Every time I've had to come crawling back. Embarrassed, stupefied, and Israelite-like, I come with my tail-tucked between my legs like a teenager who's well past curfew and is now trying to find a way to sneak back into the house, hoping nobody noticed they were gone. It's always awkward, and it's never fun; but I always feel better when I'm back. Life is just better when God's in it. The one benefit of making this mistake over and over is having a large sample size to prove that hypothesis. That statement has been tested and proved so many times for me it's become scientific law in my life.
When I think about this process about crawling back, though, I realize something strange. There are two parts of coming back and reconnecting with God - frequent Bible reading and prayer. Pondering this, I realize that the Bible reading is the easy part. I can jump right into that. The prayer, however, is tough. Scary. I've almost got to bully myself into it. I realized why today.
Psalm 199:97-105 has this to say about reading Scripture:
- it makes me wiser than my enemies
- the words are "sweeter than honey to my mouth"
- I gain understanding and wisdom
- it provides guidance and advice for the future - a lamp to my feet and a light to my path
With Bible reading, I immediately gain some very worthwhile results that feel good. Prayer doesn't work that way. With prayer, I, the unholy, must face the Holy One in great humility. I have much to confess; and my sin looks so black standing there in front of the Holy One, trying to crawl back into His lap and talk once again like nothing ever happened.
Prayer is the tough part, the longer road to recovery. But the rewards at the end of that path, my scientific law tells me, are well worth the effort.
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