I usually like to write about issues in such a way as to not leave any "loose ends", but I don't know whether I'll be able to on this one. I recently spent some time praying with a few friends, and we began (as has been our habit) acknowledging "good" things about God. In some circles this would correspond to Adoration (per the ACTS protocol of prayer: Adoration, Confession, Thanksgiving, Supplication) and is thought to be an appropriate way to begin speaking with God.
But the more I thought about it, I began to see that an unbeliever could likely view this practice as a pious form of "brown-nosing" (to put it crudely), or at least an acceptable form of manipulation: favors for compliments. After all, what would you think of someone who called you at home, only to begin the conversation by fawning all over you, reciting all your good qualities and the good things you've done for them over the years. You wouldn't need a HS diploma to know they wanted something from you, and that they may well be lying through their teeth and mean none of it.
So my questions (which I'm not sure I will answer) are two: first, why don't more Christians see this incongruity? and, second, why are our compliment-laden prayers not considered by God to be manipulation and/or merely a buttering-up of the Almighty?
As to the first, one possible (and cynical) answer is that most pray-ers don't think about their prayers. I recently read an agnostic who said that meal-time prayers were instrumental in his apostacy because he realized that in thanking God for his meal he was admitting it was God's gift, and that since there were so many millions going hungry in the world, God must therefore have withheld food from them, which seemed capricious and incongruent with God's nature; thus he abandoned the Christian faith. Now, whether or not God can or does withhold food from some and give it to others, I myself appreciated the consistency with which this agnostic carried out his thinking. If you give thanks for food, you are necessarily acknowledging God's sovereign sway over all things - from farmers who grow, to truckers who deliver, to grocers who sell - which would seem to settle the whole "sovereignty of God" question within Christendom.
Another possible (and less cynical) answer is that there must be a way to pay homage to one (a ruler, a friend, a doctor, a tradesman) from whom you want or need assistance that isn't manipulation but that is instead a fitting manner of appealing to them. I think, for instance, of a skilled musician: compliments given to he or she are not merely a way to get them to perform, but can be a way of showing that their skill and talent are of such a unique nature and quality that no other's skill and talent satisfy us; theirs alone is what we love to hear and enjoy.
As to the second question (why God apparently has no problem with our compliments), I imagine that it has much to do with the fact that he, just like we, delight to hear worthy things and people duly honored. When a skilled musician is complimented and asked to perform, there is a sense in which even the musician himself need not be ashamed, for otherwise he would be denying that his skill and talent were really admirable.
There is something about greatness that we love to see and experience (sinlessly), both our own as well as that of others, and when our heart is right, we really don't give a fig whose the greatness is. It is enough to behold it, which is why we love to tell God how great he is: He is the Lord and there is no other, and no one does what he does. Such a God would surely be majestic to behold "in action", and surely no other could compare.
BHT
No comments:
Post a Comment