My Prayer, continued

Abba,

My beautiful children have been heavy upon my mind of late. While it is true that ultimately they are yours—always have been and always will be—I have taken the responsibility of being their earthly father seriously. If they come to know you as I know you then I may consider my mission accomplished.

This is precisely my concern: I came to know you through a much more traditional process that I don’t see much of in our world anymore. I’m finding it harder and harder to have any sort of meaningful conversation with others about you because “the God market” is increasingly dominated by a kind of fanaticism very foreign to me.

A sort of catechism that dictates what and how one is to believe seems to have become the focus of contemporary religion to the exclusion of much—if any—thought given to the experiential why. Acquiring a presumed orthodoxy is the objective now, and whether or not an authentic relationship with you is the end result doesn’t much matter anymore.

I was ordained to your service through a representative ministry that I understood to be consistent with the nature of the Christ. I remain convinced that Jesus of Nazareth revealed himself as the Christ by walking the walk, not just talking the talk. His calling to all who would be his disciples is to exemplify the life of genuine relationship with you.

When the emphasis, however, is upon the outer trappings rather than the inner spirit, the value of simple, humble servanthood is diminished. Supremacy trumps equality and superiority expresses itself as oppression rather than cooperation. Apparently I can defile my relationship with you with impunity for as long as I raise the cross in one hand and clutch my Bible with the other.

All this is to say that if it seems your children are finding it difficult to realize and enjoy a truly loving relationship with you, that’s because it really is. The popular religion of our time is not bent on discovering your will for us but of convincing us that your will conforms to our own hubris. It is just as threatening today to preach the possibility of intimate and personal relationship with you as it was in Jesus’ time, and mostly for the same reason: it exposes those who claim to know your will absolutely and completely as frauds.

Back to my children; I know that they seek your loving embrace but oftentimes find the way to the experience elusive. I pray that I might live my life in such a way that it shines light on the path of discovery, and I beg forgiveness for the many, many times that my thoughts, words and actions are contrary to what I know to be true. I bemoan my mortal weakness but rejoice that you have never once let that stand in the way of our togetherness.

Amen.