Friday, March 28, 2008

Thinking About Prayer: Part 2

Imagine that you've just upset or offended someone you know or love. You've made them mad. And now you feel guilty and sorry for what you've done. Maybe you've said something you shouldn't say to your wife. Or perhaps you mouthed off to a co-worker, a friend, or someone at church who really gets on your nerves. Both your common sense and good manners dissolved in an instant only to be replaced by a short temper and thoughtless words. Chances are, the very next conversation will at least begin awkwardly.

Or maybe think of it this way. You've neglected to keep in touch with a close friend, someone you intended to call or e-mail. It's been awhile since you've seen them or spoken to them, and you feel guilty for this. And the guilt you feel leads to further neglect of the relationship. You're afraid of what the next encounter will be like, so you do your best to avoid an encounter altogether. You really don't want to face that person. Fearing what they think of you and what they might say if you finally resume contact, you put it off. Procrastination becomes habit.

Often when this sort of thing happens, the next conversation or encounter isn't as bad as our anticipation of it. Whoever the other party is, they end up being much more accepting than you expected, than your fears led you to believe they'd be. Then you feel rather silly for having put off getting in touch or for procrastinating reconciliations and apologies.

I got thinking about all of this because sometimes I avoid prayer. Either I simply choose to jump into whatever work or chores lay in front of me or I neglect it because I've already been avoiding it for awhile. And why is that? I realized today that it's because, despite all my knowledge that tells me precisely the opposite, I fear that God is mad at me and won't hear my prayers, that my very avoidance of praying for a couple of days will mean God's not going to listen once I do finally get around to it and begin talking to him again.

I associate worries we all have with human relationships and superimpose them onto my relationship with God. That we all do this in one way or another at one time or another is no surprise. We can all fall prey to judging our relationship with God in the same way that we judge our relationship with other people. There are people, for instance, who question the title of "Father" for God since so many people have negative associations with their earthly fathers and, so the argument runs, will never be able to see God as a good and loving Father. The very idea of fatherhood is so abhorrent because of their poor and sometimes even tragic experiences that it forever taints a person's ability to see God as Father. In lesser ways this also happens. We generalize from our most common and closest relationships.

But God is not human. He is not subject to the whims of mood and appetite and doesn't relate to us haphazardly depending on the weather or any other temporary conditions. Even if I haven't prayed for a couple of days, God is not mad. He might very well be saddened. God wants us to pray. This is his will for us. But whatever he makes of our difficulties in prayer, our God is not the sort who will shut his ears to us because of them. This is because, despite the poor reflection of this in the world around us, he is a loving, heavenly Father.

So given the God we believe in, one revealed in Jesus Christ, I need not fear his retribution or rejection. Even if I have failed to come to him in prayer, failed to open myself in heart and mind to his presence by inviting him more fully into my life, failed to lift up the needs of my loved ones and brothers and sisters, God is not, like some people when we fail them, going to respond to me out of spite. He is ever loving and faithfully kind, merciful and good. If anything, I can always run to him, no matter how long I may have been running in the other direction.

I find it astounding at how easy it is to fall prey to misconceptions of God after years of reading and studying the Scriptures, going to church and being in ministry, and even after having lots of positive examples of God's good and kind character surrounding me with love and support. How feeble-minded I can be at times to judge God--often unconsciously--by the worst and most feared aspects of our human relationships: rejection, judgement, and failure. If anything, such a tendency to bad lived-out theology throws into sharp relief my own desperate need for God and for communing with him in prayer. In other words, the very fears I have about approaching God, knowing their source are not from him, should propel me into his arms rather than drive me away. I can only pray that this would be so. I pray the same is true for you.

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