Tuesday, November 01, 2005

Standing on the Threshold

Lately, I’ve been thinking about the questions to which I’m asked to respond. This was initially prompted by a survey administered at my church. There were 160 statements. The five choices on the answer sheet ranged from strongly disagree to strongly agree with the middle option being “no opinion/don’t know”. I chose the middle option for statements concerning the thoughts of other people. (If you want to know what other people think, ask them. I’m not a mind-reader and haven’t interviewed enough people on these topics to make a categoric assessment of what ‘everybody’ thinks. I’m not even sure of my own thinking on some of them.) I also chose it for statements that could be either true or false depending on various factors. Do I like the music in the church services? Yes. And no. Some of it I love (particularly the songs I choose to play). Some of it makes me want to leave and never look back. I have strong opinions about music but they pretty much cancel each other out at church and leave me in the ‘don't know/no opinion’ crowd.

I was sailing through the survey pretty well until I got to the last set of statements, which were obviously designed to test the orthodoxy of my beliefs. The first one that made me balk read: “Prayer works.” ‘Works’? Works for what? Prayer is conversation with God. Does talking to one’s spouse ‘work’? Does talking to the boss ‘work’? Does talking to your children ‘work’? Does talking to God ‘work’? None of those questions can be answered without defining the goal of the conversation. Talking to the boss might not ‘work’ if there’s tension in my marriage and I’m looking for a solution. Talking to my husband doesn’t ‘work’ when I need to clear up a disagreement with a friend. Talking to God doesn’t ‘work’ when my goal is to get my own way. I could neither agree nor disagree with the statement without clarification. Nor could I say that I have no opinion on the subject or that I don’t know whether prayer works. I have definite opinions on what prayer does and does not accomplish. I just need a definition of the word ‘works’. I left the answer sheet blank on that one and six others. There is no good answer to a bad question. If the statement had read, “Prayer is an essential part of my life,” or even, “Prayer makes a difference,” I would have gladly agreed. But I don’t even fully agree with the old adage, “Prayer changes things.” Sometimes prayer doesn’t change anything about a situation except my own view of it. Does that count as changing ‘things’?

After refusing to respond to seven of the statements on the survey on the basis that none of the choices reflected my beliefs, I’ve been noticing other questions that bother me. The one behind the title of this post comes from a Bible study book. It is: ‘How would your life be different if you really surrendered everything to God and sought His ways above your own?” As I considered the question, I heard echoes from other discussion questions. “What would happen if we really prayed?” “What would happen if we really cared about people?” “How would things change if we had our priorities straight?” “What if we really believed in heaven – or hell?”

These questions all assume that we’re standing outside this possible attitude or activity looking in at the possibilities without stepping over the threshold. The ‘correct’ answer generally seems to be that stepping over the threshold would bring amazing improvement to our lives. So ... if surrendering and praying and caring and believing bring such wonderful things, why would we stand outside discussing the possibilities that lie inside? Shouldn’t we be stepping over the threshold and experiencing the glorious results of doing these things? Shouldn’t the question be: “How is your commitment to God changing your life?”

I can see where some steps might take consideration. For example: “What would happen if we truly revealed our hearts to each other?” It might leave us vulnerable to unpleasant attacks. People might not understand us. Or, at the other extreme, it could bring us unity and a closeness we’ve never experienced before. It might be good to weigh the various possibilities before taking the step of transparency. But I think it’s safe to pray, even to “really pray,” without a lot of discussion first.

The odd part is that when the question puts us on the threshold, any answer that casts oneself as standing inside the doorway smacks of arrogance. Example: “What would happen if we really prayed?” Uhm ... I do pray. “Yes, but what would happen if we really prayed?” Uhm ... I do “really pray”. It’s a rare day when I don’t devote part of the morning to intentional communication with God. “But what would happen if we all prayed longer and more fervently?” Uhm... I guess I don’t know. Amazing things happen in my life when I pray. I’m not sure longer or more fervent prayer is what God wants from me, but I can talk to Him about it if you think I should. As to others, I guess the only way to find out what happens when we all pray is to try it and see.

None of these responses are acceptable when the ‘correct’ answer is, God would bless us with astounding results if we really prayed. Claiming to ‘really pray’ without demonstrating such results rings hollow, particularly in light of reports of how God responded to prayers in other times and places.

Still, I would rather wade deep into the experience of being fully surrendered to God and praying and believing than to stand on the threshold and only speculate as to what might be inside, even if the reality when my human frailties get involved doesn’t measure up to the ideal picture being drawn by those who never seem to move past speculation.

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