(The following is from my e-prayer bulletin but it is so much on my mind that I felt compelled to share it here as well.)
TOO INFORMAL?
There is a struggle in prayer. For me, it centers on how I should approach God. How do you approach the One who is both a “consuming fire” (Deu. 4.24) and our loving Father? He is the One whose judgment is sure and awesome. Yet He is also the One of whom John writes has “lavished” His love on us (1 Jn. 3:1 NIV). Do you feel the conflict? I identify with Tony Jones’ thoughts on this subject. He writes in Christianity Today:
“In two decades of youth ministry, I've heard a lot of conversational prayers to Father Weejus. You know, "Father Weejus ask that you'd be here tonight, and Weejus hope you'll really bless our time." I've heard a lot of unnecessary "justs" and "reallys" over the years, and inappropriate uses of the subjunctive mood ("We pray you would move your people and you would do your will …"). I'm all for conversational prayer. But a lot of it is sloppy, which, I'm afraid, has been bred by too much informality.” http://www.christianitytoday.com/le/2007/001/12.75.html
“Too much informality.” I don’t mean to be harsh. But I’m afraid I agree. God sounds less like God of the universe and more like Santa Claus in some of our praying. The prayers of the apostles and the early church sound like they had a revelation of a bigger God than we pray to. Consider this one:
(Acts 4:24-25 NKJV) "So when they heard that, they raised their voice to God with one accord and said: "Lord, You are God, who made heaven and earth and the sea, and all that is in them, {25} "who by the mouth of Your servant David have said: 'Why did the nations rage, And the people plot vain things?"
At the same time, we must hold this reality of a big, sovereign God in tension with another reality that is equally revealed in Scripture:
• God is a loving Father (1 John 3:1)
• God is compassionate as revealed through His Son (John 11:35)
• God is personal (John 14:21)
Maybe the answer is all the above. Maybe the struggle we have in the approach is a healthy thing. Let’s not hold one reality to the exclusion of the other. He is both a consuming fire and a loving Father. I don’t know about you, but rather than decreasing my faith, that revelation increases it.
2 comments:
Can I throw my thoughts in here on the subject?
Coming from a background that "fears" God in the altar more than builds "relationship" I would have to wonder what exactly Jesus' thoughts were. He didn't build that many close "relationships" however I was recently reminded that it was his closest friends- James, John, and Peter who went with him everywhere. I often wonder if he would have built more close relationships, but it was others who didn't know how to get past the whole "wow you're God in flesh and I don't know how to relate" type if thing. Kind of like the "your a famous artist or actress" or "pastor" type of boundary that tends to stop people from directly relating to others.
Also, when the last parts of the Bible were written, it wasn't all that long after the veil was torn, correct? I like to think that with the veil being torn, our relationship with God made a dramatic change. No longer did we have these boundaries in between us and God. Yet the disciples were still struggling to make that change, just as any of us do when we make a life-altering change in our lives. They began those steps to relating in a "new" way and we have the opportunity to only take that further and further.
I guess working with children has opened my eyes to the simplicity of coming to Christ. After all- it's the faith of child that we are told to have when coming to the father. Children don't understand walls and will often climb in the lap of anyone unless they have been taught not to trust them. And yet a child holds the most simple wonder in the simple things, such as a bubble, a butterfly, or the vibrant red of a flower. Does wonder and awe really need to be seperated from wide open simplicity in faith?
I don't know...just my thoughts...
Amen, Rae. I agree. We need to keep it simple. When I question informality, I'm not saying "throw away informality and make our prayers stuffy with a lot KJV." What I meant to say was, "Hold the informality in tension with the reality that God is a consuming fire." We need both revelations. God is both immanent and transcendent and to see Him exclusively as one and not the other is to make a God in our own image. Thanks for your point.
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