Pray then like this: "Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name.
–Matthew 6:9 (ESV)
I was watching the movie Percy Jackson and the Olympians recently with my kids. The story goes that Zeus loses his lightning bolt and is threatening a war if it is not found. What strikes me is that, although great and powerful, these gods living in Olympus are also limited and flawed. Zeus, for example is limited by his omniscience, because he cannot find his lightning bolt and he doesn’t know who stole it! These gods are also lonely and want to be with humans. Some of them procreated with humans and sired demi-gods. And they are prohibited by Zeus to be with their children for fear that they will wish to become human in order to experience the love and affection of their human partner and children.
Compared to the God of the Bible, these gods of Olympus are losers! Unlike Zeus, the Almighty God never loses a lightning bolt!
How great is God—beyond our understanding! The number of his years is past finding out.
He draws up the drops of water, which distill as rain to the streams; the clouds pour down their moisture and abundant showers fall on mankind.
Who can understand how he spreads out the clouds, how he thunders from his pavilion? See how he scatters his lightning about him, bathing the depths of the sea.
This is the way he governs the nations and provides food in abundance. He fills his hands with lightning and commands it to strike its mark.His thunder announces the coming storm; even the cattle make known its approach.
-Job 36:26-33 (NIV)
Unlike Zeus, the Father loves his children and desires to gives them everything they need to live. The Father has given us the gift of prayer so that we can talk to him. Truly the greatness of our God is incomparable!
The phrase “in heaven” is meant to communicate that the Father is far above us in majesty and greatness. It does not convey this erroneous concept that prayer is us talking to God who is far away. We think that there exists a great gulf of space between us here on earth and the God in the heavens. So our prayers must travel through this great distance. That's not the point at all.
“Our Father in heaven”, it is a declaration of God’s greatness. Jesus is then teaching us that we approach the Father not just with affection but also with reverence because the Father is great and glorious. Be careful then to address the Father with a sense of familiarity. Also come to the Father in worship. Be in awe of his majesty. God is both personal and majestic! Our personal lives are finite, limited and weak. Our God is infinite, limitless, and powerful! God is personally concerned for us and treats us with love and compassion but we must never lose sight that He is the creator of the universe and that he is sovereign over all!
Great is the LORD, and most worthy of praise, in the city of our God, his holy mountain.
-Psalm 48:1 (NIV)
For the LORD is the great God, the great King above all gods. Come, let us bow down in worship, let us kneel before the LORD our Maker;
-Psalm 95:3,6 (NIV)
I wrote earlier that my God never loses a lightning bolt! It serves as a personal reminder to me that I must avoid making God small when I pray. He is already great and glorious and does not need us to make him look greater. However, we must declare his true greatness as we pray. Far be it, that we limit him with our minds as we lift up our requests.
How do we make God small in our prayers? In the book Knowing God, author JI Packer points out 3 ways :
1. Wrong thoughts about God.
"To whom will you compare me? Or who is my equal?" says the Holy One.
–Isaiah 40:25 (NIV)
Sometimes our thoughts of God are too human just like how the gods of Olympus are portrayed in Greek mythology. This is where we go astray. Because we ourselves are limited and weak, we then imagine that God also must have weaknesses at some points. We think that he is much like we are and fail to truly grasp the reality of his infinite power and wisdom.
2. Wrong thoughts about ourselves.
Why do you say, O Jacob, and complain, O Israel, "My way is hidden from the LORD; my cause is disregarded by my God"?
- Isaiah 40:27 (NIV)
In suffering, we sometimes think that God has abandoned us and has not heard our prayers. JI Packer says [1],
“God has not abandoned as anymore than he abandoned Job. He never abandons anyone on whom he has set his love; nor does Christ, the good shepherd, ever lose track of his sheep. It is as false as it is irreverent to accuse God of forgetting, or overlooking, or losing interest in the state and needs of his own people. If you have been resigning yourself to the thought the God has left you high and dry, seek grace to be ashamed of yourself. Such unbelieving pessimism deeply dishonors our great God and Savior”3. Our slowness to believe in God’s majesty.
Do you not know? Have you not heard?
The LORD is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth.
He will not grow tired or weary, and his understanding no one can fathom.
–Isaiah 40:28 (NIV)
This is a rebuke to us from God. He is saying how ignorant we are of him and how we are so slow to understand that that he is sovereign, all knowing, almighty, and limitless. Has he grown old or tired? Of course not! Therefore, let’s know the reality of the Father’s greatness as we pray. Let us remove from our thoughts anything that put limits on him. What a wonderful privilege it is to be children of the great, glorious, almighty, majestic God!
There is no competition here – Zeus is a loser!
[1] JI Packer, Knowing God, pp. 78-79
No comments:
Post a Comment