Praying for Something Bigger
I’ve been reflecting recently on why I often find myself slow to come before God in prayer. Why should I have to force myself to make use of such a great privilege?
While there are many reasons, the one I’m most keenly aware of right now is a failure of imagination and desire. I aspire after realistic and manageable outcomes, like a sermon that people are generally happy with, a family at home that feels mostly content, a life for myself that is generally free of discomfort. And since all of these things I (mistakenly) believe I can manage on my own, I pray primarily out of duty, rather than out of a deep awareness of need.
But I am setting my sites far too low, for God’s generosity is so much greater than these plans. C. S. Lewis puts it well: If we consider the unblushing promises of reward and the staggering nature of the rewards promised in the Gospels, it would seem that Our Lord finds our desires, not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.
What do you think would happen if we began to acquire a taste for the miraculous? If we found ourselves hungering, not just for a stable and slowly growing church, but for a community where the Holy Spirit is clearly present, unpredictably and uncomfortably demolishing and rebuilding us into the likeness of Jesus? If our desire for our friends and for ourselves was for something far greater than slightly easier lives: if we instead thirsted to be filled together with the overwhelming joy and hope of knowing our God and resting in his love? Once we came to yearn for what only God can give, how could we not pray?
It is this longing vision of God’s grace that I’m praying for right now. Perhaps you could join me.
