Prayer

Gods’ Word speaks SO loudly. The Jews say that there are 70 faces to every scripture. I believe it.

Luke 9 says of Jesus, “As he was praying, the appearance of his face changed, and his clothes became as bright as a flash of lightening.” This was the transfiguration. Rod says that Jesus was transformed as he spent time in God’s presence.

But I had to wonder how could Jesus change in any way that makes him any more perfect or any more God? I think its that because he was human, he was still limited in the capacity he had to understand God’s love for him, just maybe.

And so when we read these verses that talk about being changed by prayer and finding God when we pray, I have to understand that not to mean necessarily that our problems will be fixed or that we’ll learn large sums of information that we never knew, but that God will remove a few more of the scales from our eyes and our hearts each time we humbly seek him in prayer and that he will increase our capacity to understand his love for us.

And I guess then, that it is exactly that which I want more than anything else- to know how much I am loved by Him. And as a result of knowing, I am confident that everything else will fall right into place. And you know what? All I really want is to live the life that God intended for me to live, to do the work that he intended for me to do, and to be the blessing that he intended for me to be. I want that, and in order to have that, I need to know how much he loves me and to really know that, I need to know him. To know him, I absolutely need to be devoted to prayer.

But I struggle with prayer. I get burnt out quickly. I tend to get bored. Then I have to ask, how could Jesus pray and fast for 40 days and 40 nights? People say that’s an easy question- he’s God. Yeah, but what about what Philippians says- “he made himself nothing” and I think another translation says, “he emptied himself.” So he WAS God- yes- but he chose to put aside the things that made him God so that he could taste the life that we do. So for him, acting in human strength, to ceaselessly seek God for almost 6 weeks- I have to wonder- what is there to prayer that we’re missing?!

And can prayer really get boring? If prayer is meeting with God, what is it that I’m not getting? There is nothing dull or monotonous, dry or stale about who God is…