|
Back to Reflections index |
Prayer as a relationship with God
A man went hunting bears. As he trudged
through the forest, he climbed a steep hill and, just as he was pulling
himself up over the last outcropping of rocks, a huge bear met him nose
to nose. The bear roared fiercely. The man was so scared that he lost
his balance and fell down the hill with the bear not far behind. On the
trip down the hill the man lost his gun. When he finally stopped
tumbling, he found that he had a broken leg. Escape was impossible and
so the man, who had never been particularly religious (in fact he was
hunting on Sunday morning), prayed: “God if you will make this bear a
Christian I will be happy with whatever lot you give me for the rest of
my life.” The bear was no more than three feet away from the man when it
stopped dead in its tracks, looked up to the heavens quizzically, and
then fell to its knees and prayed in a loud voice: “Lord bless this food
of which I am about to partake. Amen.”
Truly it has been said, prayer can sometimes be a dangerous thing,
particularly when one asks for the wrong thing. But this is symptomatic
of a wider misunderstanding of the purpose of prayer. We must learn that
God is not some kind of super computer, receiving millions of prayers in
different languages daily and responding to them like some divine call
centre.
When God created mankind He gave them a very special gift, one not
shared with the other creatures of creation. That gift was to be made in
His image, so that man might have a conscious, personal and two-way
relationship with the Creator of the universe. Because of this gift,
mankind can know God in a very special way; without it, we can only know
about Him, rather than to experience Him for ourselves. Scripture names
this form of dialogue ‘prayer’. Thus prayer is about having a living
relationship with God.
Just how important prayer is can be measured in Matthew’s story of the
feeding of the 5,000 in Chapter 14 of his gospel. Here we read of a
multitude of people who had
left their homes and followed Jesus to hear him teach and see him heal
the sick that were brought to him. They had eaten the bread and fishes
that he had miraculously provided and now they were ready to make him
king.
You would have thought that this was a heaven-sent opportunity for
Jesus. Surely he would seize the chance to convert the thousands,
baptising and ministering to theme? Jesus did. In verse 22, Matthew
writes: “He dismissed the crowd.” Why, I wonder, having got all these
people literally eating out of his hand, should he do such a daft thing?
Verse 23 tells us: “After he had dismissed them, he went up on a
mountainside by himself to pray.”
This was no whim, no spur of the moment decision, but a deliberate
choice, one which showed what he considered his priority. If Jesus
thought it necessary to say no to the demands of the crowds in order to
pray, to spend time with his Father, don’t you think we should, too?
Here is a tremendous lesson for the church: that our mission, our
worship, every aspect of our life, individual and corporate, should be
rooted firmly in prayer. Jesus teaches us that maintaining a
relationship with God – and one which is intimate enough for us to be
able to call Him ‘Father’ or ‘Daddy’ - is far more important than the
glory of filling the pews. But why? Surely God wants His Kingdom to grow
and to overflow; after all wasn’t it Jesus’ commission to his disciples
and to us: “And preach as you go, saying, 'The kingdom of heaven is at
hand.' Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse lepers, cast out demons.”
(Matthew 10:7-8)
Of course it is but, as we learn from reading the parable of sower, it
is vital that before planting the seed we prepare the ground properly
and tend it, to nurture and care for the new seedlings, to protect them
as they grow so that they are not torn out of the ground by thieves, or
strangled by weeds. All that can only be achieved through prayer,
because in prayer, we are able to discern God’s will, to receive His
life in ours, to be filled again and again with His power – the Holy
Spirit.
Throughout the gospels we read of Jesus disappearing from time to time
in order to be alone in prayer, to spend time with his Father, and to
discern what the Father desired of him. Jesus could only heal and
perform miracles when God’s power was present. In Luke 5:17, for
example, we read “and the power of the Lord was with him to heal.” And
later we hear that Jesus could do not miracles because the power of God
was not present. Jesus could only know when the power was present by
entering into a dialogue with the Father.
In John (5:19-21) Jesus says, "Truly, truly, I say to you, the Son can
do nothing of his own accord, but only what he sees the Father doing;
for whatever he does, that the Son does likewise. For the Father loves
the Son, and shows him all that he himself is doing; and greater works
than these will he show him, that you may marvel. For as the Father
raises the dead and gives them life, so also the Son gives life to whom
he will.”
Wouldn’t you like to be able to do great things? Raise the dead and give
life? I know I would. And Jesus gives us the ability through prayer. He
says in John 14 (13-14): “Whatever you ask in my name, I will do it,
that the Father may be glorified in the Son; if you ask anything in my
name, I will do it.” Of course that doesn’t mean we just tack on the
words “in Jesus’ name” after every petition; this is not a formula. It’s
an invitation to seek the mind of God through Christ and in the power of
the Holy Spirit.
Paul urges us to pray without ceasing and allow the Holy Spirit to
search the heart of God and inform our minds.
This is not to disguise the very real struggle that everyone finds in
praying; even Jesus at times found it difficult to align himself with
his Father’s will. That night before his death, in the garden of
Gethsemane, he wrestled with his fate. In the end, his battle ended with
“yet not my will but thine be done”.
Ultimately, the true test of faith is not whether we are able to
subjugate ourselves, but whether we are strong enough to allow God to do
His will, whatever the cost.
In the end, if how we pray and what we pray become more important than
to whom we pray, then we’ve got our priorities very wrong somewhere. If
getting bottoms on seats in our churches becomes more important than the
God we come to worship, then we’re facing the wrong way. If the Church
fellowship becomes more important than our fellowship with God, then we
are guilty of idolatry.
In all things Jesus must be our example for, if we look closely, we
shall see that his whole life and his entire ministry was a living
prayer.
May we be blessed with such a prayer life. |
|
