As He Is

"We must lay before Him what is in us, not what ought to be in us."

                                                                                 ~ C. S. Lewis

Prayer is a funny thing.
Not funny 'ha ha,' but funny as in odd, different.

In prayer, a person may speak freely with the Sovereign Lord of the Universe, without reservation, hinderance or hesitation - though we rarely come to Him as we should or say what truly needs to be said from our hearts.

Psalm 139 teaches us that God knows our words before they are even our words; He knows them when they are mere thoughts.

And maybe, just maybe, our thoughts are our real prayers; for, in the words of Jesus, 'As a man thinks in his heart, so is he.'

The truth of life is that humans tend to remain shallow at one level of our relationships; we tend to keep people at a distance, a controllable distance from our true thoughts and feelings.
The same would happen with God in our spiritual life if He could not read our thoughts and know our hearts.
We would keep God in a comfortable place for us; but real spiritual growth happens at times when we tend to be uncomfortable, challenged.

In reality, unless we are fully honest with God or a friend, or a spouse; that relationship never deepens.
Instead, we will go through the motions of a relationship, but the relationship will only remain superficial.
The challenge for every Christian is to trust God with what He already knows about us.

But there is a problem.

The problem is that we often see God as someone we should cower before, instead of seeing Him as a person like Jesus.
We forget that it was Jesus who is the 'perfect image' of God the Father.
We lose sight of the fact that it was Jesus who willing sought the greatest offenders.

We need to be reminded that He alone is worthy of our trust.

In the military, Chaplains are identified by their occupational badge; each showing the broad faith group to which they belong.
A Christian has a Cross, a Muslim a Crescent, a Rabbi wears the Tablets; but it is the Eastern Religions who are represented by a Wheel, a Prayer Wheel.
Buddhist Temples have a large version of these prayer wheels; they constantly turn this wheel believe that the gods will respond to the requests.

This may seem odd and extremely foreign to Christians, but the reality is that we view things very similar when it comes to prayer.
In the Christian world, people believe if they do something, anything of value or contribution with the Church, or if we give more in the offering, then by all means God is obligated to respond.
We lessen the very meaning of prayer in doing so because we have based God's response on a transaction rather than a personal relationship.
And it is that personal relationship which He desires most with us.

Every person who comes to God in prayer, comes to Him with preconceived notions that we've learned throughout our lives; unfortunately, most of our notions are wrong, being formed by our experiences, popular psychology instead of Scriptural authority.
In the words of Jedi Master Yoda, 'We must unlearn what we have learned.'

For all the things which God is, God is not a cosmic kill-joy.
God is not a judgmental, Super-cop waiting to nail you to the wall.
Yet, God is to be revered, loved and praised for His graciousness rather than feared on trembling knees; although He is fearful in a Holy way.

There are those who were abused by the biological fathers in life; for them the Fatherhood of God is skewed and their notion deviates from the true love and grace of God the Father.
Others have been taught that God is a ruling Autocrat, rather than a benevolent dictator with your eternal destiny and good in His heart.
Still others, maybe most, see faith as a spiritual bargaining chip with God because nothing in life is free; therefore, why should grace be free.

And yet, when all is considered, we are left with the image of Christ we are given in Scripture.
A man who sought out the hurting, touched those shunned by society, gave grace freely to the greatest offender and called the most unordinary people to do extraordinary things in His name.
Amazingly, while Jesus was on earth, not one person asked Him what God was like; they asked Him many things and could have asked Him anything they wished.
But they never asked Him what God was like; they could see that He is the 'perfect image' of the Father.

With this said, maybe Christians ought to get rid of the images we have about God and find the person the image is supposed to represent.
His name is Jesus.

Until next time, go win one for the good guys.