Wednesday, April 19, 2006
Resurrection Prayers
"The problem is that taken out of the context of resurrection wonder, any prayer soon becomes an act of idolatry -- reducing God to what we can use for our purposes, however noble and useful." (Eugene Peterson; Living The resurrection p.33)
For some reason as I read these words, the chorus of an old hymn rang in my head:
Have Thine own way, Lord, have Thine own way;
Thou art the Potter, I am the clay.
Take me and make me, after Thy will,
While I am waiting, yielded and still.
I scurried through my prayer time today ... anxious to keep my divine appointment, uninterrupted by the rest of my day. And yet, it has been the rest of my day where I have seen and heard from God the most. It is because I am having to learn (and apparently, I'm real slow to get this) -- waiting. On the beauty and power of being yielded and still. Peteron makes a beeline from preaching to meddling though, and I find myself under the weight of conviction. My prayers, when they well up from my own springs, miss the mark in meeting my thirst. My "noble and useful" efforts even include such "good things" as my own spiritual transformation and the deepening faith life of our church family ... but still exist, at best, in parallel to God will. At worst, they intersect or run in the opposite direction. Only by yielding my conversation to His presence, possible through the majesty of resurrected life, can I move in harmony with Him.
Lord, help me to learn to wait for You and yield to You. Forgive my manipulations and arrogance. Amen.
For some reason as I read these words, the chorus of an old hymn rang in my head:
Have Thine own way, Lord, have Thine own way;
Thou art the Potter, I am the clay.
Take me and make me, after Thy will,
While I am waiting, yielded and still.
I scurried through my prayer time today ... anxious to keep my divine appointment, uninterrupted by the rest of my day. And yet, it has been the rest of my day where I have seen and heard from God the most. It is because I am having to learn (and apparently, I'm real slow to get this) -- waiting. On the beauty and power of being yielded and still. Peteron makes a beeline from preaching to meddling though, and I find myself under the weight of conviction. My prayers, when they well up from my own springs, miss the mark in meeting my thirst. My "noble and useful" efforts even include such "good things" as my own spiritual transformation and the deepening faith life of our church family ... but still exist, at best, in parallel to God will. At worst, they intersect or run in the opposite direction. Only by yielding my conversation to His presence, possible through the majesty of resurrected life, can I move in harmony with Him.
Lord, help me to learn to wait for You and yield to You. Forgive my manipulations and arrogance. Amen.
