Talking to God

TALKING TO GOD

(Preached Lent2 1999)

This Lent we are looking at various aspects of prayer.

As I said last week, these are not meant to be learned addresses based upon text books but rather homely chats, based upon my own personal experience, in the hope that they may encourage you in your prayer life

Last week, we sought to answer the question "What is Prayer?", and I suggested that prayer was essentially about being with God and therefore in the broadest sense, we can say that all life is prayer in so far as it is lived in the presence of God.

However, in the more narrow sense of the definition, there are moments when we are more conscious than at other times of being in the presence of God.

Sometimes these moments happen quite spontaneously when one becomes aware of God speaking to us from experiences of life and evoking a response from us, perhaps through nature, a picture or personal experience.

At other times, those moments of awareness of God's presence can be quite deliberate, when we make a conscious effort to focus upon being with God.

Whether those moments of the awareness of God's presence be spontaneous or deliberate, I suggest that both are valid expressions of prayer.

So tonight I want to focus more upon those deliberate moments when we turn our attention to the presence of God and in particular, how we speak to him.

When my late wife died many people, both from within the parish and outside, kindly sent cards and letters of condolence which were a tremendous source of strength and encouragement.

One particular card, from a person whom many would describe as being saintly suggested that unlike other people in similar circumstances, I was particularly fortunate in so far as I knew the "special language” with which to address God!

That has stuck in my mind, since it did not ring true to my experience. I am totally unaware of any “special language" with which to address God.

And yet people often think that God has to be addressed in a "special language" else he will not understand what we are talking about. Presumably, they think that we have to use the 17th century language of the Book of Common Prayer and use "Thee and Thy" and attribute to him such descriptive words as "Almighty and Everlasting".

Whilst I recognise the occasion and circumstances determine the kind of language we use, the language of public prayer will obviously differ from the language of private prayer. The essential feature about the language of prayer, I would suggest, is that it should be natural and not contrived; it should be simple and not pompous; it should be personal and not abstract.

It is because people often think that God needs to be addressed in a special language that they often find it difficult to launch into prayer and, at best, remain tongue tied, or at worse give up trying to pray.

It was the Benedictine, Dom John Chapman, who brought home to me the need to be natural and thereby freed me to pray. In his Spiritual Letters he writes "Pray as you can, and do not try to pray as you can't".

For years I had been trying, quite unsuccessfully, "to pray as I can't" and had failed miserably. Those simple words of advice released my tongue for prayer.

Each of us is different and we should value our unique differences. The way one person prays may suit them, but need not necessarily suit others. We all have to find our own particular way. That is why I said the language of prayer should be natural and not contrived.

After all, did not Jesus himself encourage his disciples to address God as Abba Father, when they asked him to teach them to pray? Abba was the Aramaic word for expressing that close intimacy that exists between a father and a son. Perhaps a better translation might be "Daddy".

Now this does not imply that our prayers should be childish, but rather childlike. The way we address God should reflect the natural and simple trust that a child shows towards his father.

Now I realise that that depends upon your image of Father. If we have an image of a stern, strict, aloof Victorian father then we should approach him in fear and trepidation, rather like that famous picture of "When did you last see your father". However, that is not the picture of fatherhood which Jesus gives us in the New Testament. Rather, we have a picture of one where there is a warmth of affection and knowledge; one who - no matter how often we may have disappointed God, indeed hurt God and caused his heart to bleed - is always there, with arms open wide ready to embrace us when we turn towards him, as the prodigal son discovered when he returned home after making a fool of himself.

Abba,Father. That simple word reminds us that we approach God as a person and not as an abstract idea or concept - a person who loves us and wants what is best for us, as any Father wants what is best for his children.

This sense of naturalness and simplicity in our prayers is well illustrated by some advice William Barclay, that great New Testament scholar gives. In one of his books, he suggests that we can overcome our reticence and hesitation in approaching God in prayer by undertaking a simple exercise.

He says, put an empty chair opposite you. Imagine Jesus sitting on it. Now tell him what you have been up to.

Again, it is the picture of the child returning home from school, running into the kitchen to its Mother and telling her all that he or she has been up to at school during the day. The words fall from the lips easily and naturally and without hesitation or reservation.

So my advice to you is to forget about the need to address God in a so called "Special Language". That will not impress him and it only causes us to dry up as we stumble to find the right words.

Rather, just talk to God naturally and simply as one to a loving and caring father or mother who is interested in their children’s wellbeing and who loves us, no matter how much we may have deliberately or intentionally hurt them in the past.