Prayer and the God Who Wants to Know You

Search me.O God, and know me. (Psalm 139:23)

And he walks with me; and he talks with me,
and he tells me I am his own.
And the joy we share as we tarry there
None other has ever known.

HOW WE ARE KNOWN BY GOD

One of the foundations of prayer is knowing that God wants to know you.  The invitation of the psalmist is not that God would know something that God does not know propostionally, but that God would become familiar with him.  Also, that he would have the experience of being known by God.  That experience is laid out in intimate detail in the psalm:

You know when I sit and when I rise;
You perceive my thoughts from afar.
You discern my going out and my lying down;
You are familiar with all my ways.
Before a word is on my tongue,
You know it completely, O God.

Perhaps the psalmist intended for this to be read as a description of what it is to be known by God instead of as an argument for God's omniscience.  God knows because God cares.  He knows where I am because he cares about where I am.  He knows my thoughts and my ways because he is so familiar with my voice, how I speak, and what I like to do.  He knows what I am going to say before I say it because he adores me and knows mr as his child with a love I can only dream about.

Maybe this is what it means to walk with God.  If we are to follow Adam's fallen path in the Garden and hide from God, God must hide from us.  We will not be known and familiar to him.  We will escape from the experience of being known as only God can know us.  Walking with God is the opposite of hiding from him.  Walking with God is a continual longing to be known by him.

That longing can only come if we realize he wants to know us.

HOW GOD GETS CLOSE TO US

You hem me in behind and before;
You have laid your hand upon me.
Such knowledge is too wonderful for me
Too lofty for me to attain.

It may be that we have trouble grasping God's love for us because it makes no sense.  It is "too wonderful," "too lofty to attain."  The value of each human being is incalculable.  That comes from God's accounting.  It makes no sense.  We are not only small in the scheme of things, we are often despicable.  We may not see this in ourselves, but we are quite conscious of it in others.  How could God bear to have us "hemmed in" so close to him?

The amazing thing in knowing and following Christ is that we discover how God can come to know us even when we can be so small and despicable.  He has a plan to change all of that.  Christ's death on the cross reveals how helpless we are.  Like the Pharisees of Jesus's time, our religions only end up rejecting this God who is with us.  Like the Romans or the first century, our governments gladly crucify him in favor of their own convenience and power.  Like Peter his follower, even our friendship with God turns to betrayal.  We are indeed helpless in our brokenness, in our darkness, in our disregard for God.

If I say, "Surely the darkness will hide me,
and the light become night around me"
even the darkness will not be dark to you,
the night will shine like the day,
for darkness is as light to you.

In the cross of Christ, our darkness becomes light.  He sees a way through it and makes what is horrible into a good thing.  The cross shows our deep value to God.  He gave his own Son to keep us near him and to find our worth in him.  He also gave his Son with hope, knowing that we could be recaptured and rejuvenated as rulers over his creation.  In order to know each of us as worthwhile creations of hope, he made a way for each of us to know him.  Through Jesus we can really come to know a God who wants to know us.  He sees us in our darkness and we are not hidden from him.  He reaches out to us with the light of Christ, who died for us.

RENEWED MINDS AND BETTER PRAYER

Here is the ground of prayer.  We must begin with a God who longs to know us.  He wants to walk with us in our hours and days, months and years.  Although such knowledge can be too wonderful for us, we can find certainty of that knowledge in Christ.  As we come to trust him, we find a God who made us, let us go our own way, and yet called us back to him.  The deeper we are grounded in God's heroic love for us in particular, the more prayer will make sense to us as a part of that searching and saving God.  Only in the light of God's work for us through Jesus can we find ourselves able to say, "I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful.  I know that full well."

Our minds must be renewed by knowing God in this way for our prayers to begin to be effective.  God wants to know me.  God wants to know you.  If we do not care about this, then we will not care about praying.  If we do not believe this, then our prayer will be marked by uncertainty.  We must weigh the evidence that we are given in Christ and his followers and allow it to deepen our faith.  Our certainty depends on it.  We must remember how far God has brought us and see it as an indication of how far he will take us.  As we  ground our minds in such thoughts, we will find prayer is more natural, more real, more beautiful, and also more effective.  With a God like this, who wouldn't pray?

Unburdening the Heart

Kindness comes from a heart unburdened
  and joy from a soul set free.
When can I go and meet with God,
  the One who goes unseen?
  Before the One unseen.

In a secret room with bolted door
  alone with the God I know,
I pray unforced with quiet hands
  that let every burden go.
  Let every burden go.

Just a corner in the courts of God
  is all I really need.
Surrounded by much greater prayers,
  I only plant a seed.
  Just a little seed.

My hands get tied, my mind obsessed
  by sins I know too well.
I need the freedom of holiness
  to pull these weeds of hell.
  Pull out these weeds of hell.

I must let go of my brother's neck -
  of our debts we take our leave.
We gather in our Savior's arms.
  We're safe with him between.
  Only safe with him between.

No duty, no law, no preacher's word
  is safe without this tie.
Unyoked from duty, in freedom free,
  Released from laws that lie.
  Released from laws that lie.

True holiness is freedom's path -
  it's sin that brings the fear.
More people do not make more love.
  if Jesus is not near.
  Jesus must be near.

Seen and Heard

Do not be like the hypocrites.

They are missing out.

               They pray to be seen by people

               rather than by their unseen Father.

               Filled with the recognition they seek,

               they miss the eyes of the Beloved One.

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He goes unseen,

              hidden from the view of pride,

              invisible to the self-absorbed.

              He sees and is seen by

              those who close and lock the door

              to be alone with him.

Father, may I be seen by you,

              may your eyes light up my soul,

              may your gaze fill me.

“I see you,” he says.  “I see you.”

Do not be like those who don’t know God,

                         trying to move him with words

                         when he is already moved on their behalf,

                         covering all their bases

                         when only one thing is necessary,

                                           sitting at his feet.

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He waits in silence

               in silence he is heard.

               When I am drowned by many words,

               silence is the ark that stays afloat

               and makes room for his re-creating word,

                                                   his call for deliverance.

Father, close my mouth and ears

              as you did the door of the ark.

              May the flood of noise

              always be outside our place.

“I hear you,” he says.  “I hear you.”

I am seen.

I am heard.

         What else would a father do?

             The heavens are open to me.

        I need not make a name for myself,

             only call out yours.

        I do not have to make things happen;

             I need only be remade.

        Each day you care for me

             as one who knows what I need before I ask.

        As long as people owe me recognition,

             I am collecting.

        Allow me to let it all go

             so I am free to seek your recognition.

        There are many things that shine,

                         many things that call,

             but only you are worth seeing and hearing

                         in everything.

I am seen.

I am heard.

I am free.

( A meditation on Matthew 6:5-17 for my fellow Embers)

Three-Dimensional Prayer

How do we seek "full" prayer?  Pray in 3 dimensions.

1.  The first dimension is the Holy Spirit.  Without the Spirit, we are dead in the water, like a sailboat without a breeze.  It doesn't matter how we move the sails or the rudder, we need wind to go.  He is the life of all we do spiritually. (Romans 8:1,6)  Without him, all aspects of our spirituality end up "dead," going nowhere. (Romans 8:7-8)

2.  The second dimension is spiritual exercises.  Without planned actions, the wind of the Spirit blows right past us.  We are like a sailboat without a sail.  We may feel it or even enjoy it, but we are not caught up in it.  The actions do not cause our movement or growth, but enable us to be moved and be grown.  These are often called spiritual disciplines.  In Henri Nouwen's The Way of the Heart, he emphasizes the use of two disciplines and their effect on prayer.  Examples:

a.  Solitude enables freedom from the pressure to control other people, so we can truly seek God and help them.

b.  Silence teaches the true use of words and deepens our trust in God and not ourselves.

3.  The third dimension is life-practice.  Without bringing the Spirit and our spiritual exercises into our daily life, we lack direction.  We are like a sailboat without a rudder.  God can only direct us in the life we live on a daily basis.  We discover his calling and our destiny day by day, as each wind catches us and as we respond to that wind.  In this way, the analogy breaks down, because God is not just a force to move us, but places his hand with ours on the rudder to guide us.  The point is that we cannot find our way in life without the ongoing influence of the Spirit and the planned action of spiritual discipline being applied to our daily existence.  We end up wondering and wandering instead of trusting and living.  Example:

Nouwen talks about this in his section on Prayer of the Heart.  It is all-inclusive.  It embraces all of life.  He also has some practical ways in which such prayer can be brought into daily life.

Prayer without these 3 dimensions ends up flat and going nowhere.  The 3 dimensions make prayer full and also real to us instead of just a picture.

The Sort of Person Who Prays

The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not be in want. (Psalm 23:1)

For Thine is the kingdom, and the power and the glory forever. Amen.

I haven't usually thought of the beginning of Psalm 23 as having to do with prayer. Lately, though, God has been teaching me about prayer, so it has been on my mind. Why shouldn't it be about prayer? Prayer is the primary means by which God desires to fulfill my desires.

Prayer is not just about my desires, however. A mistake I have made, though, is that I have often assumed it had nothing to do with my desires. Somehow praying God's will had become mostly praying, "Not my will." My desires need an overhaul, but ignoring them or pretending that they don't matter is not God's way of changing them. He wants to redeem my "wanter" so it is in line with his will.

I see this as having desire that are my own and yet also within his will. I do not think that God merely wants to control me anymore than I merely want to control my children. He wants to teach me and help me grow into Christ-likeness, where all I do is in unity with him and also fully my own.

I felt joyful at the realization that the first part of this growth is realizing that he wants to give and provide for me completely, so that I will have no unfulfilled desire - "I shall not be in want." What else would a loving father want?

Then I understood that the end of the Lord's Prayer may not only be a word of praise, but a recognition that God will answer all my requests because he has the kingdom, the power, and the glory, and he wants to share them with me. He wants to give his kingdom without end, his power without limit, and his glory without diminishing.

Really, I find that God wants pray-ers as well as worshipers (aren't they the same, really?). He seeks those who pray because he wants to give them what they ask for. Whatever barriers I have can be overcome with this desire: to become the sort of person who prays and is answered. This is God's will, his desire, and I can share it with him.

Lord, let these words be written on my heart: "I shall not want" and "For Thine is the kingdom, the power, and the glory forever." You have so much to give and yet I receive very little. Increase my faith and hope in your good promises. Change my heart into a faithful one that walks with you. Isn't this what belief and trust are really about? To stay with you, I need to know and trust your goodness, Father. Impress such knowledge on me. Amen.

Sometimes Not Praying Is Better

Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you. (Matthew 5:44)

The connection between love and prayer here is not accidental. I have often heard and understood this as a way of dealing with hatred toward my enemies: "It's impossible to hate someone you're praying for." This does not seem to hold water for myself, nor for other people who pray for their enemies, like the pray-er in Psalm 137:8-9:

Daughter Babylon, doomed to destruction,

happy is the one who repays you

according to what you have done to us.

Happy is the one who seizes your infants

and dashes them against the rocks.

Not very appealing. I can't say I've prayed that way, but then I haven't had my children killed in front of me, either.

So either I am left to redefine love or redefine prayer. I want to start with prayer. First of all, prayer is not about having love and pleasant feelings all the time. Nor is it about pretending to care about what I don't really care about. Nor is it pretending to love someone I dislike or even hate. Unfortunately, the kind of praying that I have been taught and that I practice often is merely pretending to be more loving, more concerned, and more forgiving than I really am. It is disconnected from my life and really just becomes a lot of words. One thing that can be said about that atrocious prayer from Psalm 137 is that it is not pretended.

Secondly, although prayer is, at its heart, requesting, it encompasses so much more than mere requesting. Prayer really comes from how I live my life. If I have no blessings for my enemies, then I have yet to grasp what love is and Who it is that loves me and Who loves the one that I dislike so much. My requests reflect the sort of heart that I have been cultivating. I must admit that my prayers are far more stunted than I would like. I do not like pretending, so I find that I don't do much praying.

Can I pray my way into loving other people? Not usually. The direction of transformation is from the inside out, according to Jesus - "wash the inside of the dish and the outside will become clean, too" and "by their fruits you will recognize them." But my current practice of avoiding prayer certainly doesn't help either. Like all change, I must begin be seeing something better, something greater and then say, "I want to be like that. God help me."

The truth behind praying for my enemies so that I might come to love them is this: I cannot convince myself to love my enemies through mental tricks: trying to convince myself that I should or that they really aren't that bad or that I really am worse than they are, etc. Prayer must come in because transformation involves not just new thoughts, but new actions and intentions. Instead of being ready to do harm or say nasty things, I need to find myself ready to not do harm and bless them. I must be ready to join in God's kingdom which is overcoming evil with good.

In this way prayer becomes a spiritual discipline (though it is never only a discipline). Love is an indirect result of such prayer rather than a direct result. If I pray so that I feel like loving my enemies, then my prayer is about me more than about them. Like the psalmists, I lay my frustrations and malice before God instead of taking it out on my enemies. (This working out things with God can be plainly seen in Psalm 73). This will prevent me from pretending or harming.

Next, prayer places me next to God where I can hear his concerns and desires. This is where prayer can become so much more than well-wishing and general platitudes. Somehow God desires to work with my desires for other people by making my requests both my own and ones that are also his own. The reason: my prayers will be answered. I will truly be given what I ask for!

This is why prayers are not merely requests. The psalms are prayers so unlike a list of concerns because for my concerns to be truly heard and understood requires confession, praise, pondering, wonder, and so much more. Faith is connected to prayer because it involves the whole person. Faith certainly has to do with my desires being strong and real, but also with my desires being true. So prayer becomes work, a work in me and on me, so that I can truly work with God on other people and other situations. Also, prayer moves me to serve and act in the sense that only when I am ready to act with love and concern have I truly prayed.

Like so many things I think I see much further than I really am. How can I hope to live in this kind of prayer? Many of my habits are against me. I guess one step I am taking is that I don't want to pretend and often avoid such situations where pretending prayer is practiced. Currently, I am in the midst of learning how to not harm other people, but forgive them and let them be. My "help" often comes in the form of judgment or condemning, even if it seems to be well-meaning advice. In prayer, perhaps I should try to avoid mere well-wishing or praying just so I can pray something.

This next step I am fumbling toward, like when Nathan, my son, took his first steps looking like a drunken sailor. I long to live intercession as Jesus did and does. I see prayer as the primary labor of disciples on which all other labors are built and grow. Like so many other parts of a spiritual life, the prevailing attitude is just to pray "something" rather than not pray at all. I think this will never bring about the kind of prayer that prevails. This is why the disciples said, "Teach us how to pray." They did not know what or how to ask.

I suppose this must be approached like anything else. When I meditate on the Bible, I wait for God to show me something, to instruct me about what he wants me to see. So when I pray for people and situations, I need to wait on God for guidance and instruction. Since he wants my desires to be part of it too, it will not merely be a list of requests, but thoughts, feelings, and pictures from my own mind impressed with the his understanding and power.

In short, I guess the instruction is:

1. Do not pray as the hypocrites do, pretending so that they can just say something.
2. Be real with God, even if it is ugly. Always be ready to cry out, "Help my unbelief and lack of love!"
3. Wait on the Teacher to develop true faith and true desire in my prayers, as he would have.

Lord, you know these ideas on prayer are shots in the dark. You know I don't know much of what I am talking about. I only know that much of my prayer is broken because it remains unanswered. I truly do not know how to pray. Teach me to be like you. Amen.

Prayer as a Hike

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For with you is the fountain of life;

in your light we see light. (Ps. 36:9)

The very spring of life as well as the very source of light come from God. Prayer seeks the source of light and life by following them closely. Finding a spring almost always involves a climb. Coming out of the forests or caves into the sun takes a hike. Such is prayer on many days - a climb, a hike.

In my experience prayer is work like a climb or a hike, but it is not merely work. I find vistas on the ways. The work warms me as I seek the sun. It is not all cold drudgery. God is faithful to make even the work pleasant.

If we follow light and life, we will, of course, be carried along in love. Love is the manner in which we go. It is the pounding heart, the effort to go on, the laughter on the way, and the anticipation of getting closer to the goal.

I am reminded of what prayer is: a journey along the streams of life to its fountainhead, breaking through the forests to the warm vistas above tree-line. We drink as we go and the water is sweeter every day. We see one vista only to be surprised by the next. Love is the sweat and work, the wonder and pleasure, the company and conversation.

Let us not tire of prayer. It is work, hard work. But not unpleasant or impossible. As we go, we will find what we need and those who will journey with us. They are already on the trail, too.