The past week has been riddled with difficulty in prayer. I feel restless, like I am searching for something, waiting for the Lord to say something, clear things up for me, give me some sense of direction and his will in a specific area of my life. Yet, if I am willing to allow the Lord to reveal to me what is honestly going on in my sub-conscious while praying, I’ve found my mind is far more dominated by acts of self-analyzation and vain attempts to “crack open” God’s mind on the matter, than a posture of truly listening to Him, marked by a deep sense of rest and trust that the Lord will reveal to me what he desires to, in His time and according to his pleasure. This rest allows us to be at peace, even when the desired response we seek from God isn’t given.
Galatians 5:25- “since we live by the spirit, let us keep in step with the spirit”
The humbling truth is that often I don’t want to stay in step with the Spirit; I want to stay a step ahead of the Spirit. A step ahead would seem to remove so much tension, so much anxious waiting, the need to be patient and listen, and replace the need to receive with the “feeling” of control. Another side effect that undoubtedly occurs is the elimination of the necessary relational engagement between the Lord and myself for peace to be imparted to us. Although the Lord is not bound by time, we as humans are, and therefore can only receive in the present what the Lord has for us in that moment. This is why staying in step with the Spirit isn’t a mere suggestion but a command given to us by Paul. What Paul is saying is that now that your very life is “hidden with Christ in God (Colossians 3:3)” the only useful thing to do is to stay in step with the Spirit by which you now live.
Prayer often times is the vehicle not just by which I stay in step with the Spirit, but often the door through which I discover just how out of step I truly am. The Lord often specifically exposes the focus of my prayer, such as getting an answer from him on a unclear and painful situation, to reveal that the relational “yoking” that He invites us into when we are weary (Matthew 11:28), is not truly what I am after. To say it simply, Jesus I don’t want you, I just want you to fix this situation. But if we find that He often isn’t fixing the circumstances we so despise, yet is still clearly calling us into prayer (continually; 1 Thessalonians 5:17), why then would we pray?
Is it possible that our prayer to the Lord is not our self-derived attempt to communicate with God the desires of our hearts, but rather the response of our “spirit alive” hearts, to His calling of us? Revelation 3:20- here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with him, and he with me.
Is it possible that the lack of response often times that we feel from the Lord to the things that we are brining to him is not as a result of his indifference on the matter, but our misunderstanding that what has brought us to Him in prayer was not primarily our desire to see the circumstances remedied, but what was underneath that desire, our spirit’s paramount desire, namely communion with God himself? Often times the circumstances that are causing me such duress are so much the focal point of my prayer that I miss the reality that it is the very things that I am dealing with that are the pathway that has brought me to this place of helplessness and leaning relationally into Jesus. This nearness to Christ, this “staying in step with the spirit” is the place from which I can enter the rest Jesus speaks of in Matthew 11.
Prayer is a means grace that leads to potential rest. It is often times because of our inability to rest that we approach the Lord in prayer, hoping that he would remedy some of the circumstances that are causing us the anxiety. If we are willing, prayer can become the place of rest we are seeking that on the surface we only believe possible with circumstantial change. It teaches us what our hearts truly desire; that which God told Abraham in Genesis 15, “I am you reward”. What we truly desire is to experience the nearness of God himself.
George Croly- “ I ask no dream, no prophet ecstasies, no sudden rending of the veil of clay, no angel visitant, no opening skies, but take the dimness of my soul away.”
The circumstances of this life and this world, all of its worries and trappings serve as a dimmer for the brilliance and wonder of what we have already been given fully in Christ. Prayer brings me back near to Christ, the very personal source of the “light” that illuminates my soul, that I may see more clearly all that I do have in Him, and in His radiance, is dimmed all that the world says I still yet need.
Philippians 4: 5-7: The Lord is near. Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.
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