Where Can I Go? - Psalm 139 Part 2

 

As we continue this series from the 139^th Psalm, please follow along in your Bibles as I read the entire psalm for context: (Psalm 139) “O Lord, You have searched me and known me. You know when I sit down and when I rise up; You understand my thought from afar. You scrutinize my path and my lying down, and are intimately acquainted with all my ways. Even before there is a word on my tongue, behold, O Lord, You know it all. You have enclosed me behind and before, and laid Your hand upon me. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; It is too high, I cannot attain to it.

 

Where can I go from Your Spirit? Or where can I flee from Your presence? If I ascend to heaven, You are there; If I make my bed in Sheol, behold, You are there. If I take the wings of the dawn, if I dwell in the remotest part of the sea, even there Your hand will lead me, and Your right hand will lay hold of me. If I say, “Surely the darkness will overwhelm me, and the light around me will be night,” Even the darkness is not dark to You, And the night is as bright as the day. Darkness and light are alike to you.

 

For You formed my inward parts; You wove me in my mother’s womb. I will give thanks to You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made; Wonderful are Your works, And my soul knows it very well. My frame was not hidden from You, when I was made in secret, and skillfully wrought in the depths of the earth; Your eyes have seen my unformed substance; And in Your book were all written the days that were ordained for me, as yet there was not one of them. How precious also are Your thoughts to me, O God! How vast is the sum of them! If I should count them, they when would outnumber the sand. When I awake, I am still with You.

 

O that You would slay the wicked, O God; Depart from me, therefore, men of bloodshed. For they speak against You wickedly, and Your enemies take Your name in vain. Do I not hate those who hate You, O Lord? And do I not loathe those who rise up against You? I hate them with the utmost hatred; They have become my enemies. Search me, O God, and know my heart; Try me and know my anxious thoughts; And see if there be any hurtful way in me, and lead me in the everlasting way.” (Psalm 139:1-24)

 

Last week, we saw that God not only searches and probes us, but that He also searches FOR us. So, while some ask themselves, “Who am I?” and, “Do I matter?” the Christian – the one who seeks Christ in ongoing confession and repentance – the Christian is confident that he or she is beloved by God, and that he or she MATTERS to God.

 

Although we also looked at these verses last time: “[Lord]You have enclosed me behind and before and laid Your hand upon me. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; It is too high, I cannot attain to it” I want to take a few minutes to revisit them because of their significance.

 

It is the Almighty God who encloses us. He encircles us. He presses Himself around us on every side. Listen to His promise to you and to me as He spoke through Isaiah (Isaiah 54:17) “No weapon that is formed against you will prosper; And every tongue that accuses you in judgment you will condemn. This is the heritage of the servants of the Lord, and their vindication is from Me,” declares the Lord.”

 

No wonder David couldn’t fathom the ever-present PRESENCE of the Lord. Who is able to fathom it? To comprehend it? And when we take the time to HUMBLY consider that this Almighty God who – by merely speaking it – brought the universe into existence from nothing, when we consider this ineffable Being, His passion and compassion and mercy and grace toward you and me, we who deserve nothing else but His wrath – who can understand a God like that?

 

Let me repeat that for emphasis: When we ponder the inexpressible wonder of this ineffable Being, His passion, compassion, mercy, patience and grace toward you and me – we who deserve nothing else but His wrath – who can understand a God like that?

 

One of Job’s so-called ‘friends’ got it right when he said: (Job 11:7-9) “Can you discover the depths of God? Can you discover the limits of the Almighty? They are high as the heavens, what can you do? Deeper than Sheol, what can you know? Its measure is longer than the earth and broader than the sea.”

 

Listen now to His words through Isaiah: (Isaiah 55:8-9) “For My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways My ways,” declares the Lord. “For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways and My thoughts than your thoughts.”

 

In the 5^th century, St Patrick wrote a poem that captures the essence of this text in Psalm 139. Part of the poem reads this way: Christ with me, Christ before me, Christ behind me, Christ in me, Christ beneath me, Christ above me, Christ on my right, Christ on my left, Christ when I lie down, Christ when I sit down, Christ when I arise.”

 

As the psalmist tells us: “The angel of the Lord encamps around those who fear Him and rescues them (Psalm 34:7).

 

It isn’t possible to overemphasize this point about our God, whom Christians – and only Christians – have the right to call God our beloved Father (see John 1:11-13); It isn’t possible to overstate the point.

 

You might remember the story of Elisha and his servant when they were in Dothan. The Syrian king was at war with Israel, and Elisha – the disciple of Elijah – was at the top of his list of enemies. When the king learned Elisha was staying in Dothan, he sent his army to surround the city. We pick up the story in 2 Kings 6:15 --

 

“Now when the attendant of the man of God had risen early and gone out, behold, an army with horses and chariots was circling the city. And his servant said to him, “Alas, my master! What shall we do?” So he answered, “Do not fear, for those who are with us are more than those who are with them.” Then Elisha prayed and said, “O Lord, I pray, open his eyes that he may see.” And the Lord opened the servant’s eyes and he saw; and behold, the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire all around Elisha.”

 

God’s mighty and holy angels surround you and me. Right now, as you sit in your pews. They surround you as you walk through your day. As you sleep through the night. God’s supernatural angels never leave your side, their swords unsheathed, their eyes watchful, their ears attentive, each sent by our Father and Creator of all things visible and invisible, sent to protect us.

 

Now, let’s return to our psalm as David continues: Where can I go from Your Spirit? Or where can I flee from Your presence? If I ascend to heaven, You are there; If I make my bed in Sheol, behold, You are there. If I take the wings of the dawn, if I dwell in the remotest part of the sea, even there Your hand will lead me, and Your right hand will lay hold of me. If I say, “Surely the darkness will overwhelm me, and the light around me will be night,” Even the darkness is not dark to You, And the night is as bright as the day. Darkness and light are alike to you. (Psalm 139:7-12)

 

David asked a rhetorical question: Where can I go from Your Spirit? Or where can I flee from Your presence?” In other words, where can anyone hide from – or flee from – God’s presence?

 

David knew the answer even as he asked the question. There is no place on earth, under the earth, or, for that matter, anywhere in the universe where we can hide from or flee from God. He is omnipresent, meaning He is everywhere at the same time.

 

But though he knew the answer to the question he’d just asked, there have always been, and will continue to be, many who try to hide from or run from God. I know people like that. And you probably do too. But why would anyone try to hide from, or run, from God?

 

I can think of at least two reasons. First: Many people think God is always standing at the edge of His throne just waiting for us to mess up so He can throw down a lightning bolt and teach us a lesson. That’s not so far-fetched as some might think. I’ve hears many people joke about Baptist guilt, or Jewish guilt, or Catholic guilt – or whatever is your preferred label. But joking aside, as fourteenth century poet and writer, Gregory Chaucer noted: “Many a truth is said in jest.”

 

And while it is true that in most God-honoring, Bible-believing churches today, God is correctly described for us as a loving, merciful, patient, and compassionate God and Father. But such preaching has not always been the case. In earlier centuries, God was viewed as an unmerciful, angry, and wrathful Being. Ignored were the multiple assurances throughout Scripture of the Father’s love; John 3:16 comes immediately to mind. And what more evidence of God’s love, mercy, and grace can there be beyond Calavry’s cross?

 

So, certainly one reason some people try to hide from God is because they incorrectly believe Him to be arrogantly cruel and uncaring – not too unlike some of the mythological gods of the Amorites, the Canaanites, or the Greek and Roman gods.

 

But there is another reason some try to hide from or flee from God, and that has to do with their own sin. They think if they can hide from God they won’t have to adjust their lifestyles. So they hide behind such things as ‘intellectualism’ trying to ‘reason’ themselves into agnosticism, or atheism. And they flock to provably false ideas of evolution, or new-age psychological babble. Some even behind religious rituals, thinking if they cover themselves with such things then they won’t have to live according to God’s commandments.  

Let me make this clear before I move to the next point in my message – God is love. He is merciful. He is a compassionate Father. He gave His Son to bear the full weight of His wrath against OUR sins.

 

But make no mistake. God commands us to be clothed by faith in the righteousness of Jesus Christ and to live holy lives. And we should all pay heed to what St Paul wrote to those in Rome: (Romans 2:4) “Do you think lightly of the riches of His kindness and tolerance and patience, not knowing that the kindness of God leads you to repentance?”

 

Now, look with me again to what the psalmist wrote: “If I say, “Surely the darkness will overwhelm me, and the light around me will be night,” even the darkness is not dark to You, and the night is as bright as the day. Darkness and light are alike to You.”

 

Let me pause a moment and talk about darkness – not a literal darkness as when the sun goes down, but an emotional darkness, when life has taken a tragic turn and we feel as if we should clothe ourselves in sackcloth and sit on a pile of ashes.

 

But Jesus gave us an immutable promise to never leave us. Indeed, Scripture tells us He embraces us in our darkness. He hugs us close to His chest – so to speak – even when the overwhelming darkness in our soul makes us insensitive to His touch and we’re too tired to even think about God’s matchless love for us.

 

Yes, such knowledge might be too high for our finite minds to comprehend such love – but we ought not walk by sight or by feelings. We ought to walk by faith.

 

Well, let’s continue with this psalm at verse 13. I like the way the New Living Translation renders the text:

 

“You made all the delicate, inner parts of my body and knit me together in my mother’s womb. Thank you for making me so wonderfully complex! Your workmanship is marvelous—how well I know it. You watched me as I was being formed in utter seclusion, as I was woven together in the dark of the womb. You saw me before I was born. Every day of my life was recorded in your book. Every moment was laid out before a single day had passed.” (verses 13-16)

 

Oh, I hope you heard that with your heart as well as with your ears. Our loving God knit us together in our mother’s womb. And God knew every moment of our life even before we were conceived.

 

Speaking of conceived, let me give you a quick lesson in embryology that illustrates my point about God’s intimate love and the SPECIFIC attention He gives to each of us.

 

Depending on the research article you read, did you know that when your father had intercourse with your mother, he ejaculated between 100 million and 500 million sperm? But for the sake of easy numbers, let’s go with the lower amount – 100 million sperm in each ejaculate. And each one has its own unique DNA structure. Your mother, on the other hand, ovulated each month usually only one ova. Each ova had its own unique DNA structure.

 

DNA is responsible for each one of the countless biological processes in our bodies that were determined – at conception – what will be our gender, our general physical characteristics, our natural intelligence and talents, our health, our abilities and disabilities. All of it was determined at our conception.

 

We also know from the science of embryology, all 100 million of your father’s sperm were trying to fertilize your mother’s ova, but only ONE of them was successful. Let me repeat that: Only one sperm – with its individualized and unique DNA structure, different from every other one of the 100 million sperm – only one got there – the one sperm, joined to your mother’s unique ova – they together became YOU.

 

Have you heard the expression, “You’re one in a million”? Well, let me tell you what the science says: You are really one in one hundred million – that is, you are one in a hundred million possibilities. 

 

And God was not only there when it all happened, the psalmist – who knew even less than nothing about the science of embryology – the psalmist, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit tells us God DIRECTED it all as it happened. God chose the one sperm and the one ova to join together to become YOU.

 

And remember: God never makes mistakes. And God never makes junk. That means YOU are not a mistake. You are not junk. God’s hand was purposely and deliberately at work in your creation and formation in your mother’s womb. Does that truth help us understand what a grievous affront it is to our Creator when we willfully destroy that life through elective abortion?

 

Oh, God help us. God forgive us. God change us.

 

Our God surrounds us, encompasses us, holds us to Himself. There is no place on earth, under the earth, or in the universe itself where anyone can hide from Him or run from Him. And it is THIS omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent eternal Being who loves you . . . loves you like the Rock of Ages. He loves you so much – even though we cannot ever hope to fathom His love – He loves you so much that He gave His only Son to be your sacrificial atonement to wash away completely even the shadowing stains of your sins and mine.

 

I’ll then leave us all with this question which we must answer: How then ought we to live, knowing even as much as we know about such love?

 

Next week we’ll move further into this precious Psalm.

 

 

Search and Rescue - Psalm 139, Part One

Search and Rescue

 

My message today, and for the next few weeks, revolves around the 139^th Psalm. We now read the portion specific for to today’s message:

 

(Psalm 139) “O Lord, You have searched me and known me. You know when I sit down and when I rise up; You understand my thought from afar. You scrutinize my path and my lying down, and are intimately acquainted with all my ways. Even before there is a word on my tongue, behold, O Lord, You know it all. You have enclosed me behind and before, and laid Your hand upon me. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; It is too high, I cannot attain to it.” (Psalm 139:1-6)

 

According to the latest United Nations estimates, there are some 8.2 BILLION people on planet earth. And while it’s difficult to wrap our minds around that number – 8.2 billion – if we think too long about it, we might ask ourselves two sobering questions. First, “Who am I among so many?” And second, “Do I matter among so many?”

 

And let me quickly say this: Without a good understanding of the Scriptures, without a correct understanding of God’s word, we can never truly know the definitive answer to those questions – “Who am I?” and “Do I matter?”

 

 “O Lord, You have searched me and known me . . . and are intimately acquainted with all my ways. Even before there is a word on my tongue, behold, O Lord, You know it all. You have enclosed me behind and before, and laid Your hand upon me. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; It is too high, I cannot attain to it.” (verses 1-6)

 

So, you might ask, “Who are you?”  The answer is easy: WHOEVER you are, You are beloved by the One who spoke the entire universe into existence. You are beloved by the One who created and who personally and intimately knows each one of the 8.2 billion people on this planet. And yes, He knows YOU.

 

THAT’s why He searches you. He examines you. That’s why He is intimately acquainted with you. That’s why He surrounds you, encloses you in His arms. It doesn’t matter who you are, where you’ve been, what you’ve done, or how often you’ve done it. He cares about YOU. He loves YOU.

 

The Holy Spirit tells us that in so many ways throughout the Scriptures. For example, here is Romans 5:8 “God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.”

 

And to the second and very related question, “Do we matter?” Listen: If we did not matter to God, if we were not foremost in His heart, if He could have for even a moment held you and me at arm’s length – if we did not matter to God, then the brutalized and bloody sacrificial death of His Son on Calvary’s cross would never have occurred. It never would have occurred.

 

At the outset of this series on the 139^th psalm, I want to make this important point. If you take nothing else away from what I say over the next few weeks, I hope you will hear and receive this: You are not alone. Never alone. God is with you at this very moment, at every moment. Wherever you are – at home, or away from home. Sick in bed or up and around and healthy; When you struggle after losing someone you deeply loved or are comforted in their arms at night. He is with you.

 

I recognize that for some of us that phrase is so familiar, we’ve heard it so many times, it has for us become almost trite. Like a throw-away phrase people say when they don’t know what else to say.

 

But this is not a trite throw-away phrase. Almighty God Himself says it to you through His holy and inerrant and infallible Scriptures.

 

When the psalmist writes: O Lord, You have searched me and known me. You know when I sit down and when I rise up – he wrote it because the Holy Spirit moved him to make that promise to you and to me. He promised to make it to the one in the mirror -- YOUR mirror. Not only does he have a precise, moment by moment count of the hairs on our head, but He knows everything we think, everything we do, and every motive behind it all. If He did not, if He were not infallibly omniscient, then He would not be God.

 

So, you must not doubt this. He is here with you. At this moment. Embracing you. Even if you cannot see Him, feel Him, touch Him. Remember, we walk by faith and not by sight – or by feeling.

 

“Lord, You have searched me and known me.”

 

Think for a moment how absolutely naked your soul is as it always stands before your Creator. And then think further of this incredible truth: Despite who you are in the depths of your heart, despite what you have done and continue to do, and despite what you haven’t done – God LOVES you. You must believe that if you can ever hope to know the peace of God in your life.

 

As I quoted a few minutes ago from Romans 5: “God demonstrates His love toward us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.”

And as I also said as I began this message, if God didn’t love you, He wouldn’t have sent His beloved Son to die in your stead, to take the punishment your sins and my sins so justly deserve from a Holy, Holy God.

 

God gave Jesus up to the Cross to be our substitutionary sacrifice. Why? So that you and I – and everyone else who wants His forgiveness – so we can have eternal communion with Almighty God. Think of it! Sinners such as you and I can live in eternal communion with our Holy God. That’s why, in a sense, Jesus still hangs on that cross – affectionately gazing at us, waiting for us to repent of our sins and fall in obedience at His feet.

 

When David realized the Lord knew him inside and out, even to the sickness of his soul, it is no wonder he wrote: “Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; It is too high, I cannot attain to it.”  After all, how can the finite hope to grasp the infinite? Could an amoeba fathom the mind of Albert Einstein? And so, because of the utter impossibility for us to understand God and His love, His mercy, grace, judgment, and His justice, we’re faced with only two real choices:

 

We can either accept without reservation as entirely true what He says about Himself and about us; Or we can bring God down to our level and recreate Him in our own concept of what we want God to be like. That, of course, would be an eternally deadly decision.

 

You are beloved by the Almighty God. And among the 8 billion souls on planet earth, do you matter? Yes, you DO matter to Him. But there is more.

Although the psalmist doesn’t say it here specifically, we know from the length and breadth of the entire Bible taken in context, God not only searches us, but He also actively searches FOR us.  

 

Listen so verse six of the 23^rd Psalm: “Surel goodness and merc shall follow me all the days of my life . . . .”  The Hebrew word David used here mores lightyears more that simple follow me. It means God’s goodness and mercy will ardently PURDUE you all the days of your life.

 

Ardently pursue.

 

Why? At the risk of being redundant to a fault, Because we matter to Him. He searches for us because He knows we’re lost – lost in our sins. And because sin is so much a part of the warp and woof of our nature, most of us don’t even know we’re lost. That’s why He searches for us – to rescue us from ourselves and, ultimately, from eternally palpable darkness which is the destiny of all who fail ask Christ for forgiveness and eternal life.

 

Listen to God say it through the apostle Paul: (Colossians 1:13-14) “For He rescued us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of His beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.”

 

And in this text in Galatians 1:4-5 “[Jesus] gave Himself for our sins so that He might rescue us from this present evil age, according to the will of our God and Father, to whom be the glory forevermore. Amen.”

 

I remember years ago when I took our daughter shopping at the supermarket. She couldn’t have been more than three or four at the time. I told her not to wander off, but as most children often do, she wandered when my attention was momentarily diverted. I watched her as she ambled down the aisle and turned the corner into the next one – oblivious that I wasn’t with her.

 

I put the bread back on the shelf and followed several yards behind. It didn’t take more than another minute before she stopped in the middle of the food aisle, looked around for me, suddenly realized she was lost – and screamed, “Daddy!” “Daddy!”

 

There is hardly a parent who doesn’t have a similar story to tell about his or her young child. And those real-life experiences make Scripture’s point about our drifting from God – and for some – suddenly realizing they’re lost and very far from their heavenly Father.

 

You may remember the parables in Luke 15 of the lost sheep, the lost coin, and the lost son. One sheep out of his flock of one hundred sheep wandered from the fold. It was lost. Probably frightened and confused. If you know the story, you know what happened. The shepherd left the 99 in the corral and went in search of the one lost lamb.

 

Of the lost coin, of course, the coin didn’t know it was lost, but the woman who lost it was frantic to find it. She turned her house upside down and swept it from front to back until she recovered it. And the application of that parable is, I hope, clear: Even for those who don’t know they’re lost, God searches for them. He is today, now, still searching for your children, for your grandchildren, for your siblings, for all you know and for those you love.

 

Finally, the Great Shepherd told the story of a young man who got tired of living down on the farm. I imagine he was frustrated with his father’s seemingly endless rules and chores. I imagine he was angry that he was unable to come and go as he pleased. So, at the end of his patience, he asked his father for his share of his inheritance and took off on his own. The lure of city lights, and the proverbial wine, women, and song enticed him. And for a time, he drifted from one wave of excitement to another.

 

Then disaster struck. A famine. Economic collapse. With his money gone, he was suddenly homeless and hungry. That might be like the story some of you can tell of yourselves. But the story of the lost son continues: “When the young man came to his senses” he decided to return to his father.

 

What was the father doing at the time? Here is how the Lord tells it in verses 20-24 of Luke 15: “But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and felt compassion for him and ran and embraced him and kissed him. And the son said to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and in your sight; I am no longer worthy to be called your son.’ But the father said to his slaves, ‘Quickly bring out the best robe and put it on him, and put a ring on his hand and sandals on his feet; and bring the fattened calf, kill it, and let us eat and celebrate; for this son of mine was dead and has come to life again; he was lost and has been found.’ And they began to celebrate.”

Let me say it again for emphasis: Not only does God search us, but God also searches for us. And it is the Great Shepherd’s JOY to search for and to find His lost sheep. And as the Lord ever wants to remind us: “The good shepherd lays down His life for the sheep.” (John 10:11)

Some people – I suspect MANY people – might be tempted to think the Good Shepherd is no longer interested in searching for them. They might think their sins are so grievous and they have lived so long in their sin that He has given them up for lost.

 

But that would be demonstrably untrue. Please, we should not believe everything we think! Instead, we ought to simply choose to believe what GOD says about us – that He loves us so much, and that we matter to Him so much, that He left the 99 who were already in His fold to search for the one and carry it on His shoulders safely back home.

 

Hear it again: God so loved YOU that He gave His only begotten Son – so that whoever believes in Him —in Jesus – will not perish but have everlasting life. (See John 3:16)

Whoever you are, whatever you’ve done, and no matter how often you’ve done it – the Good Shepherd is STILL searching for you. And if you’ve been paying attention this far, it’s because something inside of you is stirring you to believe that. The stirring you feel is the Holy Spirit’s gentle voice. And you can believe Him when He says to you: “I’ve found you. Let’s go home.”

Who am I? Who are you?  We are God’s beloved. And yes, we DO matter to Him very, very much.

 

“O Lord, You have searched me and known me. You know when I sit down and when I rise up; You understand my thought from afar. You scrutinize my path and my lying down and are intimately acquainted with all my ways.”

 

We’ll continue this series next week.

Supernatural Warfare - Part Eight: Prayer

These past several weeks we’ve examined elements of the supernatural armor God has provided us. Although we’ve looked at them in isolation, each piece is crucial to the entire unit of our armor. Today we will finish this series as we turn our attention to prayer.

 

For the sake of time I will focus today only on the last three verses of this section in Ephesians six: St Paul writes: “With all prayer and petition pray at all times in the Spirit, and with this in view, be on the alert with all perseverance and petition for all the saints, and pray on my behalf, that utterance may be given to me in the opening of my mouth, to make known with boldness the mystery of the gospel, for which I am an ambassador in chains; that in proclaiming it I may speak boldly, as I ought to speak. (Ephesians 6:18-20)

 

Many Christians think of St Paul as a giant of faith and evangelistic fervor. And rightly so. If we look only at the book of Acts, it seems Paul single-handedly won Europe and Asia Minor to the Lord. He seemed unstoppable. Shipwrecked, flogged, stoned, imprisoned, hungry, cold, nakedness . . . nothing stopped the man from proclaiming Jesus the Christ as humanity’s ONLY hope for eternal life.

 

But the apostle recognized the daily battle he faced. That’s why he asked the Ephesians to pray for his perseverance and his boldness to proclaim the gospel.

 

Yes, he recognized the battle is long, arduous, and potentially deadly. And it’s easy to make application to this century. How many high-profile pastors and church leaders have you heard about who turned away from their calling? I did a quick internet search using the key words, ‘Famous Christians who Left Christianity’ and found many, many tragic examples.

 

But we should not be surprised by the numbers because Scripture is clear that such things happen and have always happened. Do we think Judas started out intending to betray Jesus? Of course not. And then there was Demas, a one-time missionary companion of Paul who walked away from Christ (2 Timothy 4). Scripture and Church history is replete with examples of men and women who became casualties in this deadly spiritual battle. And some of you know people close to you – perhaps even among your own family – who once walked with Christ and have since turned from Him.

 

That’s why we must put on our battle armor every day – the belt of God’s inerrant, infallible, and transcendent truth. We must daily wear the breastplate of righteousness, our feet sandaled with the preparation and the proclamation of the gospel, holding fast the shield of faith, wearing the helmet of salvation, holding high the sword of the Spirit – and never neglect prayer.

 

But exactly what IS prayer? It’s foolhardy for me to preach about the subject without first defining what prayer is. And so, in a few words, prayer for the Christian is more than simple communication between the Creator and humanity. God designed prayer to be an intimate exchange of love between us and our Creator. The closest I can come to describing what I mean by that is to compare prayer to a mother nursing her baby. I remember watching Nancy nurse our children. Her eyes glistening with love and warmth and wonder, her hand gently caressing their faces – and their eyes gazing mysteriously into hers as they suckled.

 

Thinking about that scene reminds me of the message God spoke to Israel through Isaiah – and by extension, the message God speaks to you and me: “Can a mother forget the baby at her breast, and have no compassion on the child she has borne? Though she may forget, I will not forget you! See, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands.” (Isaiah 49:15-16, NIV)

 

That’s the intimacy which God designed for prayer – communion with Him as close as skin touching skin. Picture that in your mind! The Creator designed a means for us to enter such closeness with Himself as a mother with her suckling child. Listen to the psalmist David: “Surely I have composed and quieted my soul; Like a weaned child rests against his mother, my soul is like a weaned child within me.” (Psalm 131:2)

 

Listen again as God speaks of His profound love for us: (Isaiah 46:3b-4) “You who have been borne by Me from birth and have been carried from the womb; Even to your old age I will be the same, and even to your graying years I will bear you! I have done it, and I will carry you; And I will bear you and I will deliver you.”

 

THAT’S the intimacy God designed for prayer – communion with Him as close as skin touching skin.

 

Jesuit priest, Pedro Arrupe spoke about this intimacy as well as I have ever heard it: Nothing is more practical than finding God, than falling in Love in a quite absolute, final way. What you are in love with, what seizes your imagination, will affect everything. It will decide what will get you out of bed in the morning, what you do with your evenings, how you spend your weekends, what you read, whom you know, what breaks your heart, and what amazes you with joy and gratitude. Fall in Love [with God]. Stay in love, and it will decide everything.

 

But although the Christian knows intuitively his or her longing for intimate prayer, every Christian in this room knows prayer is a battle – we battle distractions in prayer, and dryness, discouragements, disappointments, and disillusionments.

 

I found this in the Catechism of the Catholic Church. Whatever your denominational label, these words ring true for anyone who has ever tried to connect with God through prayer: Prayer is both a gift of grace and a determined response on our part. It always presupposes effort. The great figures of prayer . . . all teach us this: prayer is a battle . . . against ourselves and against the wiles of the tempter who does all he can to turn man away from prayer, away from union with God. . . . The "spiritual battle" of the Christian's new life is inseparable from the battle of prayer. (Paragraph 2725)

 

I think the most common reason for the battle is that the devil understands prayer’s power far better than any of us know its power. That’s why he does all he can to keep us from prayer; And if he cannot keep us away from prayer, then he tries to keep it as anemic and as lifeless as he can.

 

But there are some things we can do to mitigate the distractions, the dryness, even the discouragements and disillusions that often plague our prayers. And I confess, I am certainly not there yet. I don’t want anyone to think I have arrived at that special place I am speaking of. But I have caught glimpses of it often enough in past years . . . just glimpses, mind you . . . that when I think of them, as I did as I prepared this message, I again long for those times to become more frequent.

 

So, to help us – you and me – learn to engage in prayer in such a way as to sense our spirit touching the Holy Spirit, I have a few suggestions – some strategies – that might make the effort of prayer less challenging and more in line with God’s plan for our lives.

 

Strategy Number One: Forgiveness of Others

 

Do we really think we can be intimate with Christ if we are unwilling to live as Christ? Of all the prayer strategies we could ever practice, if forgiveness of others is not at their core, we might as well stop jabbering at God. Forgiveness is a choice. It is an act of the will, independent of our ‘feelings’ of forgiveness.  It’s the choice Jesus made when He asked the Father to forgive those who mocked and crucified Him – even though they had not asked for forgiveness. It’s the same choice St. Stephen made when, as he was dying at the hands of the mob stoning him, he asked the Lord to not hold that sin against them – even though they had not asked for forgiveness.

 

And we must never forget, the Lord Jesus made it clear that God’s forgiveness of us is inextricably linked to our forgiveness of others. Perhaps the clearest example of this principle is found in the verses just after the “Lord’s Prayer in Matthew 6 in which Jesus warned, “If you forgive others their transgressions, your heavenly Father will forgive you. But if you do not forgive others, neither will your Father forgive your transgressions (Matthew 6:14-15).

 

Strategy Number Two: The Examination of Conscience.

 

All of our strategies for prayer are utterly useless if we are aware of our sin – even what we might call ‘small sins’ – our prayers are useless if we delay our honest repentance. That’s why the examination of conscience, followed by confession and repentance, forms the basis of this prayer strategy.

 

What do I mean by the examination of conscience? Simply this, at some time during the day – the end of the day usually works best – we ask the Holy Spirit to reveal the things we did wrong during the day and for which we have not yet confessed and repented – like unnecessarily harsh words we spoke to others, the gossip we practiced, our resentments, impure thoughts, and so forth. And when He unveils those sins to our mind, immediately repent, ask His forgiveness, and His help to not do it again.

 

Without honest confession and repentance, our prayers are in danger of falling on His deaf ears. “If I hold sin in my heart,” the psalmist wrote, “the Lord will not hear me.” (Psalm 66:18)

 

Scripture links prayer and confession so often that it is impossible to miss the connection. For example, Proverbs 28:13 – “He who conceals his sins prospers not, but he who confesses and forsakes them obtains mercy.”

Psalm 32: “As long as I kept silent [about my sin], my bones wasted away; I groaned all the day . . . Then I declared my sin to you; my guilt I did not hide. I said, "I confess my faults to the Lord," and you took away the guilt of my sin” (Psalm 32:3-5).

Strategy Number Three: The Environment of Prayer

 

I’m sometimes easily distracted during my time with Jesus, so I developed a strategy to reduce the frequency and length of those distractions. My technique deals with the environment of prayer, which I think is just as important as the style of those prayers.

The Lord Jesus said, “When you pray, go to your inner room, close the door, and pray to your Father in secret” (Matthew 6:6). Where can you spend undistracted time with the Lord? And what is the best time for you to do so? Only you can answer those questions, but they ARE important questions to ask yourself.

 

I like to keep a notepad and pen at my side. In my experience, it’s usually the norm rather than the rarity that while in prayer an idea pops into my head about something I need to accomplish later that day. When that happens, I take a few seconds to jot the ‘to do’ items on the pad, so I won’t forget them or be further distracted by them. Having taken a moment to write them down, I can return to my time with the Lord.

 

Strategy Number Four: The Prayer List

 

During much of my adult life, I’ve used ‘to-do’ lists for just about everything – everything, that is, except prayer. I don’t know why it took so long for me to figure out I needed a list to help me remember to pray for people or particular needs. When the list becomes too long to easily pray through in one sitting, I divide the list into several lists, assigning each list to a particular day of the week. Of course, there are some people – family, for example – that remain on my ‘daily’ prayer list.

 

Strategy Number Five: The Alphabet Prayer

         

For me, this is a ‘fun’ strategy. At each letter of the alphabet, I make up a prayer. For example, at the letter ‘A’ – “All to you, O, God, all to you I surrender today. My time, my source of entertainment, my finances, my health – I lay them all at your feet to be guided and to be used for your honor.”

 

At ‘B’ I pray something like, “Blessed are you, O Lord our God, King of the universe. Be magnified, be exalted, be praised throughout all the earth, beginning in my own life and family.”

 

At ‘C’ – “Come, Holy Spirit, I need You. Come sweet Spirit, I pray. Come in Your strength and Your power. Come in Thine own gentle way.”

 

At ‘D’ I might say, “Deal with me, Thy servant, according to your mercy and grace. Deepen, please, my devotion to You.”

 

And so on. You get the idea. I’ve prayed the alphabet prayer through all 26 letters, and sometimes only through a part of the alphabet. But the point of this strategy is, of course, not to spend a set ‘time’ but rather to draw closer to our Lord.

 

Strategy Number Six: Scripted Prayer

 

In my early Christian years, I thought ‘scripted prayer’ – like those in prayer books – are less spiritual than spontaneous ones. But how foolish I was in those days. Men and women of God have prayed scripted prayers – such as the Psalms – for millennia.

 

I often look for psalms that exalt God, such as Psalm 145: “I will extol You, my God, O King, and I will bless Your name forever and ever. Every day I will bless You, and I will praise Your name forever and ever. Great is the Lord, and highly to be praised, and His greatness is unsearchable. One generation shall praise Your works to another, and shall declare Your mighty acts. On the glorious splendor of Your majesty and on Your wonderful works, I will meditate. Men shall speak of the power of Your awesome acts, and I will tell of Your greatness.”

 

Or Psalm 138: “I will give You thanks with all my heart; I will sing praises to You before the gods. I will bow down toward Your holy temple and give thanks to Your name for Your lovingkindness and Your truth; For You have magnified Your word and your Name above all things. On the day I called, You answered me; You made me bold with strength in my soul.”

 

But the Psalms are not the only source of meaningful prayer. Prayers offered by spiritual giants such as St. Augustine, St. Francis of Assisi, John Wesley and A. W. Tozer all work to draw us closer to Christ. For example, listen to one of John Wesley’s prayers: I am no longer my own, but Yours. Put me to what You will, rank me with whom You will; put me to doing, put me to suffering; let me be employed for You or laid aside for You, exalted for You or brought low for You; let me be full, let me be empty; let me have all things, let me have nothing; I freely and heartily yield all things to Your pleasure and disposal.

Or St. Francis: Lord, make me an instrument of your peace. Where there is hatred, let me sow love. Where there is injury, pardon. Where there is doubt, faith. Where there is despair, hope. Where there is darkness, light. Where there is sadness, joy. O Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console, not so much to be understood as to understand, not so much to be loved, as to love; for it is in giving that we receive, it is in pardoning that we are pardoned, it is in dying that we awake to eternal life.
         

For the Christian, prayer is more than simple communication between the Creator and humanity. God designed prayer to be an intimate exchange of love between us and our Creator. I hope some of my suggestions here will enhance your prayer life and draw you so much closer to our Savior.

 

Oh, Lord, please make it so – for Christ and in His Name we pray. Amen