JESUS TAKE THE WHEEL - Drive, Jesus! Drive!

I’ve been spending quite a bit of time evaluating the convictions of my heart – re-examining the tenets of my faith, and my true willingness to abide by them. Some things that were once ethereal have become fundamentals I simply cannot live a day without, while other things that were once solid have proven to be only a shell – a necessary covering for a season – and have long since blown away as chaff.

I believe in prayer and in the power of prayer, but I seldom really pray anymore – not the get alone in your closet kind of praying. I’m quite half-hearted about it much of the time, and not entirely sure that I actually want God to take notice of me. Sometimes God just seems too intentional for me and I need some personal space. If I’m looking around for a closet it’s because I want to be alone, not because I want to get alone with God.

I am completely convinced that God hears us when we pray, that God moves in our prayers, that God draws us closer to His heart and to His will as we pray, and honestly I kind of need a break. I’m spent. I’ve waited for the Lord, but my strength has been sapped. I’ve run and I’m dead tired. I’ve walked and I’ve grown weary. I don’t really feel like investing any more of myself into Anybody else’s will, perfect or not. When you’re fatigued and petulant, it is difficult to pray with any integrity.

I try to teach my children to pray with integrity. Sometimes I have to stop one of them in the middle of a prayer and ask them, Who are you praying to right now? Because it kind of sounds like you’re praying to me – and if you want something from me, you can just ask me directly. You don’t have to try to go over my head.

It’s almost instinctive to attempt to use prayer as an instrument of manipulation – we want what we want and we’ll go straight to the top if we have to, to get it. Dear God, please – give me this, take that away, don’t touch a thing. And I don’t think that there is anything misguided about making our requests known to God – but lately I’ve been very aware that the things my heart desires are not things with which I can, with any confidence, ask God to help me.

I don’t think this is a new thing – I think I am only now just seeing it clearly. It came to me in a picture last night – how so often I have come to God asking on my knees for things that have very little do to with what interests the Divine heart. Only indirectly do they have anything to do with feeding the hungry, edifying the disheartened, finding the lost, enriching the poor. If I pray to be forgiven or to be able to forgive, it is only so that I can feel a weight removed. If I pray for grace or for wisdom, it is only so that life will be less frustrating for me.

At best, my prayers are childish requests for comfort, security and pleasure. At worst, I am asking the Ruler of the universe to wield His power to satisfy the lusts of my flesh and to bolster the boastful pride of life. I am asking God to become my abettor. I don’t really want my heavenly Father to guard me from temptation at all – I just want Jesus to keep me out of the ditch. I want the weight of my sins to fall on Him. I want Him to take responsibility for the fallout of my choices. I want to grab what I can get while I can get it, and I want Jesus to drive the getaway car.

C’mon, Jesus, just cover for me. Don’t be so serious about everything. In the grand scheme of things, is this really such a big deal? You know, if you give me this one little thing I will do so much with it – you won’t even believe it. I know it's not really your plan but I’ll show you, you won’t regret it. You’ll wish you had thought of it yourself. Please, Jesus, just this one time. As a favour. Just get in the car. I promise, I’ll let You drive.

If I take off the table all the things that I think I want or need in my life, if I just leave those things in my pocket and don’t think to bring them to God, if I only pray the way Jesus taught his disciples to pray and nothing more, there is very little left – seven pure, uncomplicated sentences that speak straight to the heart of God:

Your Father knows what you need, before you ask Him. Pray, then, in this way: Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. And do not lead us into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For Thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever. Amen.  ~Matthew 6:8-13