Doing some thinking about prayer. Here is a quote from E. M. Bounds, "...prayer is simply faith, claiming its natural yet marvelous prerogatives - faith taking possession of its illimitable inheritance."
Bounds goes on to quote this scripture and then says, "Here is described a faith which realizes, which appropriates, which takes (emphasis his). Such faith is a consciousness of the divine, an experienced communion, a realized certainty."
Prayer and faith are intimately connected. Without faith, where is prayer? To whom or what do you pray without faith? And without prayer...what happens to our faith? I know the answer to that one. Prayerlessness leads to faithlessness. When I struggled with God in the past, it seemed that all I prayed for not only did I not receive, but often the very opposite of my prayers happened. So I stopped "praying." I started talking to God, I stopped making time to pray and just talked when I had something to talk about.
Now, some might say that is prayer, and I suppose it is. But I found that it didn't increase my faith much. In fact, I think my faith lessened. Maybe that had to do with the rage I felt towards God as well. Whatever, I know my faith was not increased by ceasing to pray.
So, I'm attempting to rebuild my prayer life. It won't be like it used to be - I was a bit too legalistic and really have no desire to go back there. But, I do intend to make time to actually pray and not just talk. It may still look a bit like talking to God, but there is a difference. In prayer, one expects something. When I just talked to God, I didn't expect anything - in fact, I kind of hoped nothing happened, because I felt it probably wouldn't be good. But, I intend to pray expecting answers - yes, no, maybe - something.
I do have a motive here - I hope that my faith level rises. This is what I have noticed in thinking and reading about prayer - one needs to have faith when one prays. This actually causes me some fear. I can feel tension in my gut thinking about this. Can I trust God to not do what happened to me before? Can I trust God to not pull the rug out from under me again?
I hope so.
Bounds goes on to quote this scripture and then says, "Here is described a faith which realizes, which appropriates, which takes (emphasis his). Such faith is a consciousness of the divine, an experienced communion, a realized certainty."
Prayer and faith are intimately connected. Without faith, where is prayer? To whom or what do you pray without faith? And without prayer...what happens to our faith? I know the answer to that one. Prayerlessness leads to faithlessness. When I struggled with God in the past, it seemed that all I prayed for not only did I not receive, but often the very opposite of my prayers happened. So I stopped "praying." I started talking to God, I stopped making time to pray and just talked when I had something to talk about.
Now, some might say that is prayer, and I suppose it is. But I found that it didn't increase my faith much. In fact, I think my faith lessened. Maybe that had to do with the rage I felt towards God as well. Whatever, I know my faith was not increased by ceasing to pray.
So, I'm attempting to rebuild my prayer life. It won't be like it used to be - I was a bit too legalistic and really have no desire to go back there. But, I do intend to make time to actually pray and not just talk. It may still look a bit like talking to God, but there is a difference. In prayer, one expects something. When I just talked to God, I didn't expect anything - in fact, I kind of hoped nothing happened, because I felt it probably wouldn't be good. But, I intend to pray expecting answers - yes, no, maybe - something.
I do have a motive here - I hope that my faith level rises. This is what I have noticed in thinking and reading about prayer - one needs to have faith when one prays. This actually causes me some fear. I can feel tension in my gut thinking about this. Can I trust God to not do what happened to me before? Can I trust God to not pull the rug out from under me again?
I hope so.
posted by Greg at 1:26 AM
1 Comments:
It's my hope that you don't end up with the rug out from under you again... I'm not so sure God did the pulling, but he does seem to be fine with tearing down idols and pretense in order to get to our true selves. Sometimes I think he just withdraws his hand of protection and lets the enemy have his way with us for a while, but only for a season, and only to accomplish some end. Anyway, I hope you can come to God with your "true face" (from C.S. Lewis Till We Have Faces):
"When the time comes to you at which you will be forced at last to utter the speech which has lain at the center of your soul for years, which you have, all that time, idiot-like, been saying over and over, you'll not talk about the joy of words. I saw well why the gods do not speak to us openly, nor let us answer. Till that word can be dug out of us, why should they hear babble that we think we mean. How can they meet us face to face until we have faces?"
There's something really powerful about our coming with authenticity to the throne of God, that's more powerful than anything else we do.
Post a Comment
<< Home