Paradoxes

I've decided to write this little blogette from my deck.  I have this nice comfy lazy-boy couch ,which I rescued from being sentenced to the eternal wrath of the dumpster.  This is where I do my best thinking.

At various times in my life I have been told that I am a paradox. Often I think what comes across paradoxical to others is completely complementary in my brain.  Its just how I function and how I do life. I'm okay with it not making complete sense at first glance.  At the end of this blog post I'm going to post a short music video that might appear, at first glance, to complete negate what I'm about to discuss, but for some reason in my mind they go completely hand in hand and I feel absolutely inclined to include it.  So here we go:

Lots of us struggle or have struggled with how to relate to God in prayer.  We know with our heads and our mouths that God is "not a vending machine", or a "bank machine".  We know that we need to do more than just read our Bible and pray, we know we need to have a "personal relationship" with God.  But we don't live it.  And sometimes I wonder if we don't live it because we find it hard to connect with God.

In our quest to connect with God we've become so blinded by our understanding that God is not human, that we stumble and fumble our way through awkward prayer times because God is not a man.  And yeah, that's true, God is not only human.  But I want to suggest today that we make prayer far more complicated than it needs to be because of the presupposition that God is not a man.

If there is one thing that has come clear to me in the last few years it is that God is desperately and relentlessly pursuing His babies because He wants to communicate with them.  He wants to communicate to them that He loves them, that He's safe, that He's got it.  He sent Jesus, and yes a big part of the reason was so that He could atone for our sin, (I'm not trying to down play that fact) but there's more.  You can't tell me God sent Jesus to the earth for only one reason, there's got to be more.  Maybe He became human so that He could relate with us, so that He could teach us how to relate to Him in human ways, ways that we could understand.

How many of us walk up to a stranger and ask them to be our best friend and to come live with us instantly? Or walk up to another stranger hand them all our problems and say, "If you fix this I'll hang out with you on sunday, but if you don't I'm not talking to you any more"?  We wouldn't do those things, we laugh and say its absurd.  Friendship takes time.  Well, maybe friendship with God takes time too.  Maybe you've been saying you live with God but you haven't even introduced yourself yet.  "Hi, I'm Jenny, my favorite colour is green and I've heard so many wonderful things about you and I can't wait to hang out!  What would you like me to call you?" I'm not saying things need to go down like this, what I am saying is that maybe its strange that we expect of ourselves, our friends, and God to go from strangers to besties in as long as it takes to say the sinners prayer.  Maybe we need to let it take sometime and not get frustrated with our awkward friendship with God recognizing its all part of the process. . Again, think of how awkward it is when you run into someone you hardly know, who you haven't seen for a few years or months, why would we expect it to not be awkward with God when we do the exact same thing with Him?

Whatever point you and God are at in your friendship, I want to encourage you to not limit your thinking of Him as being far away or non-human. He was crazy enough about you to become human, to teach you how to love Him, to be loved with Him, don't be afraid to explore a more human approach to your relationship with Him.  As we know with you human friendships, the more you spend time with someone you like you find all sorts of ways to hang out with them more and more, why can't this be true of our relationship with God as well?  Rather than trying to have a better relationship with Him, or a more focused prayer life, why not spend some time getting to know Him and letting Him get to know you?

Holy God, may you teach us how to connect with you, we want to know you and be known by you, not just know facts about you.  We love you,
Let it Be.

This music video is by a group called Gungor, I simply love ALL of their music. Enjoy.