Step 3 - Communing with God

I was struck with one particular word in my title. No, it wasn’t “God” or even “Communing.” It was “with.” Okay, maybe I’m with only person on earth that can get hung up on a preposition, but hear me out.

Society has screwed us up. Yep. For once I am going to blame society. Usually I blame myself, so don’t anyone freak out when I shift the blame here.

But let’s be honest, of those of you who believe in God, how many were taught memorized prayers? Go ahead, raise your hands, nobody is looking. Okay. Now of the remainder, how many of you forward emails with set prayers in them because you would feel guilty if you didn’t? Okay. Now of the remaining “believers” how many of you say your prayers and then get up, thinking that the communication is over, because after all, it is one-sided?

Do you get my drift?

Most of us, who do believe in God, still think of prayer (communication) as a one-way street with our words going up into a giant receiver. But how many actually take the time to sit and listen and expect some form of communication back?

I heard a talk in church once that should have touched me then, but it affects me more now. The speaker compared prayer to a phone conversation and asked how we would feel if we had a child who called each day with the following type of conversation:

Hi, Dad. Hey I’m having some problems today and could really use a little extra money so if you could send $500 I’d really appreciate it. I’m going to the doctor next week. He thinks I may need to have my gall bladder removed. It really sucks. It would be great if you could convince him that it wasn’t necessary. The kids are doing good. No problems there. But we are a little worried that Jimmy isn’t talking yet. Well, I’ll call tomorrow. Love you, bye.

…and hung up, never giving you a chance to say anything, not even that you love her or that you’ll send the money, or that you’ll pray for her. Just “click.”

And yet that is how we usually communicate with God. And sometimes we do it with the same identical words every day. I catch myself doing it, in such a rut that my mind is on auto-pilot. Sometimes, I have to ask myself if I even finished my prayer.

So how can we call that communication?

Wow. I’m so out of practice communicating that I’m a little intimidated, but I figure I have to start somewhere. I’ve been praying all my life, but I’ve been talking “to” God not “with” God. And my trust issues suddenly make a lot of sense.

How can you know someone you’ve never communicated with? How can you trust someone you don’t know?

Step 3 is a decision – our first real decision. I guess for me, this is the key. My decision comes down to this: I need to get to know God because I’ve decided to trust Him.