Day 38 -- Syncing Spirits

I think prayer is one of those things that mystifies. We know we need to do it and so we do it and in doing so treat God as some sort of divine Pez dispenser and then are confused when the results come back mixed. As a pastor I encounter people all the time who confess to me their great disappointment with prayer. The frustration and faith deflation of not having our hearts' greatest needs answered is beyond discouraging. And so we cease the conversation with our God.

Prayer. Praying together. What's it all about? If praying isn't about getting what we think we need for daily life, then what's the point?

I made the shift to digital time management back in the Fall of 2002 with my Handspring Visor PDA. I love it. Broke that one and bought another. Broke that one too, and then bought a third all within the space of a year. A year later they came out with color screens and costs really began to drop. So I purchased another one. Really, PDA's, especially if your a technophile, are wonderful things.

But the coolest thing about them is that they "sync." You can hook them up to your computer and manage your information either on the PDA or on your desktop, sync the devices, and your information is stored redundantly, a very handy thing if you're like me and you tend to break your technology. All it takes is a press of a button and the synced devices are on the same page. But if you don't do it regularly, the information begins to wander. You make changes to one or the other of the devices and there's an information shift and pretty soon the reality between your PDA and your desktop no longer matches. In situations like this, one or the other of your interfaces isn't current, which means you're not current, which means "you are out of sync."

Somehow in the life of faith we came to believe that prayer was about fire retardation or fire control...managing the tragedies, real and potential, on our doorsteps. Again, the idea is that when we need God, we go to him, make our request, and if we're good little boys and girls we get our divine request.

But this isn't a very mature way of approaching God, conversation with him, and communion with he and his body. Because prayer isn't primarily about me, or you, getting our needs met. No, prayer is about syncing our human spirits, as individuals and in community, with God's Spirit. Prayer then is not a narcisstic endeavor, regardless of how dire our circumstances may be. It's an act of alignment, bringing our consciousness and lives and stories in accord with that of the mind, life, and story of the God that raises the dead.

This sort of prayer, in community, matures us. It calls us into a consciousness and hope and life that's so much greater than our own, that sees our temporal circumstances from vantage points way more expansive than the myopic one we each share as individuals.

The truth is, we NEED to sync our spirits, as individuals and community, with the Spirit of God...asking to see and discern God's heart, God's will, God's life, God's hope. When we do, the vision we'll be given is so much greater and life giving, and life maturing than anything we could have ever had before.

So my prayer for you, syncing my spirit with God's Spirit, is that we might all move from superficial pray-ers to profoundly consistent spirit sync-ers...that our lives might be aligned with the story and the life of the Resurrecting God.

Syncing spirit with you...

Pastor Nathan