One of my favorite comedy routines is from Brian Regan when he talks about going to the eye doctor. One of the quotes that he uses to lead into this bit is, “How can instantly improved vision not be at the top of your to do list?”
I went to the eye doctor the other day because I found myself straining to read and see while driving. I already had a pair of glasses, but the lenses were all scratched and they were bent into a weird shape so I never really wore them. The eye doctor asked me when I wear my glasses and I replied, “Not very often.” To that she asked with a shocked voice inflection, “You don’t wear glasses when you drive?” I answered sheepishly, “No.” She responded, “You should definitely wear your glasses when you drive.”
To make a long story short, I broke down and got a new pair of glasses. Instantly after I put them on, I was actually able to see clearly. Everything that was fuzzy became clear. My eyes were no longer straining to make out words. Everything was sharp. I could see.
In my personal life, I have been spending a lot of time and energy thinking, reading about and practicing different forms of spiritual formation. One of the biggest components of SF is prayer. In all honesty, I have always struggled with making myself stop everything else and pray because of a wrong idea about prayer. I am also not really one to ask for help so it was really difficult for me to sit down and go over my requests with God. For obvious reasons, this really bothered me. As a follower of Christ and especially as a pastor, we need to develop a prayer life, which I would consider a struggle in my life up to this point.
Recently, on a mission to figure out what prayer really is to correct this problem, I discovered that prayer is about being reminded who God is. Most of the time, when we pray, we are asking God to act. Maybe we are in a financial strain, maybe someone is sick, maybe we simply wish life would be different than it currently is so we ask God to give us something to change our situation. But the more I study and practice prayer the more I realize that prayer is not about gaining possessions, it about gaining perspective.
When I got new glasses, I gained a new perspective. All of the sudden, everything became clear. Yet nothing changed. The print in my books didn’t get larger, the letters on the road signs didn’t grow as I passed by, it all simply became more clear. That is what prayer does for us. It reminds us that God is in control; it gives us a new perspective. Prayer is more than a list of things we ask for. It’s reading scripture, journaling, and being silent before God. It’s giving thanks, and being open to God’s will for our lives. All of these prayer practices, remind us who God is. They help us to see that God is working all around us, and that if we are open to him, he is going to work things out for our good and his glory. Prayer helps us to know that even in the toughest of circumstances.
So, if you are at all like I was, frustrated with a lack of prayer in your life, try to mix things up. Try reading some scripture from the Psalms that talks about how big God is. Try sitting down and giving God thanks for all of the things he has provided you with. Try journaling about an issue that you are facing in your life. Get together with a friend or mentor and let them help you see things in a different light. When prayer is stripped down to a wish list for God, we lose the most important attribute in our relationship with God… the perspective that he is. That’s not to say that we shouldn’t ask God to meet our needs. We are instructed in scripture to do that. I am simply saying that in order to sustain a life of prayer, we need to first be reminded who God is so that we know he can and will meet or greatest needs.
Its easy to fall into the trap of thinking I know what’s best for me, and asking God to make that happen. I have come to the point in my life where I realize that I have no idea what’s best for me and furthermore, I don’t want to burdened with that responsibility. God is in control of my life, and my greatest need is not for him to respond to my wish list, rather it is to give me an improved, fresh vision of who he is.
In the words of Brian Regan, “How can instantly improved vision not be at the top of your to do list?”
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