It’s tempting for us to love the lavish things the Giver so
generously blesses us with more than we love him. When we do this, we turn God
into nothing more than a vending machine. We put in a couple of prayer coins
and press the “amen” button with the expectation that God will give us what we
have set our hearts on.
In this way prayer, which seems to be our most direct
Godward act, can actually be idolatrous. If the thing that draws us into prayer
is not a love for God and a surrender to his will (“your kingdom come, your
will be done”), but rather is dominated by requests for the delivery of things
that have captured our hearts, then what seems like an act of worship of the
Creator is really an act of worshiping the creation.
Rather than seeking the Giver for the gifts that he can
provide, seek the Giver himself. I love how David pens it in Psalm 27:4:
“One thing have I asked of the Lord,
that will I seek
after:
that I may dwell in the house of the Lord
all the days of my
life,
to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord
and to inquire in
his temple.”
No comments:
Post a Comment