Living on a prayer...

[28th June 2012]

I was just reading The Shack by William P. Young (2007) and there was a part that really struck me, especially since everything that I’ve been thinking about this past week. It’s about prayer, confession, honesty and trust. The passage is on page 106 from the middle to the end. It’s about Mack telling God about how He acts as if it’s the first time they’re hearing things when His children pray to Him, even though He knows everything already. It is explained that when you go to God, He lets you tell Him things from your perspective. As He did with Jesus, He limits Himself to have relationship with you, coming down to your level - as you would to a child joining in with a drawing. Whilst this may not be true at all it is an interesting idea. The idea that God limited Himself for the benefit of His creation, us, is astonishing. The idea that He lets us tell Him things from our perspective, is seriously thought provoking.

   I have been in Brussels for the past week I’ve had so much fun meeting new people, seeing new places, trying new things, and also enjoying doing nothing in particular somewhere just different from home - wherever that may be. 

   I have tried to get my head and heart clear, sorted out, because just when you think things are going to get easier they go crazy complicated on you. I tried to revamp myself and decide what I want, now I have the freedom to do anything job/volunteer/travel wise. The answers I’ve discovered? None. Other than I’m shorting myself if I think that I can’t do something; and I’m kidding myself on by thinking I’m OK. Yesterday was the 9 month mark of Mum’s death. 9 months. That’s 9 months too long, 9 months too empty, even though so much has happened since then.

   I find that if I talk to God, a lot of the time I say things like ‘you know how I feel’ or ‘you know what I want’. So many ‘you know’s but do I even know? I think I say ‘you know’ because He does know but maybe also to excuse me from saying what I really want, or telling Him how I really feel. I wonder if it’s because I don’t want to, or because I really don’t know myself.

   Maybe I think that if God already knows, I don’t have to confess certain things, I don’t have to figure out what I want myself. But what if God were there, waiting to hear what we think? Then we’d have to know, we’d have to say something, we’d have to share our lives with Him, we’d have to share ourselves with Him - as we promised when we were baptised. 

   God can only help me as much as I let Him, and that doesn’t necessarily mean I allow Him to make miracles or look out for a sign - what if, in fact, it means truly thinking about my faults, my iniquities, my weaknesses and figure out a way to battle them with His strength. Surely that makes more sense as a working relationship, rather than me praying ‘you know what I feel, you know what I need, you know what I want, Amen.’ Maybe God does know, but I’ll bet He’s waiting to hear it from me.