Getting To Know God
Matthew 6:5-13; Luke 18:1-7; I Thessalonians 5:17
Gettysburg Presbyterian Church
Harry G. Winsheimer
May 4, 2008

Why do you pray?  Think about it.  What motivates you to pray?

To get things---is that why you usually pray?  To get something that you want.   Good! Jesus endorsed such prayers.  Luke reports:

”Jesus told them a parable about their need to pray always and not to lose heart.  He said, "In a certain city there was a judge who neither feared God nor had respect for people.  In that city there was a widow who kept coming to him and saying, "Grant me justice against my opponent.'  For a while he refused; but later he said to himself, "Though I have no fear of God and no respect for anyone,  yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will grant her justice, so that she may not wear me out by continually coming.'"  And the Lord said, "Listen to what the unjust judge says.  And will not God grant justice to his chosen ones who cry to him day and night? Will he delay long in helping them?”

You keep praying those requests. 

Is that the only reason that you pray?  Do you have another reason?

Do you ever unload on to God, just dump on God?

Not long after I arrived in one of my previous churches, when I still had my hair, I preached a sermon on forgiveness.  After the service I stood by the door to greet people.  A woman in her late fifties came up, obviously upset.  With teary eyes she informed me that her brother had done such a terrible thing to her that he did not deserve forgiveness.  Well, I was concerned.  This woman needed attention, and quickly.  I made an appointment to see her in her home that week.  Within five minutes of my sitting down, she burst forth with a bitter diatribe against her brother who had cheated her out of inheritance.  My heart went out to her.  If true, her brother was a terrible man!  Her eyes teared.  Her face turned scarlet.  Her voice hardened.  I asked if she could forgive her brother.  No!  He did not deserve it.  And, I should not have asked.  So, I tried another tack and asked, “How long ago has it been?”  “Twenty-eight years ago!”  I was stunned!  I had thought that it had happened within the past few months.  For three decades that woman had boiled with resentment.  As I learned the congregation better, I discerned that people talked with her, but kept an emotional distance.  She had no real friends.  People could not relax with her.

What should the 27-year old pastor have said?  What would you have said?  I confess that I accomplished nothing, didn’t get her to move forward emotionally.

Let it out to God, whatever is inside you!  Tell God!  Tell God your anger, your hurt, your depressed emotions, your guilt, your grief, your fear, your complaint.   In prayer let the Lord have them all.

If that woman had let out her hurt on God, would she have had a much happier and more fulfilling life?  If she had taken herself to the point of saying, “Lord, you know how I feel.  You know the injustice.  I cannot do any more about it.  It is out of my control.  I turn it over to you for you to provide justice.  I am accepting what I cannot change.  Now, I pray for the ability to accept your love.  Now, I pray to be a loving and constructive person.”

Let God be your counselor.

Is there another purpose for prayer?  There is another very important reason to pray: to get to know God, and to keep the relationship healthy.  It is about this that I want to devote most of the sermon.

I heard about the wife who brought suit against her husband who divorced her.  She had given up seeking her own career and supported her husband while he went to medical school.  When he graduated, he divorced her.  We have heard of such cruel behavior, but this wife did not accept it.  She sued for a portion of the income which he would earn as a result of his education which she helped to finance.  She won the suit.

Imagine how the fight may have gone.  He said, "I want a divorce."  She was stunned, unable to think.  The blood drained from her brain and face.  Then, as the minutes passed, the anger built, the face became scarlet, the adrenalin surged, the brain jumped into passing gear, and she screamed, "What?  What?  Now, after I worked to pay your way, after I took care of you when we had nothing, when you were dependent upon me--now when you are about to earn money, when we could have the things which we did without, when you can support yourself--now you dump me!  You self-centered, selfish, vain, bum!  You treat me like I am a tool.  Use me and junk me.  Who do you think that I am, your slave?  I am not your tool.  I am not your slave.  I am a person equal to you and to be treated well.  I will not let you use me like that!  See you in court!"
           
Do you see a parallel with the way that we sometimes treat God?  An analysis of our prayers may reveal that we are using God, focusing upon ourselves and really indifferent to God as a person.

Our prayers are often so focused upon ourselves as to be expression of our sinfulness.  That is right.  Our prayers may be sinful.  They are, if we treat God as only our problem-solver, our tool, our slave, a non-person. 

Therefore, does God have another reason for us to pray?  To converse with our God!  To keep connected.   
 
God created us to live with us.  God created us to have a "relationship" with us.  In a relationship, the person is treasured.  Of course, we use the people with whom we have a relationship.  They help us.  They are our support system.  But, that accompanies the bond which we feel with them.  We treat them well and genuinely care for them.  They treat us well and genuinely care for us.  Most of the relationship is sharing experiences--going to the movies together, watching TV together, talking over many secrets not told to others. 

What God wants with us is similar to a marriage.  In a marriage, the couple sleeps together, eats together, lives together, does innumerable activities together from washing the dishes to buying a house.  They are "soul buddies."  God wants us as "soul buddies."  Being a "soul buddy" means that we care for the other as a person. 

Biblically, one of the characteristics which separates our species from others is that we commune with God.  It is normal to live in relationship with God and to communicate with God.  To live otherwise is being not fully human and is sin. 

In The King and I, Anna sings to the King of Siam:
            Getting to know you, getting to know all about you;
            Getting to like you, getting to hope you like me;  
            Getting to know you, putting it my way but nicely,
            You are precisely my cup of tea!

            Getting to know you, getting to feel free and easy;
            When I am with you, getting to know what to say;
            Haven't you noticed?  Suddenly I'm bright and breezy
            Because of all the beautiful and new
            Things I'm learning about you day by day.
           
With slight modification, that refrain could be the theme of devotional life.  Note: I switched from prayer to devotional life.  Christians pray.  God wants us to pray. 

Christian saints never just pray!  They also listen to God.  They carry on a conversation with God.  They may debate with God. 

Have you had this happen?  We had three people visit us a few years ago.  They stayed for three days.  They never stopped talking about themselves!  Our ears got so exhausted!  After they left, Charlotte and I breathed a sigh of relief, and said to each other, “I don’t think they ever asked a single question about our lives. They don’t know any more about us now than before they came.”  Think about your relationship with God, including your prayers.  Who does the talking?  Who does the listening?

Saints listen a lot!  They pray, but use their ears at least as much as they use their tongues.  That is why I switched from talking about praying to speaking about devotional life.  In common usage, we think of prayer as we talking to God.  We think of listening to God as devotions or worship, maybe Bible study.  Devotional life, then, is like courtship.  It is an opportunity to get to know God.

At its core "devotional life" is not a technique, a discipline, or a religious duty.  It is the fascination of a person for a Person.  It is the God-drawn questing of one's soul for that divine Friend by whom we were created for fellowship.  As such, it has all the elements of an absorbing, rewarding, mutual friendship.
[Devotional life is] the ongoing, excited, soul-feeding deepening of an informed friendship with [God] who is the rightful center of our lives.  Through it we build rich reservoirs of insight into [God's] character, so that our confidence in [God] will be unshakable.  Through our devotional life we discover anew that [God's] wisdom is fine and sensible and applicable to earthly details of life, so that we become teachable, always teachable in [God's] presence.  Through it we find evidence, from [God's] dealings with [God's] biblical-era friends, that God's love is unconditionally nurturing, even when it is confronting.  Through it we have the almost sensory delight of discovering a little nuance in Jesus' interaction with some hurting person that confirms that He knew exactly what He was doing in every encounter.  It gives us the exhilarating freedom to ask [God] the most probing questions, knowing that [God] relishes such dialogue.  In brief, our devotional life is an absorbing, stretching, and healing fascination with a real Person!  (Dick Winn, Ministry, Jan. 1986, pp. 4-5)

"Prayer is at its highest and noblest when its purpose is not to get something but to get close to Someone--the eternal Lord."  (Morris Silverman, in Lawrence M. Brings, We Believe in Prayer, 1958)
           
God is a fascinating Person. 

Pray and never stop praying.  Pray for what you need.  Pray out whatever is in your heart!   And, pray so that you get to know better that most fascinating person, God, the God who loves us, the God who is firmly committed to us, the God who delights in our company.

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