One of the books that my dog chewed on as a puppy was this little book by David Jeremiah, The Prayer Matrix (Logan had a particular taste for books about prayer). While I was reorganizing my home office, I happened to come upon this book again, and realized rather quickly that it wasn't just happenstance. This well-chewed little book was waiting for me to find it at the moment when I needed it.
I have been trying for some time to restore and reinvigorate my prayer life, which has been mostly nonexistent over the past few years. Like so many people, I have been too busy running around "putting out fires," dealing with the crisis of the moment, to take the time to see the bigger picture - and I have consistently neglected to ask God for what I need.
There is more than a good reason, there is a perfect reason why I am in financial distress right now, and it is God's perfect reason. I need to learn a radical dependence upon God. I need to learn to ask.
I have always struggled against the idea of God as the cosmic vending machine, waiting for us to come up with the proper coin, the correct formula, the right magical incantation, before dispensing good things. That's not the kind of God I want to worship, and that's OK, because that's not the kind of God we have.
David Jeremiah states that God has chosen voluntarily to limit Himself, by choosing to work through the means of prayer. Jeremiah even makes this statement, which seems difficult to accept: "In certain unexplainable ways, He has made Himself subservient to the prayers of His people." Subservient? That seems wrong, doesn't it?
And yet, it's all about free will, and has been since the Garden of Eden (whether one takes the story literally or not). God could do everything without us; God could make us into automatons, mere tools with no choice other than to do His will. He chose not to do that, and part of His gift to us is the gift of choice. By stepping back until we ask for His help, He leaves us our freedom.
Jeremiah writes: "Prayer is built into the way the universe works because the universe works on relationship - our personal relationship with God." Although it is phrased differently, this is much the same insight as one that I learned early and have held for my entire adult life, that God works together with us in making our reality. I like to phrase it as "we co-create our reality," but that's too New Agey a phrasing for most Christians. I believe it is true, though, that we work in partnership with God, not because God can't do it without us but because God chooses not to do it without us.
Jeremiah quotes Jim Cymbala that prayer "has to be born out of a whole environment of felt need." I've been like the woman in the Vienna Teng song "The Tower," thinking that I need NOT to need, when it is actually the opposite. I need to acknowledge that I am in need, and if I'm not sufficiently in need then I will keep on sinking until I hit that point, because only then can I truly ask God's help through prayer.
I have been trying for some time to restore and reinvigorate my prayer life, which has been mostly nonexistent over the past few years. Like so many people, I have been too busy running around "putting out fires," dealing with the crisis of the moment, to take the time to see the bigger picture - and I have consistently neglected to ask God for what I need.
There is more than a good reason, there is a perfect reason why I am in financial distress right now, and it is God's perfect reason. I need to learn a radical dependence upon God. I need to learn to ask.
I have always struggled against the idea of God as the cosmic vending machine, waiting for us to come up with the proper coin, the correct formula, the right magical incantation, before dispensing good things. That's not the kind of God I want to worship, and that's OK, because that's not the kind of God we have.
David Jeremiah states that God has chosen voluntarily to limit Himself, by choosing to work through the means of prayer. Jeremiah even makes this statement, which seems difficult to accept: "In certain unexplainable ways, He has made Himself subservient to the prayers of His people." Subservient? That seems wrong, doesn't it?
And yet, it's all about free will, and has been since the Garden of Eden (whether one takes the story literally or not). God could do everything without us; God could make us into automatons, mere tools with no choice other than to do His will. He chose not to do that, and part of His gift to us is the gift of choice. By stepping back until we ask for His help, He leaves us our freedom.
Jeremiah writes: "Prayer is built into the way the universe works because the universe works on relationship - our personal relationship with God." Although it is phrased differently, this is much the same insight as one that I learned early and have held for my entire adult life, that God works together with us in making our reality. I like to phrase it as "we co-create our reality," but that's too New Agey a phrasing for most Christians. I believe it is true, though, that we work in partnership with God, not because God can't do it without us but because God chooses not to do it without us.
Jeremiah quotes Jim Cymbala that prayer "has to be born out of a whole environment of felt need." I've been like the woman in the Vienna Teng song "The Tower," thinking that I need NOT to need, when it is actually the opposite. I need to acknowledge that I am in need, and if I'm not sufficiently in need then I will keep on sinking until I hit that point, because only then can I truly ask God's help through prayer.
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