrect code or that even with a correct code, the rover might malfunction. So far, that's not happened with Curiosity, but there's been at least one close call with Opportunity, an older NASA rover still functioning on Mars.

Heverly describes that day as "really scary and really humbling."

Wired Word team member James Berger suggests that the procedure of writing computer code with instructions for what the rover is to do and then going home to pick up the kids from school and waiting until the next day to find out if they sent the proper code sounds something like what sometimes happens when we pray. "We pray in the assurance that God will hear us," Berger said, "and we then open ourselves to hear our Lord's reply." But often, we don't receive an answer right away or know the outcome of our prayer until much later. We pray, go about the business of daily life and eventually, with the perspective of time, gain some understanding of how our prayer was answered.

More on this story can be found at this link:

Mow Yard. Drop Off Kids. Take a Drive on Mars. New York Times

The Big Questions

1. To what degree do you view prayer as "sending" a request and waiting to see what happens as a result? Is that an adequate picture of prayer? Are there other understandings of prayer that are also valid? What are they? To what extent is time important when it comes to praying? If you are aware, for instance, that a surgery for a loved one has already taken place, but you do not yet know the outcome, do you/can you still pray for the desired result until the time you know the outcome? Is it fair to do so? Is God, to your way of thinking, bound by time?

2. Whether people pray or don't pray is sometimes based on their image of God. What is your image of God, and how do you think God views your prayers?

3. To what degree is prayer a two-way conversation? How do you perceive God's answers to your prayers? What is your expectation about "waiting" for our God to respond?

4. Is long-distance praying effective? For example, if you are hospitalized with a serious illness and your pastor phones and prays for you over the phone, is that as helpful as if the pastor were at your bedside? Why or why not?

5. To what degree is "waiting" a spiritual practice? What does it mean to "wait on the Lord"?

Confronting the News with Scripture and Hope
Here are some Bible verses to guide your discussion:

Isaiah 40:30-31
"Even youths will faint and be weary, and the young will fall exhausted; but those who wait for the LORD shall renew their strength, they shall mount up with wings like eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint." (For context, read 40:27-31.)

When it comes to spiritual strength, says this passage, the energy of youth is not sufficient. These verses are no guarantee against becoming weary, but their assurance is in the renewal God promises to those who "wait for the Lord," which is a way of saying that we need to take time to listen for him -- but on his schedule, not ours. Those who wait for God "shall run and not be weary." In fact, the Hebrew word translated as "wait" here and in the following passage is translated in the NIV as "hope" -- to wait with high expectations, not merely to await further developments.    

Questions: How does waiting for God's response to your prayers affect your outlook on life and the vigor with which you live? Name some things you would skip rather than wait (for instance, things that might take longer to cook, books you can't receive within a day or so, web pages that don't load quickly, etc.). Does your experience with waiting for God give you any insight with regard to God's wait for us?  

Lamentations 3:25-26
"The LORD is good to those who wait for him, to the soul that seeks him. It is good that one should wait quietly for the salvation of the LORD." (For context, read 3:22-30.)

In the context of that biblical book, waiting had a particularly poignant meaning. The situation that brought about the writing of the book of Lamentations was the destruction of Jerusalem in 586 B.C. by the Babylonians. At the time, the temple was also ruined and many of the people of Jerusalem and the Judean nation were forced into exile. The five hymns that constitute Lamentations are, in effect, funeral dirges for Jerusalem.

To understand the spirit of these laments, think of how you would feel if, as unlikely as this sounds, your hometown were captured by the Chinese army, your home and church were burned, and you and your family were forced to live in mainland China as part of an enslaved group. For the people of Judah, the destruction of Jerusalem was all of that. Jerusalem was the center of their national and religious identity, and its destruction was seen as judgment against them by God for their sins as a nation.

Fortunately, the prophets told the people that though they had sinned against God, he was not forsaking them. And so the laments contain not only mourning, but also expressions of hope that God would eventually redeem them from exile. It was that "eventually," however, that occasioned the waiting. We know from history that it was years before the people got to return to Judah, a time long enough that many of the generation that went into exile died. For the most part, it was their children and grandchildren, many of whom were born in Babylon, who were finally given the opportunity to repopulate Judah. For those who were marched out of Judah, the waiting for God to change their circumstances was a long one that required not only patience, but also the kind of faith that says, "What we hope for may not happen in our lifetime, but we believe it will happen, and so we are going to live in that hope."

Questions: How does long-term waiting fit into your life of faith? What have you been waiting a long time for that has not yet happened? Are these things you have prayed for? Have there been events or things you have prayed a long time for that you believe now will never take place? What has this aspect of time taught you about yourself? About God?

Luke 12:35-37
"Be dressed for action and have your lamps lit; be like those who are waiting for their master to return from the wedding banquet, so that they may open the door for him as soon as he comes and knocks. Blessed are those slaves whom the master finds alert when he comes ..." (For context, read 12:35-40.)

Waiting for the Lord doesn't mean that we should sit around and make no attempt to influence the course of events. We already know that there are times, such as when faced with the opportunity to do some good, when to do nothing is wrong. But beyond that, waiting can also mean a positive use of time. In these verses, Jesus gives us some insight. He describes the situation of servants in a house where the master is away, but rather than just sitting around doing nothing, they have the lamps lit, food that can be served up quickly and everything ready for when the master returns, even if it is in the middle of the night.

That situation is not hard to understand. If you are waiting for family members who are returning home after a long absence or are waiting for guests, you wouldn't just sit and wait, doing nothing. You'd be making sure there were clean sheets on the beds, and that the bathrooms were clean. You might be cooking or making other meal plans. If the visit were to be over Christmas, you might be wrapping presents or putting up the Christmas tree. Yes, you'd be waiting, but in an active way, accomplishing things that needed to be done.

In much the same way, just as the Lamentation passage above tells us that God works for those who are waiting for him, so too those who are waiting for God ought to be active on his behalf. At the very least, we ought not to allow ourselves to become morally reckless.

Questions: Sometimes, though, especially in the face of some tough things in life, there is little we can do. There are circumstances over which we have absolutely no control. In cases where activity is not possible, can patient waiting on divine providence be a faithful response? Why or why not? Does waiting feel like inactivity? How can waiting be an activity? Is it always necessary to be active?

Matthew 8:7-8
"And [Jesus] said to him, 'I will come and cure him.' The centurion answered, 'Lord, I am not worthy to have you come under my roof; but only speak the word, and my servant will be healed.'" (For context, read 8:5-13.)

A centurion in Capernaum asked Jesus to heal his desperately ill servant. Jesus responded, "I will come and cure him." But the centurion, declaring his unworthiness to have Jesus in his home, asked Jesus to simply speak the word of healing long-distance. Jesus remarked that the centurion was demonstrating great faith. He told the man to go, and that he would find his servant healed.

Questions: This would seem to answer the question about the efficacy of long-distance prayers, but should we assume that because Jesus could do this, we can too? Can long-distance praying become a form of spiritual laziness? Why or why not?

Recall how, in the story of Lazarus (John 11), Jesus did not make rushing to heal his friend a high priority. When you pray, do you ever have the sense (regardless of whether you think this is actually the case) that God seems occupied with other things and is elsewhere? While Lazarus' sisters Mary and Martha waited, and then berated Jesus for making them wait, Martha also responded with a strong confession of faith. Their wait and their disappointment was eventually followed with greater events than they could have imagined. Can you name events in your life in which waiting was followed by disappointment, but later events led to wisdom or insight that changed your perspective on what happened?

2 Corinthians 12:7-9
"... a thorn was given me in the flesh .... Three times I appealed to the Lord about this, that it would leave me, but he said to me, 'My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness.'" (For context, read 12:6-10.)

This is the apostle Paul's comment about some unspecified but persistent physical ailment he had. He prayed three times to be relieved of it, but God did not remove it. Instead, Paul wrote that the answer to his prayer is, "My grace is sufficient for you, for [my] power is made perfect in weakness." What Paul asked was not granted, yet Paul found in that response no reason to stop praying.

Questions: How long do you think Paul waited before he understood that the answer to his prayer was "My grace is sufficient for you, for [my] power is made perfect in weakness"? When have you perceived a prayer of yours to have been answered in some way other than in the way you requested? How hard has it been for you to accept that despite your wait, a situation is not going to change, and that you are going to continue with your own thorn in the flesh?

For Further Discussion

1. Respond to this from a TWW team member: "Waiting itself sometimes has a kind of life force about it. You probably know of people who have been terminally ill but who survived longer than their doctors said was possible. Sometimes, when there is something worth waiting for, the person will somehow hang on to be part of the event. Perhaps they have a son getting married in three months and want to be there at the wedding. Or they have a granddaughter expecting a child and they want to see the new baby. Or they want to make it through Christmas and wring out of the waiting period another measure of life."

2. While the Earth is the Lord's, God cannot be seen. You can say that we see God through the eyes of faith, but many do not embrace that belief. Some say they see no evidence of God -- or conclude that if God was ever around, he has disappeared. In what ways is our patient waiting a testimony to others about our faith? In what ways can we share that testimony?

3. Read Matthew 25:1-13. How is that parable related to today's topic? What message do you hear for yourself in it?

Responding to the News

This is a good time to consider how your church communicates the importance of spiritual waiting.