Is God Real?

Of course he is. Thank you for reading today. Just teasing. Let me try to drag you through some tough thoughts given Sunday by pastor Ray Ortlund at a wonderful, small little church in south Nashville. He spoke mostly about prayer, but he gave an aside that really convicted me.

He spoke about how in prayer we can experience the reality of God when we pray with expectation and pleading.

Duh, right? But let me go on a bit for others like me who tend to stray in this area. When we pray, what do we pray for? Do we pray to God? Not as in directed toward him, but as if he really is hearing? I can tend to pray and to consider truths about God. I dwell on scripture in prayer. I ask many things, but often out of a sense of how I need to ask, not as if really expecting. These aren't bad things, but if they are the substance of our prayers and we leave out the sense of communion we are mistaken.

We can tend to think of God theoretically and pray only to hear ourselves pray. We are surely robbing ourselves of one of the greatest blessings of the Christian life! We get to commune with the Almighty! The Triune God! We can enter the throne room. Wow, read Isaiah or Revelations and get a sense for the holiness, the set-apartness, of our God. That is the God with whom we get to commune.

Let us seek to grow in this practice. The practice of praying in earnest. As if God is really there, since he is. Let us pray in the reality of God. Let us realize the presence of our Lord when we commune with him, and let us rid ourselves of obedience in works alone.