Week 29 Sunday
Week 29 Sunday
The Way Is the Way of Prayer
Luke 11:9-13
We said in last week’s meditations that the Way was primarily the way of grace, that this grace was invading us, trying to get to us in every possible way short of breaking down our personalities. There grace pauses and awaits consent and cooperation. A lack of consent and cooperation ties God’s hands. The giving of consent and cooperation looses God’s hands so that God who is “perfect everything” can give us “perfect everything.”
We come now to the method by which we allow grace to invade us and work with us. The Way is the way of prayer. Many definitions of prayer have been given. I add another: Prayer is cooperation with God. In prayer you align your desires, your will, your life to God. You and God become agreed on life desires, life purposes, life plans, and you work them out together. That is prayer. Prayer, then, is not trying to get God to do our will. It is the getting of our will into line with God’s will. But the will is not a separate portion of us; the will is the self in action. So prayer aligns the whole self to the whole Self of God. Prayer is therefore attunement. Just as when a note on a well-tuned piano is struck, the corresponding note on a well-tuned violin will vibrate in unison; so when God strikes certain notes in the divine nature, we find our heartstrings vibrating in unison, provided prayer has attuned us.
We quoted in another connection, this definition of prayer, “To bring the whole of life into the presence of God for cleansing and decision.” “For cleansing and decision”—prayer cleanses, it chastens our desires, realigns them so that you cannot tell where your desires end and God’s desires begin. They are one. Since the desires are one, the decisions are one, and the power is one. You lay your impotence alongside God’s potency and lo, your impotence has merged into potency, yes, into omnipotence. When you learn how to pray, you learn how to live—vitally, vibrantly, victoriously. “We can’t account for you,” said some sociology students to a Christian, “there’s nothing in your background to account for the things you do.” Nothing—except prayer. That Christian was an ordinary man doing extraordinary things—through prayer.
O Christ, my powers are no longer what they were, but what they can be—in you. Heighten them so that I shall be weakness made strong, ignorance made wise, evil made good. I thank you. Amen.
AFFIRMATION FOR THE DAY: “Wait for the Eternal; be strong, my soul, be brave; yes, wait for the Eternal” (Ps. 27:14 Moffatt).
Week 29 Monday
Lord, Teach Us to Pray
Luke 11:1-4; Matthew 6:9-13
When Jesus “was alone the disciples were with him” (Luke 9:18). “Alone” and they “with him.” Physically they were together, but actually they were poles apart. He had a secret they didn’t share, and the secret was prayer. He prayed and he was power; they didn’t pray and they were powerless. He was always well; they were always sick of themselves and others. He was masterful as he moved from task to task; they fumbled over the simplest tasks. The afflicted boy had a better case of demon-possession than the disciples had of God-possession so they couldn’t meet the situation (see Matthew 17; Mark 9). They weren’t God-possessed because they weren’t prayer-possessed. So they asked Jesus to share his secret, “Lord, teach us to pray” (Luke 11:1). And he taught them the Lord’s Prayer, which might be better named the “Disciples’ Prayer.” It is the essence of right prayer.
The prayer breaks up into two parts: the God-side and the human side: (1) “Our Father, thy name, thy kingdom, thy will”; (2) “Give us, forgive us, lead us, deliver us” (Matt. 6:9-13 KJV). The first side is Realignment, and the second side is Result. In the first side, we realign life to our God, to God’s name, to God’s kingdom, to God’s will. In the second, we get the result: God gives us, forgives us, leads us, delivers us. These are the alternate beats of the heart of prayer: Realignment/Result, Realignment/Result. And each side of the heartbeat is equal: four things in the Realignment and four things in the Result. In other words, you get as much Result as you have Realignment, and only that much. The more you realign your purposes to God’s purposes, the more results you get. The emphasis, then, should be on the Realignment, and the Result will take care of itself. If you are always looking at results, you’re on the wrong side of things. Look at the means, and the ends take care of themselves. “You have one responsibility,” said God to a modern saint, “and only one responsibility, and this is to live in union with me.” When he lived in union with God, then God undertook to look after all the rest. “He has a Christlike indifference to results,” was said of a Christian who looked after the means. The results took care of themselves. Learn the first part of the Disciples’ Prayer, and the second part takes care of itself.
O Christ, how tenderly wise you are. You always get first things first and therefore results always come out right. I am nervously looking after results and nothing comes out right. Forgive me, and help me. Amen.
AFFIRMATION FOR THE DAY: “Leave it all quietly to God, my soul” (Ps. 62:1 Moffatt).
Week 29 Tuesday
Our Father
John 14:8-9, 21-23
We saw yesterday that the Disciples’ Prayer has two heartbeats: Realignment and Result. Today we look at the first. We must align ourselves to Our Father, your name, your kingdom, your will.
The first is: Father. In the conception of “Father,” a new conception of God, there are two things: Love and Rulership. And these two are one: God’s rulership is through love. No matter how apparently stern that rulership may be, the animating motive behind and through it is love. God cannot do anything other than the loving thing. In everything that happens to you, God will do the best thing that love can do in those circumstances. God doesn’t love; “God is love.” God acts according to love, for God could not act against the divine nature.
When you pray then to the “Father,” you may know that love is going to do the best that love can do for you, in the long-range and short-range purposes of life. Love will always respond either with yes or no. Whichever one it is, it is always love.
But there is a qualifying word to Father, the word Our. That determines the nature of religion. Suppose it had been My? That would have changed the nature of religion. Instead of being social and we-centered, it would have been individual and I-centered. That would have started us off wrong, the whole prayer would come out wrong. That word Our means a shifting of the emphasis from me to the Father and to my brothers and sisters. In other words, it means a renunciation of myself. It is the same thing we run into straight off in the first Beatitude, “Blessed are the poor in spirit [the renounced in spirit], for theirs is the kingdom of heaven” (Matt. 5:3). All the resources of the kingdom belong to the renounced in spirit. So in this first word Our, we find a hidden but positive demand that we start off self-surrendered to the “Father’“ and to “Our.” If so, then everything is open. If not, everything is closed. The rest of the prayer turns dead if the Our isn’t alive. And what would alive mean? It would mean that Our must stretch beyond family, class, gender, race, color, religion—reach to everybody, everywhere. For the word Our is unqualified and is therefore without restrictions or limits.
Our Father, I come to you wearing within my heart the word our, and that word is now being cleansed from all limitations. Make it truly our with everybody in, those of my race and those of all races, those I like and those I dislike. In Jesus’ name. Amen.
AFFIRMATION FOR THE DAY: “The Eternal listens to a life in need” (Ps. 69:33 Moffatt).
Week 29 Wednesday
The Lord’s Prayer Unfolded
Psalm 34:1-10
We saw yesterday that the word Our is a key word. Leave it out and the prayer won’t open, for the prayer would then read, “Give me, forgive me, lead me, deliver me.” The very nature of the prayer would be changed from social to solitary. The whole development of religion is the development of the word Our. When that word Our is truly Christianized, it takes in everybody of every race and color, including enemies. The high priest, when he went into the Holy of Holies, wore upon his breast the names of the twelve tribes of Israel. When we go into the Presence of the Lord, we wear a simple word, a word that goes beyond the tribal relationship, the word Our. So when we say “Our Father,” in those two words are the Fatherhood of God and the Family-hood of humanity. Two worlds revealed in two words.
We come now to the second step, “thy name.” The word name stands for the character in Scripture. To pray “In Jesus’ name” means to pray “in Jesus’ character.” In other words, we pray a prayer consistent with the character of Jesus, the kind of prayer Jesus would pray. This is the thing that determines whether the prayer is Christian.
“Hallowed be thy name” (“Thy name be revered” [Moffatt]). In other words, “your character be revered” is my first consideration. Jesus put first the determining thing (God’s character) while we put the determining thing (Jesus’ character, “in Jesus’ name”) last. Perhaps it would be better if we started our prayers by saying, “Lord, I’m praying this prayer in Jesus’ character. He would approve it. It squares with his character.” That would cause many prayers to die on our lips unuttered. Like the Muslim who washes his feet before going into the mosque, this would wash our mouths, our hearts, our motives. “Your character be revered as first, before my desires, my petitions.” That puts God’s character first and my claims second; puts us both in the right place. It also clarifies the next two items, “thy kingdom, thy will.” The “will” of God, as expressed in the “kingdom” of God, is not arbitrary and whimsical. It is an expression of the character of God. A thing is not right because God says so; God says so because it is right.
O God, I see that your laws and decrees are not the arbitrary rulings of an omnipotent potentate, but the very expression of your nature—a revelation of yourself. Amid them we feel a heartbeat, the heartbeat of Love. Amen.
AFFIRMATION FOR THE DAY: “Thy kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, and thy dominion lasts from age to age” (Ps. 145:13 Moffatt).
Week 29 Thursday
Thy Kingdom Come
Matthew 6:25-33
We come to the third petition, “Thy kingdom come.” Here Jesus put the kingdom the first consideration after establishing the fact of the prayer as being according to God’s character. Any prayer or program or creed that does not put the kingdom first is not a Christian prayer, a Christian program, or a Christian creed. For Jesus said, “Seek ye first the kingdom of God . . . ; and all these things shall be added unto you” (Matt. 6:33 KJV). If you seek something else first, all these things shall be subtracted from you. In a town in Alaska, I found all the electric clocks “off.” I was told that the fault was in the power plant. It didn’t run with systematic regularity, and its irregularity threw all the clocks off. When your loyalty is not the Absolute, then everything is “off.”
Judged by that standard, is it any wonder that the church has had nothing but problems through the ages? When it drew up its creeds—the Apostles’, the Athanasian, the Nicene—it mentioned the kingdom of God once in all three of them, and then only marginally, beyond the borders of this life, a heavenly kingdom. No wonder the church has stumbled from problem to problem when its supreme value was lost or only marginally held. The church will never get straightened out until it puts the kingdom where Jesus put it in this prayer—the first consideration and the first allegiance.
I read a very scintillating commentary on the Acts of the Apostles, and after I had read through the comments of the first two chapters covering some sixty pages, I woke up to the fact that something was missing; the Holy Spirit had not been mentioned, not even mentioned in commenting on the chapters where the Spirit was given! It was a Holy-Spiritless Christianity, hence anemic. The same strange omission has taken place in regard to the kingdom of God. It is the motif running through everything Jesus taught. But I pick up a Confession of Faith drawn up by a denomination, and the kingdom of God is not mentioned. The kingdom of God and the Holy Spirit are the two missing notes in much of our Christianity. And Jesus made both of them central: one the pattern, the other the power.
O Christ, I thank you that your kingdom may come through me now. My channels are open. I know the kingdom is the answer, the answer to all our needs. So may your kingdom come through me this day in everything I do and say. Then I shall be the agent of the Answer. I shall be the kingdom-in-miniature. Amen.
AFFIRMATION FOR THE DAY: I live and move and have my being in the ultimate reality: your kingdom.
Week 29 Friday
Thy Will Be Done in Earth
Matthew 13:31-33; 21:43
We come to the last of four petitions on the God side of the Disciples’ Prayer, “thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven.”
This last portion explains the previous portion; the coming of the kingdom of God is the doing of the will of God in earth as it is done in heaven. So “thy will be done in earth as it is in heaven” means a complete totalitarianism for us.
And this is to be “in earth.” Perhaps the phrase “in earth” more nearly expresses the meaning than “on earth,” as sometimes used. The kingdom is not to come “on earth,” as something imposed; it is to come “in earth,” as something inherent. The earth and all it contains has a single law of its being, that law is the kingdom of God. That law is the law of its life, the way life is made to work. When that law is lived, then the being is fulfilled, it finds the Way. When that law is not lived, then the being is frustrated, it finds not-the-way. There isn’t a law of your body that contradicts the laws of the kingdom. They are the laws of the kingdom, they are “in earth” and in everything on the earth.
When the psalmist says, “Thy rule and order last to-day, for all things are thy servants” (Ps. 119:91 Moffatt), he states not an idea but a fact. When “all things” serve God, they serve themselves. When they serve themselves apart from or against God, they lose themselves, they go to pieces. Again, when the psalmist says, “Only the rebels have to live forlorn” (Ps 68:6 Moffatt), he is lifting up an inherent fact, for those who obey the kingdom are not forlorn, they are fulfilled. The kingdoms of this world will be secure only when they become “the kingdom of our Lord, and of his Christ.” “Your kingdom shall be secured for you, after you have learned that it is the heavens who reign” (Dan. 4:26 Moffatt). That is our world security, and only that. “I see a limit to all things, but thy Law has a boundless range” (Ps. 119:96 Moffatt). A boundless range? A universal range. For the will of God is the life of all beings; outside of God there is only death. For “your hands made and moulded me, to understand thine orders” (Ps. 119:73 Moffatt). We are made to understand the kingdom. All other knowledge is ignorance.
O God, our Lord, your hands fashioned me for your ways and your kingdom. When I take my ways, I am attempting the impossible—to live against the laws of my being. How can I do that? I cannot. Amen.
AFFIRMATION FOR THE DAY: “Right well they fare who love thy law; their road is clear” (Ps. 119:165 Moffatt).
Week 29 Saturday
Give Us This Day
2 Corinthians 8:15; 9:6-10
We turn now to the second half of the Disciples’ Prayer. We saw that our kingdoms, whether within or without, whether in the individual or in the collective, are secure only as we have learned that it is the heavens who reign. We turn to the earth only after getting our heavenly bearings. Just as the mariner on the sea has to get bearings from the stars to be able to put into the right earthly port, so we have to get our eternal values straight before we can get our temporal values straight.
Nebuchadnezzar, lifted in pride, was humbled and ate grass like cattle until he realized that not he but the heavens rule. Then he was restored to reason and to his throne (see Dan. 4). We will continue to eat our words, to eat our plans, to eat our very dung, until we too shall learn that the heavens rule and the kingdom has the last word.
If we get the kingdom values straight, then we can pray this prayer with some assurance, “Give us this day our daily bread.” If we “seek first the kingdom of God,” all these things—food, clothing, all we need—“shall be added.” The coming of the kingdom of God would be the answer to the economic needs of humanity. For we would then pray, “Give us.” Now we are saying, in an individualistic, selfish age, “Give me.” If we continue to look after none but ourselves, think first of No. 1, then we ourselves will become Enemy No. 1. And we’ll have to think of ourselves so much that we will become sick of ourselves, our complexes, and our obsessions. That will be our punishment. We asked for ourselves, and we got ourselves a problem. For the first time in history, humanity has become its own problem. Why? Because we have said, “Give me.” Note that “Give me” was the first request that sent the prodigal to hunger amid swine. We have become a prodigal generation for the same reason. And we will get out of this alien “far country” and beyond “poverty amid plenty” only when we pray the prayer, “Give us.” For to say, “Give us” would mean the following out of the opening words, “Our Father.” It would mean a cooperative order instead of a ruthlessly competitive one. Nature would work with us.
O God, our Father, you have made the earth and made it bountiful and made it so that it would respond to “Give us.” Help us to pray that prayer and to pray it not with our lips, but with our plans and our purposes. Help us to build your cooperative commonwealth. Amen.
AFFIRMATION FOR THE DAY: “We who are strong ought to bear the burdens that the weak make for themselves and us” (Rom. 15:1 Moffatt).