Prayer: A Word I Need to Heed

-
"I try to remember that words do not matter to God as much as many of us suppose. They carry less weight than we think. 
Our culture seems infatuated by words. By the millions they stream from our radios, televisions, newspapers, internet sites, and yes, books. Drive through any metropolitan area, with its billboards, neon ads, and bannered signs, and you get the strange sensation of driving through a phone book or huge dictionary. Words seem essential. But much that is profound can happen in their absence. 
...
Rather than defining prayer as something solely expressed in words, I see it more fundamentally as being present to God. Sometimes words are eminently appropriate. Sometimes they get in the way. Often they simply don't matter. The important thing is to stand before God without our constant chatter, ready to be in heartfelt relationship with him. Where our whole selves are engaged in relationship with God, there prayer will be, even if words are not used."
- Timothy Jones, The Art of Prayer. pg. 23-24


My response: 
Words matter a great deal to me. Words are tools which enable understanding, communication, manipulation, transformation, and more. Reflecting on this I realize that words are, by and large, my specialty. I have no particular skills with my hands or my body and I lack technical expertise of every kind. As a child I told my parents that I wanted to be a politician, because they get paid to talk. Today I am a pastor, and though this vocation, this calling, is much more than 'getting paid to talk' it frequently relies on the proper use of language. And yet Jones is right; when it comes to prayer words fall away. My 'specialty' has, if I am honest, a way of coming between myself and God. It is humbling to see that I often come to God with ostensibly empty hands, never realizing that I grasp tightly to control through my mastery of language. It is freeing to see that this is utterly unnecessary. God does not need my words for understanding or transformation, and all the words in the world will not allow me to understand God, who is the same yesterday, today, and forever. Amen. 




O Lord, the scripture says 'there is a time for silence and a time for speech.' Savior, teach me the silence of humility, the silence of wisdom, the silence of love, the silence of perfection, the silence that speaks without words, the silence of faith. Lord, teach me to silence my own heart that I may listen to hte gentle movement of the Holy Spirit within me and sense the depths which are of God.
- Frankfurt Prayer (quoted in The Art of Prayer pg. 44)

Comments

Alhambra Upholstery said…
Thanks for the poost
4:52 AM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Forgiveness: A Hard Word From Luther

-
"Those who follow Christ grieve more over the sin of their offenders than over the loss or offense to themselves. And they do this that they may recall those offenders from their sin rather than avenge the wrongs they themselves have suffered. Therefore they put off the form of their own righteousness and put on the form of those others, praying for their persecutors, blessing those who curse, doing good to the evil-doers, preparing to pay the penalty and make satisfaction for their very enemies that they may be saved. This is the gospel and the example of Christ." - Martin Luther (Quoted by Miroslav Volf, Free of Charge, pg. 161-162)
Read more

Proper Confidence: Faith, Doubt, and Certainty

-
Image
Leslie Newbigin, Proper Confidence: Faith, Doubt , and Certainty in Christian Discipleship. Grand Rapids, Michigan: William B. Eerdmans, 1995. 105 pgs. In this gem of a book Newbigin takes the reader on a journey away from the idea of Cartesian certainty and towards a more proper scaffolding for thought and belief. He denies the possibility of ideal certainty with no doubt and concludes that seeking this ideal can only to skepticism (of an extreme sort) and Nihilism. The thesis of this book might best best be stated as follows: the proper confidence of a Christian is not the possession of indubitable knowledge but the confidence of one who has heard and answered God's call of 'Follow me.' In order to demonstrate this point, Newbigin first examines three 'paths' whose titles, which are his first three chapter titles, seem somewhat counter-intuitive. In the first chapter, 'Faith as the Way to Knowledge,' Newbigin argues that if knowledge, and God, are ultim
Read more

A Good Tree Bears Good Fruit....

-
Image
"Every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit. A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, and a bad tree cannot bear good fruit." - Matthew 7:17-18 "One of the most powerful ways to influence the behavior of a system is through its purpose or goal. That's because the goal is the direction-setter of the system, the definer of discrepancies that require action, the indicator of compliance, failure, or success toward which balancing feedback loops work. If the goal is defined badly, if it doesn't measure what it's supposed to measure, if it doesn't reflect the real welfare of the system, then the system can't possibly produce a desirable result. Systems, like the three wishes in the traditional fairy tale, have a terrible tendency to produce exactly and only what you ask them to produce. Be careful what you ask them to produce." - Donella H. Meadows, Thinking in Systems. 
Read more