Off the Sidewalk (part 2)

For you did not receive a spirit that makes you a slave again to fear, but you received the Spirit of sonship. And by him we cry, "Abba, Father."   -Romans 8:15

Prayer can seem intimidating. We know we should pray, but sometimes we don’t quite know how to pray. We can’t find the right words. Or we can’t find the right time. We might get distracted. We might lose our focus. And this can easily lead to discouragement. God can seem distant. We can feel left on the sidewalk.

But prayer isn’t primarily a technique. Prayer is primarily a relationship, and this relationship is primal. In the Romans verse above, we see that we have received the Spirit of sonship, and by this Spirit we cry “Abba, Father.” Often times we hear ‘abba’ translated as ‘daddy.’ But it’s actually best translated as ‘dadda.’ An 8 year old doesn’t say ‘abba,’ an infant says ‘abba.’ It’s primal and instinctive, the earliest form of language. While an 8 year old calculates, “I want daddy to do this or that,” when an infant cries ‘dadda,’ he just wants dadda, he wants to be brought into the nearness of his presence, into his arms.

Seen through the lens of faith, when you become a Christian you receive the Holy Spirit, and one of the first things that happens is that there is a new kind of language towards God you didn’t have before. Before you could have a language of duty. Prayer could be mechanical—you might have the instinct to pray when you’re in trouble, but when the trouble is gone the instinct to pray disappears. With the Holy Spirit, the language of prayer expresses a desire for God himself (not just for God’s things), for his nearness, to be lifted off the sidewalk and brought into his presence.

But lets be honest, in the Christian life there are still times when we don’t feel like we desire God. There are seasons when we don’t feel the joy of God’s presence but instead experience the concrete realities of suffering. God seems distant, and we feel alone. But in these times we shouldn’t speak of the way (suffering) as if it were the goal (joy in God’s presence). Otherwise we’re bound to lose what C. S. Lewis refers to as our joy in total dependence: “For this tangled absurdity of a Need… Grace substitutes a full, childlike and delighted acceptance of our Need, a joy in total dependence. We become ‘jolly beggars.’” And as ‘jolly beggars,’ we are no longer slaves to fear, but are sons and daughters who can cry out—“Abba, Father”—Knowing that he hears us. Knowing that he loves us.         

(Part 2 of 6 in the series "Off the Sidewalk." Adapted from Tim Keller's sermon "Praying in the Spirit.")