I believe God’s Spirit is so inter-twined with us….no, that is misleading. He is closer than that.  A  literal consummation has happened for those who have been born anew. We now share a new nature with Him. We are flesh of His flesh, bone of His bone and, most importantly, spirit of His Spirit. We live and move and have our being in Him. He is in us and we are in him.  Like a married couple, we have become one. Yet, we behave as though God is in heaven and by way of our behavior, we can bring him down. Without an understanding of our radically altered natures we will always do violence to the spirit of this text….

“Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened.

The petitions are phrased differently but they all come from that same religious spirit that assumes God is essentially distant and that intimacy with him must be secured by our seeking. False. This type of wrong-heartedness will infect everything we do in relationship with Him.  I hear it in our petitions that are laden with notions that He responds better in certain months of the Jewish calendar than others. False. We have everything in Christ every moment of every month. He is our continual jubilee!  I hear it in the techniques we employee in prayer, “Lord, we curse this disease in Jesus name! ” or “God, we speak to this (or that) circumstance and command it to cease or to go. If we sense that things are dire, we may even employ the authority of Jesus’ name; use our powerful and creative tongues to say, “We command this thing into existence (that previously was not) .” or “We declare this thing out of existence (that perviously is).” Unnecessary. 

I have used these words myself but each time I do, I feel ill. It is as though I have betrayed him; that, in using a technique to get something from Him, I have violated something very fundamental in the spirit of our relationship. In essence, I cannot reconcile these approaches to God with the spirit of Jesus’ words….

Or what man is there among you who, when his son asks for a loaf, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, he will not give him a snake, will he? If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give what is good to those who ask Him!

God is a generous person but we treat him like a reluctant slot-machine. While we are storming heaven with our git’er done attitude and arms full of bizarre looking weaponry, he is saying,

“Kids, I am down here already. Keep this in mind when you are knocking and seeking. Recall Paul’s words as well. He understood….‘He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things?’…. When I invite you to love me and seek me with all your heart, don’t gage my nearness by your feelings or the false doctrines those feelings generate. When I told you I would never leave nor forsake you, that means I am right here, right now in your heart and right here in the midst of this thing. We are inseparable. Trouble in no way indicates my absence. Your heart becomes whole-hearted only when it is at rest with the reality of my immediate presence which is totally independent of your feelings and actions. I don’t jump up and come down when you say my name. I’m here already! Simply ask.”

I don’t know why things pop into my mind when they do but, “pop”….

I suppose the “pop” was provoked by Jackson Brown’s poetic gut-honesty. For me,  there is more hope in a broken heart than ones propped up by the prospect of bringing God down to us with our methodology. This secular psalmist has captured the ache without the hope of Christ.  I trust he will forgive me for having substituted Father for Doctor in his lyrics.

Father, if we need to cry a bit over how we have thought about you and treated you, so be it. Apply your salve to our eyes. Tell us what you see. Fill our hearts with pure and simple devotion that trusts in you alone. Ween us of all the religious supplements  we take to improve our spiritual lives when you yourself are our life. Help us to rethink our thinking in light of your truth and grace ruled-kingdom. We love you almighty and gracious King. Amen.