Prayerful Meditation, Part 1: Captivated / Encouraged
Intro: This started out with just the question, “Why am I a Christian?” followed by my answer included in the text. Sometime in the last few years I was especially captivated and encouraged by this question and my answer, and so I wrote it down on the inside cover of a prayer journal. And then I just found it very helpful to start my times of prayer reflecting on this question and my answer. It would always help put things in better perspective and help me to remember how wild it is that I’m even a person who now prays and so it helped me to approach God regularly with more gratitude and awe, remembering that start-to-finish my greatest treasure, my relationship with Jesus, is an entirely undeserved gift I can take no credit for, as well as all the mind-blowing gifts that are a bonus, like icing on the cake. As time went on I realized there were a number of similar thoughts that I would almost always be encouraged by if they really sunk in, so I started collecting them, adding them to the page. Before long what started as one big question in the middle of a page became a giant disorganized mess of ideas I could barely fit on the page, and then became several more pages. And so this writing is an attempt to organize the first big chunk of all that into something accessible and encouraging for others as well. May it bless you!
Our Heavenly Father, we love You. The Aramaic word Jesus used for “Father” was “Abba”, which indicated deep intimacy, tenderness, reverent respect, and child-like trust and dependence. Our English word “Papa” is probably a better fit, and so in keeping with that spirit, and to make it more personal, I often call You “my Heavenly Papa Bear”. Thank You for creating us, sustaining us, for Your perfectly good plans for us, for all that You are, all that You’ve done for us, all that You give us, and all that You promise us- infinitely more than we can realize. Thank You for loving us with perfect intimate parental love. We are all infinitely more dependent on You than a newborn baby is dependent on their mom and dad, and so also infinitely more oblivious to all the ways You are constantly and perfectly caring for us- especially in the most difficult of times, however difficult.
Motivated by all this, please lead us in all our prayer and devotional times, and in all aspects of our lives. Help us to “seek Your face” … in other words to seek You for You alone, and not primarily for the things You give us. Help us to experience Your beauty, Your goodness, Your power, Your love, and everything about You as fully as we can. Please help all our devotional times, any spiritual disciplines, and anything we do to only improve our relationships with You, our friendships with You, our relationships with others, and with Your creation.
We already have the one thing we ultimately need which is a reconciled and peaceful trusting relationship with You, God- God the Father, God the Son Jesus, and God the Holy Spirit, the one and only true and living God. And You will always provide us strength for anything we need strength for, and comfort in every trouble so that we may comfort others the same, according to Your promises, season after season, day to day, and moment by moment. Praise You for this!
Why am I a Christian? In other words, why do I follow, believe in, love, trust, and worship Jesus? … The only explanation that makes any sense to me is because God did a seemingly impossible, undeserved, unexpected, and supernatural work in my life- heart, mind, body, and soul, and continues to in every aspect of my life. Though I didn’t think I was even capable of believing, You gave me everything I needed to not only sincerely believe in You, but to know and trust You personally and intimately, and to follow You, though infinitely imperfectly. The fact that I believe in You is as big of a miracle as anything!
God You can do anything, except contradict Your nature, and You are perfectly good. And You alone are perfectly good and perfectly gracious! You listen to us and remember us and are considerate of the desires of our hearts for even worldly things. But please help our hearts to grow in our desire for and satisfaction in You alone so that we may find the greater joy available in knowing You, and then actually better enjoy Your good gifts as the gifts they are and always infinitely less wonderful than You as well.
Help us to experience the intimacy and pleasure available to us which is infinitely greater than the joy that comes from the the exclusivity of a life-long commitment with even the very best-fitting spouse in a healthy marriage, a relationship You designed to only point us to our ultimate relationship with You and to tell the story of Your love for us through Christ’s laying His life down in love for the church (the bride of Christ) and in loving and trusting submission to God the Father for the joy of a restored relationship with us. You know us completely, inside and out, through and through, infinitely more than we know ourselves, and You love us infinitely more than we can understand. In You alone we are fully known and fully loved. Please speak to us, talk with us, help us to connect with You, and to be one with You. Pursue us, and thank You that You are always pursuing us!
Thank You that through our reconciled relationships with You by faith, we get to actually know there is a wonderful purpose for our lives, and an eternity in Heaven in the next life, that all wrongs will be made right, and that we are never alone because You promise to always be with us. Otherwise, we could only really speculate whether or not our lives have purpose and whether or not there is an afterlife, and especially without understanding how we’ll be spending that life. You promise us confident assurance about these things, You always deliver on Your promises, and You have given me this living hope.
Help us to remember moment to moment that You’re always with us, and to treat You that way, to make room for You, with or without the company of others, to act, speak, and provide. Help us to trust and experience Your constant presence with us more and more all the time. What wonderful things do You have in store for today? Help us to not miss anything! And if You have anything about the future You would like to show us, please do so.
The lengths of our lives now are hardly worth mentioning when compared with the eternity of the next life. They are infinitely short, not even a breath, a blip on the radar, or a moment by comparison.
Everyone’s best dreams of Heaven all combined are infinitely less wonderful than it will actually be. For instance: If I alone can imagine only ever increasing joy, pleasure, ability, fascination, inspiration, and wonder as well as no pain, sadness, disease, disability, or disappointment… all bad things reversed, rewound in time and undone so no longer true, like waking up from a bad dream that didn’t happen, yet somehow even better having actually happened… every relationship in perfect peace, including our relationship with nature, so only living in the most healthy, unpolluted, and wonderful environment and even ever-increasingly so… every dream coming true beyond our wildest imagination… If I can imagine that, then however it will actually be, will be infinitely better than that! Plus it’s unloseable once received, and there is nothing anything or anyone can do to stop it, to prevent it, or delay it (or to speed it’s coming). It’s absolutely guaranteed to anyone who by Your sheer gift of grace is brought into a right relationship with You through the gift of trusting in the perfect and finished work of Jesus dying in our place on our behalf and then rising from death. “Nothing in my hands I bring, simply to the cross I cling.”
Thank You for Your Holy Scriptures and for all that You’ve revealed to us through them. Please open our hearts and minds to what You desire to teach us and reveal to us every day. Please help studying Your Word to be something we look more and more forward to all the time, and help us to prioritize the time we spend in this way, alone and in healthy Christian community, and with others as we share the Gospel, treating them as the infinitely valuable treasures that they are and offer. Lead us by Your Spirit into all truth. Please speak to us through Your Holy Scriptures, by Your Holy Spirit, and through whatever means and through whomever You would like. And help us to respond with good and clear discernment and obedience, taking any action You desire to see us take. In Jesus’s name, Amen.
