With one hand we keep a grip on the anchor of our souls; the other reaches out to seize the world with redemptive power.
Let’s remind ourselves that faith is a synonym for commitment and trust. In this case, we place our faith in God — we are committed to His glory and trust His power and compassion.
On the one hand, we must tune up our souls. We do that by making our minds subservient to the heart. The heart in the Bible is the seat of the will, the part of us that decides and commits. We commit our hearts to God and His glory. Of all people, I would be the first to empathize with how hard it is to dismiss from the residual beliefs of Western Christianity that hidden image of God as the grouchy old Norse deity. The ugly fear is rooted deep and it’s wholly wrong. God’s glory is our best interest, and His revelation through His Law Covenants represent the very best this life can offer. So with a heart committed to His glory, we embrace the idea that His glory is good, kind, merciful and sweet.
His divine empathy sweetens the power of His sword to cut away the cancer of sin. We embrace His wrath because it is our best friend in this life. The fire of condemnation will burn away our contrary ways and leave us only with a desire to hug the Cross, because it comes fully equipped with a luxurious empty tomb stained with His blood plus a stirrup to mount up on the clouds. So the storms of life are nothing but a divine Jacuzzi to soak away your ills.
Get a grip, folks. Prayer begins with begging God to fix your wants and desires to match His truth. Build your whole orientation as a matrix standing on His calling in your life. Without that divine drive to bring Him glory in some way characteristic of you personally, you don’t have room to pray for anything else. Ask God to teach you what will bring Him glory; you’d be surprised how much of it rests on you claiming your piece of the pie. Not in some gratuitous dog-shit prosperity gospel, but in a genuine and sane evaluation of what He says you have to have to serve Him. Once you feel certain you know what God wants from you in this moment, your grip on the anchor is strong.
On the other hand, you can ask God to open your heart in the search for things to redeem in your world. It’s not a question of how bad you want something, but whither your heart will lead you.
I have a pretty big advantage over many folks reading this: That military experience taught me to do without a lot of human comforts. You spend a whole month wallowing in a rocky high savanna with frosty winter winds whipping you day and night, sleeping on the ground or in aging tents crowded with way too many other stinking bodies, eating whatever someone decided to bring you. Then do it again, a couple of times each year, if not more. I hated it then, but I would not trade the experience for anything now. It has made me quick to discard stuff that simply weighs me down without offering much blessing. I was young and my body was more tolerant then, but it’s my soul that is ready for the big adventures in life these days.
So it came to my attention that I could use a pair of work boots. My anchoring hand knew that I would have to scour the thrift stores to find something I could afford. My reaching hand found them. I would walk in to some particular store and let my heart speak to the rack of footgear on display. If nothing grabbed me, I might look at a few pairs, but I knew none of them were right. Finally I walked into one place and my heart knew — it could hear the boots calling me. God had tagged them for me. Silly? No, that’s how prayer works. You can come up with your own imagery, but I’m telling you this is how we are designed.
Further, my heart tells me that in the near future I’ll need to give some stuff away, some of it relatively valuable. It’s all tagged for someone God wants to have it for His glory. I may not know what it is cognitively, but my heart knows I will have a surplus to share soon, and that is every bit as important as getting stuff I need. Just as willing diligence brought me to a place where God’s provision called out to me, so the provision I have will tell me to whom I should give them. All Creation is but a disposable tool for His glory.
It’s not about the stuff, but how the stuff serves the glory of the Lord. That’s prayer, that’s redemption, that’s faith.
