I was going to blog this morning about Friends, following on from Jesus being a friend, and I might later if I get time but today’s meditation from Richard Rohr fits so well with the quote from George Mueller yesterday that I want to share it.
Unfortunately, in the West, prayer had become something functional; something you did to achieve a desired effect—which too often puts the ego back in charge. As soon as you make prayer a way to get what you want, you’re not moving into any kind of new state of consciousness. It’s the same old consciousness, but now well disguised: “How can I get God to do what I want God to do?” It’s the egocentric self deciding what it needs, but now, instead of just manipulating everybody else, it tries to manipulate God.
He is talking about Prayer and Contemplative Prayer at that. This is a way of communicating with God and learning how to have relationship with Him. It’s as much about listening as it is about telling Him what we want. No don’t get me wrong, I have nothing against praying and asking God for things that we want and need, things that we believe will make the world a better place, but often, like Rohr says it is putting us in the centre. E.g “if I pray in this way and declare this then this will happen/so and so will be healed/so and so will get enough money/etc/etc”
Now God is our Father and we should say what we want, but I suspect like most parents He knows what we want before we ask. He knows cancer needs healing. He knows when someone needs money. And sometimes He does provide without us asking. But I think it needs to be much more of this hanging out contemplative praying, hearing The Father’s Heart. I know as a parent I’d be really fed up if my kids only spoke to me when they wanted something, especially now they are more mature. But even when they were little I loved the times we would just snuggle down together and they would chatter away. Now they are older I love the meals together, the phone calls, the texts, the coffees, where they chatter on about their hopes and dreams, the things that have wound them up, the things that have made them happy. These things make me know I have a relationship with them. I’m still parent and they will always be my children, but it is moving into a sort of friendship relationship, but still with that subtle difference with them than I have with my friends.
I think God wants us to chatter to Him. I think He likes it when we tell Him our hopes and dreams and then together we can share ideas about how to deal with that. Of course that means I’ll tell Him about my friends and how I’d like to see them helped, but then my kids do that to me. In fact recently my daughter was concerned about a friend of hers and I turned my whole schedule round to help and support this girl. I did it as much for Tabitha and her peace of mind as I did for her friend. I think God does that for us. So I can say to Him things about the struggles my friends are having with their illnesses, their losses, their parents, their children, their finances, and I suspect God turns His schedule around to help my friends out. But it is different than asking and expecting. It is much more like George Mueller and the knowing that I can tell God anything and He will work it for the best.
I wonder if we talked about how to grow that relationship with God if more people would be able to stay with Him, but when we talk about a god-who-answers-prayers, which so often He doesn’t, then people are sceptical. When we hear that God doesn’t answer because we didn’t pray in the right way, didn’t have our hearts right, doubted, and all the other unkind things people say when the fairy godmother doesn’t do His stuff, then we get disillusioned and don’t want in this any more. I’m sure George Mueller prayer for his wife. He was amazing and never asked for any support and yet fed and supported hundreds and hundreds of orphans via the needs that came in when they prayed. Here was a man who did believe in asking for things and yet had such a relationship with Father God that he knew that God would always do right.
My daily thoughts 