A few months ago, I was brainstorming some ways to get a really high value silent auction item for our non-profit for one of our upcoming fundraisers. Taylor Swift tickets. It was genius. Now, all I had to do was find a way to slide into her DMs and be one of thousands of other non-profits who were hoping for the same charitable donation. After a few quick Google searches, I gave up. It felt futile.
Not too long after, I was reading the news and finding myself wondering what it would be like to just sit down and have a conversation with some of our elected government officials. I wanted to ask questions, to listen, to get beyond the noise of the media and the public personas and find out just who they are. Like, really. Imagine the amount of time it would take for a president to sit down with every constituent and respond to the same questions, over and over again. It makes sense that we can’t, but I wish (sometimes) that we could.
Fast forward a few more weeks… I’m in my room praying before the start of the day when it hits me, like really hits me. Perhaps it’s the same epiphany I have every few years, but it’s especially poignant on this particular day.
No, I can’t have unfettered access to some of the most famous and most powerful people in the world… but I do have it with God, the most famous and powerful being over all time.
And yet, I carry on my day like prayer is something to be inconvenienced by or roll my eyes at. Instead of possessing awe, wonder, and an overwhelming gratitude that The King who reigns victorious over all eternity wants me to talk to Him… I’m too tired, or too distracted, or too… fill in the blank.
But let me repeat that… He wants me to talk to Him. He doesn’t just allow it, He longs for it. He doesn’t have some third party assistant writing some form email to appease all of His fans. He actually cares, knows us, and wants us to be in relationship with Him.
It makes me think a lot about who I really believe God to be. Because if I really believed that every time I prayed that I was standing in some supernatural space communing with the Creator of all things who has parted seas, made the blind see, and the dead rise? It would change how I pray. It does change how I pray… when I remember.
But, too easily I forget. Or, worse, I’ve grown numb. Perhaps prayer has become too ordinary a task. The sacred made ordinary.
But, I think that’s what’s so beautiful about God’s desire for us to be in constant union with Him. That He would be so naturally a part of our every day, all day… that we would be so in sync with the Spirit. That it would impact our every waking moment, every waking thought. That He would reign supreme in our hearts, at all hours of the day.
And then BAM. We remember.
That when we pray, that no, the words aren’t being offered to world class celebrities. Our problems aren’t being heard by world leaders. Instead, they are heard, known, and cared about by the One who was and is and is to come. And isn’t that better?
We remember what it means that we have access. We remember what it cost.
Awe and fear are restored.
The dance resumes.
He leads, I follow.
Forgive my moment(s) of disbelief, restore my faith. Remind me, again and again, especially when I forget who You are. Remind me what it means that you made a way when there was no way.