Ryft
Nihil sine Deo.
- Jan 6, 2004
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The first thing I want to point out is, "You had read the thanksgiving prayers." You had read them, which means they were written. I assure you, everyone is more eloquent in their writing than they are in their speech, mostly because their introspections are able to bypass the clumsy mechanism of verbal articulation (e.g., nobody stutters when they write), flowing freely from the mind to the keyboard. One also has the ability to proof-read their post and make changes to it before publishing it, another luxury that verbal articulation does not enjoy.
Furthermore, written prayers are usually more verbose as well because, unlike spoken prayers, one can take long pauses to contemplate what they want to say. If I am praying aloud, those who are with me would notice if I stopped for three or four minutes to contemplate what I wanted to say next, whereas no one on CF has any idea how long I took to write my post, appearing to them as one seamless monologue. (Incidentally, this post took two hours to compose.)
Secondly, you have to think about how long this or that person has been a Christian compared to how long you have been one. The relevance here is the extent of their experience with the language of the faith; obviously the Christian community has a unique language for expressing the faith, and the longer one is a Christian the more familiar, knowledgeable, and comfortable one becomes with that language. That lends to an appearance of eloquence that is difficult to imitate for someone who is not as familiar with the breadth of the language; e.g., it is not difficult to imagine how intimidating the eloquence of a prayer from a career pastor must seem to a former atheist who has been a Christian for only a month.
Third, there is no formal ritual to praying; in other words, it is impossible to "mess up" in your prayer. Try to keep in mind what prayer is, fundamentally: it is you spending quality time with God. It is not about following a particular template or conforming your petitions to a certain formula. It is about you, very simply, talking to God. You can say a whole lot of things, if you have a lot to say, or you can say nothing at all, just enjoying the moment of thoughtful communion. You can spend one minute verbalizing your thanksgiving and four minutes quietly meditating on the glory and richness of your Father in heaven. That is not a one-minute prayer; that is a five-minute prayer.
Most of my own prayers never escape my lips. I communicate with God from the sanctuary of my soul, that sacred place indwelt by his Spirit, unfettered by the complications of finding the right words or going through a checklist or what have you. Sometimes I have to verbalize because I have too many thoughts competing simultaneously, but verbalizing prayer is not mandatory.
And remember that God is not uninformed about who you are. He knows you are uncomfortable with spoken prayer. He knows you are unfamiliar with the eloquent avenues of the language of faith. He knows that you sometimes stutter and mess up. And he loves that about youbecause it's you. So don't ever hesitate to be yourself when you come to God in prayer, because it's you he has opened his arms to. If you are struggling to find the right words, go ahead and freely admit to God, right then and there, that you are struggling to find the right words. If you stutter during a prayer, go ahead and stutter. Smile sheepishly and admit to God, "I'll get better at this, honestly," and carry on. The best remedy against feeling self-conscious is to be yourself honestly and openly, because feeling self-conscious usually stems from how we fear others might be assessing our performance. Be candid. Be real. Be yourself. Reverently, but honestly. Of all the things that God is, remember that he is your Father. And as clumsy as you might feel, remember that you are his child.
That is depends rather directly upon what you believe the nature of 'conversion' to be. Sometimes people are taught that conversion consists of this in-rushing of the Holy Spirit that is somewhat akin to a euphoric experience, so if they don't experience that quasi-euphoric feeling after reciting some formulaic sinner's prayer then they question whether or not they actually had a conversion experience, whether or not they are actually saved. But what if conversion does not necessarily consist of that feeling? Is it possible that some people are being needlessly misled, having experienced an authentic conversion but being made to feel as though they might not have?
What if conversion is characterized as a concert of authentic repentance and faith, being comprised of a genuine self-awareness of sin and its culpability before God, a Spirit-wrought consciousness of one's utterly lost condition, turning away from our manifold sin that offends God's character and breaks his law, turning away from every attempt at justifying ourselves before God by appealing to orthodox beliefs or acceptable behavior, turning instead toward Jesus Christ as our Lord in every sense and Savior in every sense, by a personal conviction that Christ is the only means of justification, of pardon, of right-standing before God, the only provision for the forgiveness of sins, the only source of moral power in effecting reform in our desires, thoughts, motives, behaviors, words? And what if this conversion, this repentance of sin and faith in Christ, can be actualized with a humble and sober heart in full recognition of the majestic sovereignty of a holy God? What if conversion is less about a feeling and more about a pattern of relating to God and others?
The only thing I can do here at this moment is relate to you how I understand the issue. There is neither space nor time in this one post to make a solid biblical case so I will not attempt to. I will simply share with you what my beliefs are, leaving it to you to decide if it resonates with you or what you will do with it.
I believe that there will be a day of Judgment which will take place at a specific point in time. Consequently, I believe that no one goes to either heaven or hell when they die, that they await without any awareness in the ground for the final resurrection at the Second Coming. In that day, those who belong to the family of God will be resurrected to eternal life and taken to heaven along with the redeemed who are alive at his return, while the earth is left in ruin and the only being left conscious is Satan, everyone having been destroyed by the glory of Christ's return. This is the state of things for a thousand years, after which all the damned are read their judgment and the heavens and earth and every trace of sin is destroyed in a fiery maelstrom that is hell; God then creates a new heavens and new earth and the redeemed live forever in the presence of their King in the restored paradise of Eden. (Obviously I reject the idea that hell is eternal or that our time in heaven is eternal.) There are a LOT of biblical references that this view is derived from, but this is the brief abstract, to paint for you a succinct picture.
By relating to God as a child relates to a parent. Children depend upon their parents for absolutely everythingtheir very life, their daily bread, their education, their moral upbringing, their security, their discipline, their strength, etc. They place all their trust in their parents. They love their parents in a way they never love anyone else. They confide in their parents. They come to their parents for comfort or encouragement. And so forth. The list is long but you get the idea.
These are my own thoughts, beliefs, and opinions. Take them with a grain of salt, but I hope they gave you a measure of encouragement.
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Howdy Ryft~don't think we've met...
