Our church has been hosting a Formation Class visiting and addressing spiritual formation. I’ll be honest, I wasn’t sure what I’d learn personally if anything but I hoped I might learn some ways to interact with and encourage others.
Consistent with God’s sly sense of humor, of course I am learning things personally! I’m being challenged to really think about what I believe and why. Whew!
It turns out that when I just go along in my faith and the practices I have, I might miss out on places I can grow and deepen the gift of faith.
Last week, we were challenged to think and talk about what we believe about God. Side note: speaking things out loud often brings a sharper focus and clarity. Who knew?!
Part of the challenge for me was what is it that I believe about God or about my own relationship with God that causes me to hedge my prayers, to shy away from bold, audacious prayers. Maybe forestall the expected “No”? I have no trouble believing God CAN. But believing that He WILL is much more the issue for me.
Part of the class challenge was to also take what we think about God and look at Jesus, that to know God we look to Jesus and how He lived. That particular challenge has been very helpful to me. Jesus was willing, IS willing to address our needs and often our wants.
The trick now of course is to reconcile what has been a long held belief about God with a new view. Beliefs that have been long held and often based out of personal relationships, erroneous as that might be, are difficult to turn loose.
What keeps you from bold, audacious prayers? Does it find confirmation in the life of Jesus? Or refutation?
Just Sayin' 