The prayer I don't really want to pray

I am about to do something that's going to make you type-A people a little crazy.  I am posting this post, but it is chronologically out of order with the last post.  And I'm posting both at the same time.  Intentionally out of order.  I know, I know.  But I promise it will be ok.  What I am about to tell you is stuff that came before all that I wrote about in my last post.  So, my last post is a lot of stuff the Lord has done in me since all of this went through my head, but I think it is significant that you see that these are the things I was thinking approximately a week before I wrote the last post.  It's surprisingly relevant, and it's always cool to see how God is working and answering prayer and changing me in the very ways I am asking Him to.  So here is some stuff I was thinking and praying about before the Lord really hit me with all that strength and confidence you just read about.  And if you are really that stressed out about the order, just read them backwards.

A week or so ago, I came across this prayer in a devotional book I use occasionally.  Before reading what I have to say, however, I want you to read this prayer on your own, because it actually is pretty great.  Then, once you have your own thoughts, I can tell you what I thought of it when I read it for the first time.

“O Persistent God,

deliver me from assuming your mercy is gentle.

Pressure me that I may grow more human,

not through the lessening of my struggles,

but through the expansion of them…

Deepen my hurt

until I learn to share it and myself openly,

and my needs honestly.

Sharpen my fears until I name them

and release the power I have locked in them

and they in me.

Accentuate my confusion

until I shed those grandiose expectations

that divert me from the small, glad gifts

of the now and the here and the me.

Expose my shame where it shivers,

crouched behind the curtains of propriety,

until I can laugh at last

through my common frailties and failures,

laugh my way toward becoming whole.”

[Guerillas of grace, by Ted Loder]

Do you have your own thoughts?  Good.  Because I don't want to taint it for you with mine.  That said, this is what I thought the first time I read it:

Heck.  Freaking.  No.

Now, my entire reaction wasn't like that.  I was tracking with it for the first line or so...you can't really come up with any issues to "O persistent God".  So far, so good.  Then I read the next line, and the next, and the next.  As I am reading and praying through it, I started thinking, "Never mind, God, this sounds kind of terrible, I do not want to pray this at all, forget everything I just said please."  I mean seriously, I do not want to be pressured, deepen my hurt, sharpen my fears, accentuate my confusion, or expose even the tiniest little tidbit of my shame.  No thank you.  I'm good without that.

Then the Spirit started to convict me.

He does that sometimes.

It gets a little annoying.

So I started thinking, what sort of relationship is only made up of good, happy, fluffy, pretty things?  Am I taking only the good parts of what it means to be a Christian and leaving behind everything that would bring me depth?  Just because I'm scared of getting all raw and gritty?  Just because I am scared of being real?  Do I really have that little trust in my God that I would trade depth for a pseudo-happy-go-lucky-everything-is-fine-all-the-time type of faith.  Because that's not really faith at all.  That's not what my God is all about.  And that certainly is not what I want.

But I'm still human.  And I don't want to be broken like that either.  So I realized I need God to deepen my faith and alleviate my fear, that I might pray that prayer with confidence and boldness, knowing that whatever might happen, the ways in which I will be changed and the ways in which I will see God more fully are worth more than simply being comfortable.  I don't want to be comfortable, I want to be radical.  But I still want to be comfortable.  So I need some faith.  Because He is more important and I want all of Him, not just the fluffy stuff.  Because that's what love is, and that's how He loves me everyday.

For the record, this is not what I want my relationship with Jesus to be like (however this guy is awesome and this is what I thought of almost immediately when I typed the word "fluffy" up there):

I dare you, come at me.

Question.

What makes you stronger?

Is it hard work?

Is it perseverance?

Is it being challenged?

Is it a good attitude?

Is it the ability to compartmentalize?

Is it patience and being worry free?

Is it bench pressing 5 trillion pounds?

What if I told you that my weakness is what makes me stronger?  That the weaker I get, the stronger I get?

You might call me crazy.  I mean, by the very definition, that makes no sense at all.  They are opposites, weakness and strength, you simply can't be both.  A year ago, I might have agreed with you. But now, after a year full of experiences (a year full of rather hard experiences), I'd have to challenge you.  Sometimes, my dear friends, things simply don't make sense.  And it's taken me a long time, but I have finally learned that that's ok, things don't always have to be logical.  So let me share with you the story of how I got here.

Recently, I've been praying a lot of prayers.  Praying doesn't seem to do it justice.  It seems to quiet and passive a term, though I know it shouldn't.  No, what I've been doing is pleading.  I've been begging God for His patience, perseverance, and grace.  I've been begging Him to change me, save me, and bring me closer to Him.  I've been begging Him to root me in Him deeper and deeper and deeper.

You see, I've been so deeply aware of my sinfulness that I am becoming more and more aware of how much of a miracle it is that I even know Him at all.  I've been so aware if my sin and so desperate to see change, but so assured that I have no control over any of it.  I can't fix myself.  I can't save myself.  I can't discipline myself into perfection.  This sort of realization can leave a person feeling helpless and hopeless.  This can leave a person scared.

So I'll be honest, friends, which you all know is my most favorite thing to do (if you didn't hear the sarcasm there, you don't know me well enough), and I'll tell you I've been scared. Yep, you heard me. Scared.

Scared that at any moment I could break.

Scared that at any moment I could just slip through the cracks and lose everything.

Scared that at any moment I could make one wrong choice and go into a tailspin.

Scared that I simply can't handle any more struggle.

Scared that at any moment I might just choose to give up fighting the good fight and opt out for the easy road.

But then there's grace.

And it changes everything.

Because I've been pleading.  Pleading for God to make me solid.  Pleading for Him to root me, deep and unmovable, in Him, that I might stand firm.  Pleading for Him not to give up on me.  Pleading for Him to not let me go.

And it occurs to me, He's never not been doing all of those things I have been asking for.  I am seeing that every struggle, every pain, every hit is only rooting me deeper and stronger in Him.  Every time I break, I become more solid, more sure, more His.

It's funny, now that I think about it, that the very things the enemy intends for evil, God redeems.  All the ways he tries to break me only make me stronger in the Lord.  The ways he tried to pull me away only push me closer to my God.

It makes me feel a little sneaky, like I've been let in on some big cosmic secret.

My God is a God of redemption.  My struggles are not meaningless.  He does not merely help me get through them and make me feel better.  No, He uses them.  He redeems them for good.  My struggles are crucial blocks in what He's building me to be, and I need Him to keep building me.

"For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord."  [Romans 8:38-39]

I feel like I've reached a point of confidence in my faith, and in God, that I've never had before.  (And let's be serious, the word "confidence", is not a word commonly used when talking about me, so this is kind of huge). Nothing can take me from Him.  What's His is His.  He plays for keeps.  The fact that I am His will never change.  Someone told me once that I should never use the word never, because it was too strong a word and I had to be really really certain I meant it.  (If I recall, I think The Biebs also mentioned something about never saying never...).  So let me say it again so you get just how serious I am about this.

The fact the I am His will NEVER change.  Period.  End of discussion.

So, come at me.  Go ahead, just try to break me.  I dare you.  Because it only makes me stronger and I am beginning to welcome anything that God can use to let me know Him more.  Because I am His.

Also, this is one of my most favorite songs in the world.  And it applies here quite nicely.

“So tell me why I should run for cover

At the sound of the coming thunder

All I hear is the cry of my lover

So take your shot

I won't turn back”

-“Won’t Turn Back” by NeedToBreathe

Psalm 139

How precious to me are your thoughts, O god!  How vast is the sum of them!  Were I to count them, they would outnumber the grains of sand.  When I awake, I am still with you.  [Psalm 139:17-18]

I never understood this passage.  I have said it and read it over and over.  I memorized the psalm for goodness sake.  But I never understood this part.  What thoughts?  Why are God’s thoughts precious to me?  I don't know what god is thinking, and why do I care that he has a lot of thoughts?  And what does being with him have to do with any of that?  One thing that continually astounds me about the god I love is that he can take something that I have heard over and over and in an instant change it's meaning to me forever.  I used to gloss over is passage, just breezing over it because I didn't really know what it meant and It simply didn't stand out.  But the other day the Lord put this psalm in my path once again and changed how I read this, and how I see Him.

I won’t lie, my first thought when I saw that Psalm 139 was the passage I was supposed to read that was that I might as well skip reading it because, since I have it memorized, I clearly already know everything there is to know about this passage.  God can't possibly teach me anything new from it right?  Wrong.  I mean, seriously.  Could I be any more arrogant?  I decided I would read through it anyway and ponder it a little, trying to pull out pictures of intimacy from it, since that was the theme of the bible study I was doing that day.  It makes sense that they picked this psalm to go with that theme, there are so many parts of this psalm that show how intimately God knows us, but for some reason, on this particular day, the Lord chose to reveal his Intimate love for me in these words.  These words.  The ones that had meant nothing to me thus far, even as I had spent so much time in this passage over the past couple years.

We, as humans, want to know we are loved.  And part of this includes wanting to know we are thought of often and missed when we aren't around.  We want to know we are wanted, that we matter enough to be longed for and adored.  As I read this words, it was like the Lord was saying to me, so incredibly clearly, "Oh hey Patty.  You know those thoughts of mine that you are reading about?  Did you know they are all about you?  There are so many wonderful thoughts I have of you, my dear.  Hundreds and thousands and millions of beautiful thoughts of you because I love you so dearly.  I know you better than you know you, and I love you.  You are always with me, always on my heart, always on my mind.  I long for you, and I delight in you.  I will celebrate the day that finally, after so much, I get to be with you forever."

I was astounded.  We all want someone to say that to us, to be so in love with us that they can’t get us off their mind.  I am no different.  But as I walked and pondered this psalm, I heard the God of the universe declaring that love for me.  I have it right here in writing, it’s no lie, I am loved by the Lord, the God of the universe, the Creator, the Mighty King.  Naturally, being the self-centered, unbelieving sinner that I am, my first thought was, "Why in the world would He want to love me?” But this passage isn’t about me, it’s about Him.  It’s a declaration of how deeply He loves us, longs for us, knows us, and loves us.  It’s a picture into the very heart of God.  And His heart is full of deep and beautiful thoughts of us.  Us.  His lovers, His created, His children. 

Being in love with someone that does not love you in return is brutal.  But intimacy with God is mutual.  It is not one sided.  It is not us humans begging an unreachable God to notice us.  No, it’s a mutual desire to be with each other.  We long for Him and He longs for us as well.   He wants us there with Him just as much as we want to be with Him.  That's why He died for us.  That's why He conquered death.  That's why He bridged the gap.  That's why He rescued us.  And that's why He blesses us so abundantly with life and love.  He desires us.  He longs for us.  We are on His heart and mind.  He does not withhold himself from us, He wants to give us all of himself, in every facet.  And He longs for us to give ourselves to him without holding anything back.  

Along with this psalm, I read an excerpt from a book called The River Within by Jeff Imbach.  In this excerpt, Imbach references a book called The Art of Intimacy.  Imbach writes,

“According to the Malones, intimacy is distinguished from closeness.  The word intimacy is derived from the latin word intima, meaning “inner” or “innermost,” and carries the idea of being in touch with our inner selves.  It does not focus on the feelings of warmth or the awareness of similarity.  Intimacy is the art of bringing our true selves into the relationship.”

Intimacy with the Lord is exactly what intimacy should be.  It is deep and fulfills a longing in us that we can't satisfy any other way.  The God who created us and knows us and loves us is the only one that can bring us into that intimacy, the only one that can bring out who we truly are as we go deeper into knowing who He truly is.  He knows us better than we know ourselves, and he loves us more deeply than we can even fathom.  We desire intimacy because we were made for it and because God is calling us into that intimacy with Him.  It's the deepest and truest intimacy out there, and all He wants to do is love us.  And all we have to do is let Him.  He brought Himself directly to us, to be with us, and He changes us to become who we were always meant to be.  It is in Him that we really find ourselves and experience the One that knows who we are, down to the deepest depths of ourselves.  That, my friends, is what intimacy is.  That is what we were made for.  That is how our God loves us.