Recently I have had so much difficulty with prayer. I am really battling back and forth in my mind with the ideas of how wicked I must be to not care about talking to the Lord, and the fact that the Lord knows this already and loves me. It’s so cyclical because shouldn’t my understanding of his loving “while I am still a sinner” cause me to long for him (explored under attitudes for prayer)? But I don’t really long for the Lord right now. Do I fake it til’ I make it and just read scripture out of obligation? Or is that frustrating to the Lord? Shouldn’t I give him a contrite heart, considering that is what he always says he wants? Is this question just a way of getting out of doing the work and an excuse to be lazy? Has my Christianity become a self help program were I become good enough to enter into the Lord’s presence or am I concerned about really glorifying the Lord? Where does the idea of entering or exiting God’s presence come from anyway? Isn’t that made up, considering God never leaves me and is inside and outside and in my mind, heart, words, thoughts, and actions? The problem is I don’t love Him and if my faith has ever become confusing I have always turned to the mantra of “Love God, Love People.” Maybe the answer is to obey God, and I’m just becoming silly in needing to feel the amorous affection that comes sometimes into my heart towards Him. Obeying shows God love, so does loving my enemies and “one another.” These all prove our LOVE for him. But I can’t help but think that it is out of a feeling of duty and fear of not doing it rather than love. But when I think about serving my husband in the future even when it feels out of obligation and not amorous attention that sounds like true love to me… so why does it not when it is directed towards the Lord? Why is it that when I talk with the Lord in my head it feels almost as if I’m talking to someone completely removed from this whole ordeal? Is this a problem I’ve created myself, a wall I’ve built up that I’m staring at that Jesus just walked around? Am I really that foolish, to stare at a wall and address next to me the person I’m trying to get over it to see?
Is prayer then really, as I know in my heart of hearts the simplest form of just being with the Lord and expressing yourself and sharing in his expression? When Jesus arose early and sat with the Lord alone was it his mere being with God that caused him to become like him? Did Jesus love God? Was this love amorous or raw and earthen and older than time? Truth feels raw and rough to me, and it smells like rain on tilled earth. That is what Jesus love for his Father seems like. Deep. Beyond comprehension or words; Past what a bridegroom would feel for his bride, or a father for his child, or the master for his servant.
I think that you can’t pursue God wrongly, and it is prideful and wrong for me to wait to address Him because I’m afraid of doing it in a way that won’t be completely worthy. How could I ever be worthy? Don’t I know that by now?
It’s like the tax collector. He was right in his wrongness; another paradox of Christianity. He did not look upon the Lord because he was ashamed. Now a person might examine this and say that this attitude would be saying to Jesus that you did not trust what he did on the cross for you and that you didn’t believe he was who the Father saw when he looked upon you. One could argue this. But Jesus praised the man and said he was right in the father’s eyes. Maybe this passage is more about just entering, rather than allowing a fear to hold you back from the Lords presence because you didn’t do it right. The priest got it all right, but even in that got it all wrong! It’s not about how you enter into the Lord’s presence but the glory you allow of his to fill up your life. If you’ve filled yourself up to the brim with your own pride because of you’re self righteousness then how can God fill you with HIS righteousness? Jesus has come for the sick and so when he sees an empty cup in his presence he’ll fill it up. If he sees a full cup that doesn’t please him any more because its still just a stupid cup. He takes joy in filling me up with his own righteousness and that is something I just simply have to become alright with. It’s more important to simply allow God to Be glorious than to worry about bringing him something he’ll find glorious. I’m just not good enough and I never will be, but it is the attitude that acknowledges this that he wants.
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