The older I get, and yes, I’m aware that I’m not terribly old…yet…, and the more I grow in the faith, I’m finding that, typically, kids who grow up in Christian homes face a danger of being almost too comfortable with Christianity. I’ll try to explain what I mean, since I am one of those who did grow up in a Christian home and came to faith at a very young age. We are surrounded from before the time we are born with church and worship music and the talk of the Bible and Christianity. What a blessing that is! Unfortunately, so many of us don’t fully recognize what a wonderful blessing it is. I’m finding that there are dangers as well, and I want to remember this as I parent my children. It is helping me to focus how I pray for them.
We tend to almost be too casual about serious things, simply because they are so familiar. For the most part I was sheltered from much of the filth that is in the world, and that’s a good thing, I’m not complaining. And, by God’s grace, I was spared much of what we would say are “big” sins, though I want to be careful to note that I am aware that sin is sin in the eyes of God. Any sin mars me and separates me from holy God. Furthermore, we are born in sin. I am not downplaying the fact that all of us, every single one of us, has sinned and cannot reach God on our own merit, in fact we deserve hell. That is the wages of sin. What I mean is that since I came to saving faith young, I was spared much of what many people face by getting to young adulthood before coming to Christ. For this I am immensely grateful, there are not words enough to express. But there is a danger involved when we don’t realize how serious sin is personally. We can become too flippant and too casual with holy things simply because we’ve not really known anything different and they are so familiar.
I say all that to give this one example from my own life of something that I ha
ve recently done some thinking about. Maybe I’m being too serious again as I think about this, but this is where I am. Some of my Christian friends and I used to play this dorky little game in college when we would go out to eat or sit down together to have a meal, and I was recently reminded of it by someone I didn’t know back then but who had also played it. When we’d sit at the table, someone would, very quietly, without a word, put their thumbs up and sit quietly. As others noticed, they would quickly put their thumbs up. The last to notice and be left as the only one without thumbs up had to say the blessing before we ate. We all thought this was innocent and funny – I did, too. I played along and laughed as much as anyone, not thinking anything of it.
What’s wrong with that game, however, is that saying the prayer is seen as a penalty. The more I grow in the faith, the more I am becoming aware of what an awesome privilege prayer is. What a heavy price was paid so that we would have the inexpressible privilege to enter the throne room of Almighty God and present our petitions and praise. When we bow our heads to ask a blessing over our meal, which honestly is a gift in and of itself for which I’m learning to be immensely grateful, we are talking to the Holiest of All, the Supreme Lord of the Universe, our Creator and Lord. This is not a joke. I Peter 1:12 tells us the angels desire to look into these things (the gospel preached to us). We have been given something that we must not take lightly.
So, when someone asks who will pray, why is there so often the silence of crickets instead of all of us wanting to participate in the privilege? When a Bible teacher asks if anyone would like to open up the meeting in prayer and everyone quickly says, “Nope, you can do it,” what are we really saying? I understand not everyone is comfortable praying in public, but I’m concerned that we need to get past that and try to remember Who we are talking to. It shouldn’t matter to me what the people in the room think of my prayer. I’m not talking to them.
What an incredible privilege to pray. And know that in reading this, you are actually looking over my shoulder at a personal journal entry. I’m indicting myself here. I do not pray as I ought. How shamefully often I neglect the privilege, the indescribably immense and awesome privilege of praying to God. May I never joke about it again.
1 Corinthians 13:11-12 “When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child; but when I became a man, I put away childish things. For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part, but then I shall know just as I also am known.”
We tend to almost be too casual about serious things, simply because they are so familiar. For the most part I was sheltered from much of the filth that is in the world, and that’s a good thing, I’m not complaining. And, by God’s grace, I was spared much of what we would say are “big” sins, though I want to be careful to note that I am aware that sin is sin in the eyes of God. Any sin mars me and separates me from holy God. Furthermore, we are born in sin. I am not downplaying the fact that all of us, every single one of us, has sinned and cannot reach God on our own merit, in fact we deserve hell. That is the wages of sin. What I mean is that since I came to saving faith young, I was spared much of what many people face by getting to young adulthood before coming to Christ. For this I am immensely grateful, there are not words enough to express. But there is a danger involved when we don’t realize how serious sin is personally. We can become too flippant and too casual with holy things simply because we’ve not really known anything different and they are so familiar.
I say all that to give this one example from my own life of something that I ha
ve recently done some thinking about. Maybe I’m being too serious again as I think about this, but this is where I am. Some of my Christian friends and I used to play this dorky little game in college when we would go out to eat or sit down together to have a meal, and I was recently reminded of it by someone I didn’t know back then but who had also played it. When we’d sit at the table, someone would, very quietly, without a word, put their thumbs up and sit quietly. As others noticed, they would quickly put their thumbs up. The last to notice and be left as the only one without thumbs up had to say the blessing before we ate. We all thought this was innocent and funny – I did, too. I played along and laughed as much as anyone, not thinking anything of it.What’s wrong with that game, however, is that saying the prayer is seen as a penalty. The more I grow in the faith, the more I am becoming aware of what an awesome privilege prayer is. What a heavy price was paid so that we would have the inexpressible privilege to enter the throne room of Almighty God and present our petitions and praise. When we bow our heads to ask a blessing over our meal, which honestly is a gift in and of itself for which I’m learning to be immensely grateful, we are talking to the Holiest of All, the Supreme Lord of the Universe, our Creator and Lord. This is not a joke. I Peter 1:12 tells us the angels desire to look into these things (the gospel preached to us). We have been given something that we must not take lightly.
So, when someone asks who will pray, why is there so often the silence of crickets instead of all of us wanting to participate in the privilege? When a Bible teacher asks if anyone would like to open up the meeting in prayer and everyone quickly says, “Nope, you can do it,” what are we really saying? I understand not everyone is comfortable praying in public, but I’m concerned that we need to get past that and try to remember Who we are talking to. It shouldn’t matter to me what the people in the room think of my prayer. I’m not talking to them.
What an incredible privilege to pray. And know that in reading this, you are actually looking over my shoulder at a personal journal entry. I’m indicting myself here. I do not pray as I ought. How shamefully often I neglect the privilege, the indescribably immense and awesome privilege of praying to God. May I never joke about it again.
1 Corinthians 13:11-12 “When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child; but when I became a man, I put away childish things. For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part, but then I shall know just as I also am known.”
2 comments:
WELL SAID!
Commented the girl who grew up so deep within the Christian subculture she didn't even know a self-professing non-Christian until she went to public school at age 16.
I could write a book on the dangers of growing up Christian. This post illustrates one. I am tremendously grateful for my heritage. Yet I am still learning to un-peel the onion layers from my faith to get down to the real.
P.S. I realized the same thing about the "thumbs up prayer game" when I was a high school youth leader in college. Having already tasted the wonder inherent in authentic prayer, I started saying, "Hey, I'd love to pray. More than happy."
I used to play that same game. Several years back when I was convicted of my irreverent attitude towards prayer, apathy even, God used many events to humble me as to how I was to pray, recognizing it as a true and precious privilege. A well done and genuine post.
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