Your image or understanding of God largely determines how you will approach God. And how you approach God, along with your expectations going in, significantly affect what happens or does not happen during and after an attempted prayer connection.
The question is: how best to approach God? The answer is as simple as it is profound. When you approach God, do so as if you are approaching love itself. For in hidden fact, that is precisely what you are doing. And listen for God as you would listen for the voice of love. Now the only way to approach God is through prayer, however you understand prayer. Even to question whether God exists, let alone whether God knows and loves you, cannot be asked of God without entering into prayer. Prayer is communication with God in all its forms. Crying out to an “unknown God” in anger or fear is actually a powerful prayer, which will be answered in God’s timing and way. And God’s apparent silence can teach us patience, perseverance, and faith, the faith which must become as unconditional as God’s love for us is already unconditional.
The apostle John, who well understood love, equates God with love, and love with God:
“Beloved, let us love one another, because love is from God; everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, for God is love. . . So we have known and believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and those who abide in love abide in God, and God abides in them.
“Love has been perfected among us in this: that we may have boldness on the day of judgment, because as he is, so are we in this world. There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear; for fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not reached perfection in love. We love because he first loved us” (1 John 4:7-8, 16-19).
Please note that the Greek word translated as “perfect” in this passage is teleia, which really means “mature,” fully grown, like an ear of corn. It has finally become what it is supposed to be; hence, it is perfect. Perfect does not mean sinless or flawless.
The most succinct and profound description of God’s love is found in Paul’s first letter to the church at Corinth. The unique Greek word used here for love, and also in the passage above is agape. Agape love is over flowingly full, and seeks to give to all who are desirous of receiving, all who thirst for and will gladly drink in love. As you read and meditate on these holy words, exchange the word “love” for “God,” and see how the passage affects your heart:
“Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends” (1 Cor 13:4-8).
It is important to note that the Greek verb (pipteo) translated as “ends” in the NRSV, is translated as “fails” in the NIV and NKJ versions. This Greek word carries both meanings, as does love. That means neither love nor God ultimately ever ends or fails.
The central question now arises: how are you to approach God as love itself? To do so
certainly excludes a fear laden image of God as judging, angry, vengeful, and jealous. Would you then approach the Love-God with awe, desire, hope, excitement, and faith, or with fear, pessimism, and doubt? How could this Love-God ever be impersonal? I invite you to meditate on this question, as you pray through the two Scripture passages quoted above.
What would your life be like if you truly believed and acted out of the conviction that God is love, and love is God, so that whatever is not of love, is not of God. And just as importantly, whatever is of love is also of God.
In personal response, I offer my own answer to what my life would be like if God were love itself:
“If You are love, then I am yours, completely, wholly, with all that I am, and with all that I can be, now and forever.
If You are love, then it is all too simple, beyond word descriptions, just so simple that belies measure, like the sea below and the stars above.
If You are love, then theories and theologies falter and fail, like humorless anecdotes upon silent heights, vain attempts of pride to produce truth which stands unseen, unmade, and unknown before it.
If You are love, then the world makes sense, meaning matters, yet mystery abides touching, but untouchable, and I already know what I need to know; and am able to do what I must do, through the love You are and give.”
And that, I am blessed to say, is how I approach God.
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