I don’t like closing my eyes and bowing my head and folding my hands. I don’t like talking to God, as if he is some human king I do not personally know, and I need to be horribly afraid of and watch all of my Ps and Qs when I make my requests. “Sire, I humbly beesech thine urgent aid!” on pains of getting “too friendly” with God. After all “Jesus is your Lord, not your buddy. Don’t be too cozy with him.” My prayer life dried up one time because of legalism and a mindset that was based on a half truth. There was a trend in the 2010s where those in the reformed crowd were talking about how people are too casual with God. That we need to treat God with reverence and worship and fear because he is our Lord and we need to submit to him, and he’s not our buddy. I heard this kind of talk all the time during the mid-2010s. And obviously, I revere God. I want to treat him as the holy king that he is. But all of this legalism made prayer a chore. It made prayer some thing that I had to do, not something that I had the privilege to do. And while it is true that God is our king and our sovereign Lord, God is our Heavenly Father (or Brother if referring to the second person of The Trinity). How do you think children of the king approach the king? With the same fear and trepidation as the peasants do? Or do you think that they are running into the throne room, crawl up and do his lap and enthusiastically cry out “Daddy!” we are not mere servants. We are servants, but we are not MERE servants. We are children of The Most High (John 1:12, Galatians 4:4-7). Moreover, we are naked before God, Hebrews 4:13 says. And I don’t necessarily mean physically naked, I mean, psychologically, emotionally, naked. You are more naked before God than you could ever be before anyone. God knows your heart inside and out. God knows what you’re thinking at all times. God knows what you’re feeling at all times.
I’m currently researching the book of Psalms and am in the middle of an essay on Psalm 91. The book of Psalms shows the various different ways that the Israelites approached God in prayer. Sometimes they even complained to God ABOUT God! Sometimes they parade in ways that modern evangelicals would cringe at hearing. “You can’t talk to God like that!” Yet the Psalms show us that we can be open with God. There’s no need to hide anything from him. He knows everything you’re thinking anyway. (1 Chronicles 28:9, Psalm 139:1-4, Romans 8:27, Revelation 2:23). And so, here lately, I articulate all of my thoughts to God. I tell him everything that I am thinking and everything that I am feeling. Because there’s no reason not to. Just because I don’t say it doesn’t mean that he doesn’t know that it’s in my mind.
This doesn’t mean that I’m irreverent. By no means! Just as I can comfortably talk with my own earthly father and still respect him and honor him, I can do the same with my heavenly father. When I spoke to my earthly parents, either growing up or as an adult, I didn’t talk to them with trepidation, stepping on eggshells, worrying that I might say the wrong thing and possibly be irreverent. I wasn’t worried that I might be too buddy buddy with them. I knew what was respectful and disrespectful. And because I loved my parents, I did not purposefully disrespect them. Now, if I said, something that they might take the wrong way, which sometimes happened, that could cause trouble. But again, God knows you in and out. There is no way that God is going to take something in a way that you didn’t intend.
Moreover, there is no rule in the Bible that says you have to bow your head, close your eyes, and begin with “Dear Lord” and end with “In Jesus’ name, amen.” Most of my morning prayers are done with my eyes open and my head up. Many of my prayers are done pacing around the room, doing the same thing I usually do when I’m talking to someone on the phone. My prayer life has been super active for the past couple of years. And because of my deep Bible studies, God has been talking back. Click here to read more about that.
If I ever start to think that I am getting too cozy with God, I’ll remember these words from “As A Deer Panteth For Water” by the hymn writer Martin J. Nystrom. “You’re my Friend and You are my Brother, even though You are a King. I love You more than any other. So much more than anything.”
Yes. Jesus is our King, but He is also our friend and our Brother. As Jesus said to His disciples in John 15:15 (ESV), “No longer do I call you servants, for the servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you.” (John 15:15, ESV). And as Hebrews 2:11-12 says “For he who sanctifies and those who are sanctified all have one source. That is why he is not ashamed to call them brothers, saying, ‘I will tell of your name to my brothers; in the midst of the congregation I will sing your praise.” (Hebrews 2:11–12, ESV, cf. Mark 3:31-35).
I am thankful to God that He got me out of that prayer rut. I was almost the victim of legalism and bad theology. That was about a decade ago. I write this as a warning to anyone who might feel that prayer is a burden. If it is a burden, examine yourself. Ask yourself WHY it is a burden. It should be one of the most enjoyable parts of your day. You should want to do it as much as possible. You get to talk to your Father in Heaven who loves you more than you can imagine, with a love so deep that David had to use the size of the cosmos as a unit of metric to quantify it! (See Psalm 103:11). God is eagerly waiting for you to talk to Him. Come to him with your worries, your once, your needs, your hopes, and your dreams, dreams you hope to pursue and dreams that have been dashed. Bring him your sorrows and your pains. Tell him of things that make you happy and things that make you sad. Tell him about things that make you angry. Tell him about people that make you angry. Talk to him about anything and everything. Nothing is off the table. If anything is to be taken away from a study of the book of Psalms, it’s that we are to lay our hearts are naked and bare before God. There is nothing you can tell him about yourself that he doesn’t already know. Even if you’re angry at God himself, he already knows. So why try to hide it? Why shield with your mouth what’s in your heart? To watch your Ps and Qs in prayer before God is as foolish as Adam and Eve trying to cover their bodies with fig leaves in their attempt to physically hide from God, and when they realized that they didn’t have enough time to make disguises because they heard God walking in the cool of the day, they jumped into the bushes as their Plan B (see Genesis 3:7-8 cf. Revelation 6:16-17). You are naked before God. And no amount of mental fig leaves is going to hide what is in your heart from Him. So why not come out and stop being afraid just because you are naked (Genesis 3:10, Hebrews 4:13).
I want to reiterate that this is not a license for blasphemy. But if you truly love and respect, God, then you probably won’t be disrespectful for him anymore than I can be disrespectful around my parents whom I love and I’m quite comfortable talking to. We usually tend to naturally respect the people we actually truly respect. And if you don’t respect God, you acting like you do isn’t going to make any difference at all. He will see through your pretense. You won’t be able to praise him with reverent words while hiding blasphemy in your heart. I was stupid back in 2016. It’s crazy to think that that was almost 10 years ago. I lost a lot of personal time with God that year because of a misguided fear of not treating Him kingly enough. I pray that God as my shepherd (Psalm 23) will continue to keep me in line. If my prayer life begins to dry up for any other reasons, he will prod me with his staff and bring me back to where I need to be. Sheep are stupid. They’ll wander off and get themselves eaten. That’s why they need a shepherd (and sometimes a barking dog!) to keep them in line. But Jesus is my shepherd. I know His voice and I follow Him. He gives me eternal life and I will never perish. No one can pluck me from his hand. He makes me lie down besides still waters, and He restores my soul. The devil hates a praying man. One thing the apostle Paul said to do in addition to putting on all the pieces of the Armor Of God was to pray at all times in the spirit, with all prayer and supplication, keeping alert with all perseverance, making supplication for all the saints. Although not part of the armor, it follows that line of that line of thought. (Ephesians 6:12-18). And Jesus went alone to pray as much as possible whenever He could get away from the crowds (Mark 1:12, Mark 1:35, Luke 5:15-16, Luke 6:12-16, Mark 14:32). The man Jesus, who is the template for what a faithful Yahwhist looks like without sin tripping him up (Hebrews 4:15), prayed often. We who are called to imitate Jesus should do likewise and pray often. “Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.” (1 Thessalonians 5:16-18, ESV).
