Prayer: Innate Response

 

Daily Gratitude Year 9-Day 166: Today, I am grateful for when prayer becomes more of an innate response than an action plan.

There is a Christian Contemporary group called "Need to Breathe". I've always loved that name. Breathing is something we take for granted until we are struggling to take a breath. 

They sing a song called "Who am I" that wrestles with the unfathomable love of God that reached out to us when "we were yet sinners". Yes, in the middle of the train wreck of our lives, our God stepped out of heavens to be with us, for us and not against us. Their song asks, "Who am I? Who am I, to be loved by you?"

"But God showed his great love for us by sending Christ to die for us while we were still sinners." -Romans 5:8

How can we reject such love? His love is not dependent on our goodness and what we get right. He loves us in the desperate messes we make, when we don't know which way to turn. When our need for him becomes equivalent to our need to breathe. That is when... and where... we will find him waiting for our surrender. 

Yes, real faith requires us to surrender. To pray as Jesus prayed, "Not my will but Thine be done." The universe is His. He longs to walk with us, to work beside us and to be in fellowship with us daily. Like that first call or text of the day to a loved one... that is the glory of prayer. Prayer opens us up to receiving Him. Kind of like turning the radio on. CS Lewis said it like this:

"I pray because the need flows out of me all the time, waking and sleeping. It doesn't change God. It changes me." - CS Lewis

It is the same lesson I learned in the first year of "Daily Gratitude" back in 2013. Spending time with Him didn't change God, it changed me. It is the same when we learn to pray like we breathe. Without thinking, but in full sync with The One who grants us breath for all of our days. 

Some days I get it sort of right. Other days, I blow it big time. He doesn't run from our messes. Shame grows out of our failures and shortcomings, but his God goggles always see what is redeemable and worthy of His Son's blood. 

I don't really get it, but I am forever changed because His love never gives up on us. My human mind doesn't really stretch that far, but that is okay. He's got us covered. 

"Never stop praying." - 1 Thessalonians 5:17

Prayer without ceasing... just like breathing. Not a task to be checked off our obligatory "to do list", but our soul's response to His love. 

Today, I am grateful for when prayer becomes more of an innate response than an action plan.