HAVE YOU MET SOMEONE FAMOUS?
Have you ever met someone famous? I did, once. I rode an elevator with Stephen King. It wasn’t a big deal to me though because I hadn’t read any of his books. My daughter, on the other hand, met her absolute dream celebrity her senior year in high school. She came face-to-face with none other than the boy band legend, Nick Jonas of the Jonas Brothers.
She was visiting New York and went to How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying. At the time, Nick was playing the lead role. After the performance,she waited outside with a few hundred other people hoping to meet him. My daughter, Ruth, has a gift for gab and engaged a New York police officer who promised if she came back the next evening he would move she and her friends to the head of the line and she would meet Nick. True to his word, Ruth met Nick the next evening when the cop moved her and her friends to the front of the line. She was so awe-inspired that she was dumbstruck. She shook his hand and couldn’t say a single word. Gave him a hug and asked his body guard ‘Big Mike’ to take a picture. Afterwards, she just cried. It was a moving experience.
ENCOUNTERING GOD
This past week the thought came to me, when we enter into prayer we should be equally, actually, more moved than my daughter was. God is greater than any celebrity, any world ruler, any artist, inventor, athlete, etc. Think about the most famous person you would love to meet. How would you act in his or her presence? Wouldn’t you feel privileged just to meet the person? Wouldn’t you be ecstatic and wanting everyone to know? And yet, God is so much more than whoever it was you imagined. Does your heart leap in the same way at the thought of meeting God? Yet, you encounter God every time you pray and He is so much more than a celebrity.
This thought came to me this week as I was reading The Power of Prayer in a Believer’s Life (Christian Living Classics)
by Charles Spurgeon. Spurgeon reflects in the opening chapter on how it should effect our prayer life that when we approach God in prayer, we are approaching him as the divine King who sits upon a throne of grace. Spurgeon says in regards to approaching God upon his throne,
“We come to a throne to be approached with devout joyfulness. If I find myself favored by divine grace to stand among those favored ones who frequent His courts, shall I not feel glad? I might have been in His prison, but now I am before His throne. I might have been driven from His presence forever, but I am permitted to come even into His royal palace, into His secret chamber of gracious audience. Shall I not then be thankful? Shall not my thankfulness aced into joy, and shall I not feel that I am made recipient of great favors when I am permitted to pray?”
PERMITTED TO PRAY
Permitted to pray…hmmm? I never really thought of myself as permitted to pray, but that’s the truth. We are permitted. It is a privilege to get to pray. Prayer is a gift from someone who deserves all glory and honor given to those with neither glory nor honor. We are worthy of judgement and God is the judge. Our access to God is not an entitlement, but rather instead a costly privilege. A privilege made available to us by His grace in Christ and by the empowerment we receive from the Holy Spirit. Let us never become so overly familiar that we forget our lowly status before God’s majestic status. Humbly and ecstatically joyful we should be at the privilege to approach a God greater than any celebrity.
Practically speaking, how should we draw near then to God’s throne? Perhaps, at times we should literally come on bended knee. Let us bow ourselves before the Almighty as a reminder to ourselves that we are in the presence of the divine King.
Within our words it would behoove us to bow as well. We can acknowledge the reality of our status as we begin to pray, saying, “God thank you for allowing me the privilege to be in your presence, to bear my sinful heart before you, and to be received by your grace which I do not merit.” And then when we grasp the truth that we are not entitled, but permitted to have an audience with God, may our hearts be moved so deeply to awe, that all we can speak is praise or are left dumbstruck in overwhelming joy.
NEXT TIME YOU PRAY
Next time you begin praying remind yourself that you are approaching a king upon a throne, and not just any king. You’re approaching His Divine Majesty who has created all that has been, is, or will ever be. You are coming into the presence of the One who could cast you into eternal judgment, but elects to call you His child. May your heart, mind, and emotions be overjoyed by that privilege.
p.s. If you’ve ever struggled with prayer and just wished someone could make it easy for you to build a better prayer life, then check out “Tips On Prayer, A QuickStart Guide to Improving Your Prayer Life.” I struggled with prayer for years, but you don’t have to. In this guide I take the best of the best practices and break them down into easy to follow steps. If you’re longing to have a better relationship with God, click here now.
