Splash

“The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God.” Gal 2:20

Splash! Summer is here. Some of you will take your first swim for the year very soon. How will you enter the water? Will you run and dive with great gusto? Will someone take you by the hand and wade with you as you tentatively test the waters? Will someone push you in and abruptly speed up the whole process? Who’s initiative will get you there – yours or someone elses? Now switching gears let me ask, “How do you enter a life of prayer?”

Before we might consider different forms or postures in the practice of praying, we must recognize a fundamental truth. This is that God takes the initiative in approaching us first. This means our desire to pray is a response to God’s loving nudgings and beckonings. Like an email, God ‘sends’ and we ‘reply’. Our main task is to be eager to respond to His “emails”. We need to expect that He desires to have a relationship and is constantly seeking us.

When we embrace this understanding of a God who loves us and is looking to communicate with us we rightly enter into a life of prayer – “SPLASH!” With this perspective we become fully immersed in the waters of prayer. In this place our heart’s desire is to love Jesus more and more. He is the life preserver we cling to as we frolic in the waters of prayer. Our constant active offering of our love to God, held secure in the arms of Jesus, by the power of the Spirit, keeps us in a good place. Love to God is essential or our life will diminish in prayer and increase in self trust.  Christ is what keeps our prayer life buoyant. A child finds a swimming pool a magically enticing place; may we find a life of prayer to be the same.