I See Right Through You

There are two things that Jesus asks of us each day: love God and love people. Those are the two most important things that we can do, according to Jesus. It sounds so simple, but it can be so incredibly hard. I mean, as humans, are we even capable of loving God well? Where do we even begin? 

Pastor Clay talked about five different ways to love God with all our heart. He said that we love God with all our heart by singing to Him, talking to Him, listening to Him, partnering with Him, and giving to Him. I am not going to lie to you and tell you that I have all of these things down well enough to talk to you about them. I do however feel like I have one of them down well enough to be able to talk to you about it. I am pretty confident that I can speak on the subject of prayer. 

Prayer is something that is near and dear to my heart. I consider it a spiritual gift of mine…a spiritual superpower if you will. The funny thing is I haven’t always been comfortable with prayer. I was fine to pray quietly in my mind for many years, but I have only been comfortable praying out loud in front of people and over people for maybe five years or so. I am still not completely comfortable praying out loud all the time. I still get very nervous and self-conscious about it from time to time. 

The thing I hear most often from people about prayer is that they don’t feel like they know how to do it, and they are afraid that they are going to do it wrong. Here’s the thing; prayer is nothing more than a conversation between two people. Just talk to Him for goodness sake! If you’re mad, be mad with Him. If you’re sad, be sad with Him. If you’re excited, be excited with Him. If you’re confused, be confused with Him. It’s okay to feel whatever you are feeling when you talk to God. In case you missed it, He already knows how you are feeling anyway, so there’s no sense in hiding it and pretending that you feel any differently. If you are frustrated with Him, be frustrated with Him. I can’t tell you how many times I have yelled at God during my prayer time. He is a big boy. I promise you He can take it. 

God wants a real relationship with you. Real relationships require authenticity. Relationships that are worth anything do not happen when the people in them pretend to be something they are not all the time. That’s just not how it works. 

Unfortunately, many people have this warped view of Christianity that looks like the lyrics to Alanis Morissette’s song, “Perfect”. I could be wrong, but I don’t believe for one second that God has ever thought that way about you or anyone else. He has never expected us to be perfect, and He has never expected us to earn His love. The God I know has never expected those things anyway. What He does expect from you is authenticity. He wants the real you. He wants a real relationship with you, and a real relationship takes a willingness to be real with the other person. 

This clip from Bruce Almighty is one of my favorite movie clips about prayer. I love it when he says, “That’s great…if you want to be Miss America.” Can we please stop pretending with God? It’s insulting. 

Another thing I hear often from people concerning prayer is that they don’t feel like their prayers are even being heard and that their prayers don’t seem to do any good. If this is you, the first thing I would suggest is making sure that you are not praying Miss America prayers. If you are, STOP IT! Stop treating God like that next door neighbor you think you can impress by talking about the right things or driving the right car. The whole idea that you could impress God by acting like someone you’re not is just preposterous. Be yourself with Him. He is the one who made you for goodness sake. He already knows who you are. In fact, He knows you better than you know yourself. Just be yourself with God and stop acting like you have to be something else when you are spending time with Him.

I really want to point out the end of that movie clip. Bruce opens up and lays his heart out to God. He is finally real with God. That is when God comments on his prayer. At the end of the clip when Bruce goes back after that prayer, he sees Grace in a whole new light and treats her differently. That is what happens when we finally get real with God in our prayer time. We begin to see people differently and treat people differently. We begin to love people well. When we love God enough to be real with Him, we begin to love our neighbors better. This is how we begin to fulfill the greatest commandment. It all starts with opening our hearts up to God in a way that allows us to be completely authentic in our time with Him. Once that happens, our relationship with Him begins to grow and strengthen. As our relationship with Him begins to grow, our hearts begin to grow for the people around us as well.