If I took a survey of the Body of Christ and asked, “Do you believe God is your heavenly Father?,” most if not all would respond, “Yes!” But more often than not–at least when it comes to praying–we treat God as if He’s a distant or even abusive father. Either we don’t talk to Him much, or, when we do come to Him, we pray safe prayers, hedging our requests with phrases like, “if it’s Your will.” As if He doesn’t always do His will … whether we like it or not!
Last month we talked about how the answer is to come to God “messy” and pray like little children. But what if our relationship with our Father is dysfunctional? Paul E. Miller examines this in his book A Praying Life. Cognitively we know we have access to the Father through the Son. Our relationship with God is not based on how good we are, but on the goodness of Jesus. And because we are now adopted into the family–brothers and sisters with Jesus Himself–we are heirs of all the blessings and benefits of God’s kingdom. But too often that knowledge remains just that–head knowledge. We understand the “doctrine of Sonship;” and have a close relationship to God in theory, but practically our relationship is distant and dysfunctional (Miller, Paul E., A Praying Life, p. 5).
So how do we remedy that? What does it even mean to come like a child?
The first step is acting like God really is our Father. When a father is good, his children love to spend time with their Daddy! They want to play with their Daddy, help their Daddy, snuggle with their Daddy. They are excited to see him, and they want to spend time with him.
I remember as a young child sitting by the big picture window in our living room as the sky turned dark, watching for my own Daddy to come home. When he pulled up to the curb, I got excited. When he walked in the front door, I ran to him and threw myself at him yelling, “Daddy!” His love for me and my love for him meant I couldn’t wait to see him every night. Do you love your heavenly Father so much that you have an eager expectation and desire to spend time with Him? If you don’t, can you discern what keeps you from that place? (Is it fear? A broken relationship with your earthly father? The busyness and distractions of life? Things you crave more than God, such as entertainment?)
The next step to coming as a child is to acknowledge your helplessness and surrender to that place of neediness. Children know they can’t do it all; they are aware they don’t know it all. They need a Father who is bigger, stronger, wiser than they are to help them. So they come to their Daddy with their questions, their needs, their requests. They do so unashamedly. It’s only as we get older and “wiser” and think we ought to be able to do something on our own that we get embarrassed by or feel guilty for asking.
James 4:2c says, “You do not have, because you do not ask.” What do you need or desire but are hesitant to ask the Father for? Ask! Your heavenly Father desires to give you all good things. Does this mean you’ll never hear a “No” from God? Of course not–we all know we will–but even the “no’s” are born out of love. Even earthly fathers say no sometimes. That doesn’t stop their children from asking. Neither should a fear of hearing “No” stop us from pouring all our requests out to God. And even when we hear “No,” it might be God leading us to the place of surrender, where we finally acknowledge that neediness and give up trying to do it on our own. When we’re doing things in our own strength, relying on our own abilities, we have no reason to pray or seek God. Jesus is, in effect, an “add-on” to our lives, which is why “suffering is so important to the process of learning how to pray” (Miller, Paul E., A Praying Life, p. 48). Mature Christians pray more, not because they’re stronger, but because they recognize their weaknesses more clearly (Miller, p. 44).
The third component to becoming like a child is learning to dream again! To believe God can and will do the impossible! To believe that persistent praying will net results–like children who ask and ask and ask, knowing with enough persistence they can eventually wear down their parents’ resolve. (This is not unbiblical, by the way. Don’t believe me? Go read the parable Jesus taught his disciples regarding prayer and faith in Luke 18:1-8.) To learn how to babble again. Miller calls this “ADD praying,” and cites Paul’s prayers in Ephesians as an example: “He starts praying [in chapter one], interrupts himself, starts praying again [at the beginning of chapter three], gets distracted, and then finally finishes his prayer.” He goes on to say: “How do we structure our adult conversations? We don’t. Especially when talking with old friends, the conversation bounces from subject to subject. … Why would our prayer time be any different? After all, God is a person” (p. 28).
Prayer is just a conversation with a loving Father and friend. Think about the last conversation you had with your own father (or mother or spouse or dear friend). Your prayers should sound something like that. Really. Your Father God is waiting to hear from you. Why don’t you become like a child today and start a conversation?
Father, I admit I haven’t come to You as a child. I’ve let busyness, doubt, worry, and cynicism age my soul, but I want to become childlike again. I acknowledge my weakness and my helplessness. I need You, Father, for I cannot do it on my own. Holy Spirit, renew in me the joy and excitement of knowing You that I had when I first believed. And teach me to dream again–to believe and have persistent faith in who You are and what You can do. I let go of all ideas I may be harboring regarding what prayer should look like. I want to have conversations with You, God. After all You are my Father, my Brother, my Friend and Comforter. I love You.
