What We Have Always Needed--June 17, 2024

What We Have Always Needed--June 17, 2024

"I pray that, according to the riches of God's glory, he may grant that you may be strengthened in your inner being with power through his Spirit, and that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith, as you being rooted and grounded in love." [Ephesians 3:16-17]

Maybe the thing we need most in the end... isn't a "thing" at all. Maybe it's not a "what," but a "who." So maybe what we are longing for most in life is nothing--literally, no-thing, but rather the living presence of Christ through the Holy Spirit. It just takes a while sometimes for our deepest selves to realize that.

There comes a point where you stop only asking for just stuff in your prayer life. There comes a point where you see the one thing really needful is for Christ himself to be with you--for the Spirit of God to dwell in us. And maybe that is the point at which we are getting closer to what we call "wisdom" or "maturity" in the life of faith.

That’s not to say that it’s wrong or sinful to pray for specific things—for the money to help make ends meet when someone has lost a job, for a cure for the malignancy the doctors have pronounced incurable, or for the prodigal son or daughter to come home safe and in one piece tonight. No, it’s fine to be as specific as you need to be when you pray. Honesty, always honesty.

But you know what it is like to grow out of wanting toys at Christmas—maybe in our prayer lives and in our spiritual growth it’s not so different. When kids are little, they are unchangeably concrete in their thinking—as they need to be. They see their needs in concrete terms—more apples or peanut butter sandwiches, please; tie my shoelaces; etc. Christmas presents are the same: what do you want? Toys. A bat. A ball. A pink tutu with sparkles in the fabric. Their hopes are for specific, concrete, tangible things.

Watch. Listen. In time the wishes for specific objects transforms. There comes a time when they would rather have gift cards and cash (not much nobler than just wanting a specific toy, but it is a sign they are thinking at a different level). And then, there comes a point where people really don’t want any specific thing—you want to be around the people who matter most to you. That will do it. And when that happens, you don’t feel like you are settling, just because there isn’t any brightly colored plastic in a box for you anymore at Christmas. You really find yourself feeling more and more satisfied than you ever have, even though you aren’t so concerned with getting this or that thing anymore.

There's a book by the cartoonist who used to draw the comic "Mutts," whose title is literally, "The Gift of Nothing," that makes the same point. The one dog wants to get his friend, a cat, the perfect gift, after realizing that the right thing for someone who has everything is... nothing. And of course, in the end, the gift of "nothing" doesn't mean the dog doesn't care about his friend--just the opposite, in fact. That's because the gift of nothing turns out to be the gift of enough empty time and space that they can share a moment together, simply as friends, appreciating that they are with one another. Sometimes the greatest gift indeed, is nothing--which allows the presence of someone.

I suspect you have lived through enough Christmases and birthdays to see that progression happen—seeing new little faces who are absorbed in the objects from their wish lists, and older ones who are moving beyond specific items to want to have their assets “liquid” in gift-card form, and then a wiser generation who just sits back and smiles to see people whom they love, and to know they cared enough to be there.

Something similar happens in our walk with God, too, in this life. There are those early phases in our faith when we are not only concrete in our prayers, but downright selfish. We pray a snow day from school, for our team to win the game, for a green light for my car, for a raise at work for myself, and so on. And at some point, we move beyond that (hopefully), as we become wiser in the faith, and our prayers become more open to God’s direction as to how they are answered. Instead of, “God, let me ace this test so I can get into the school I want to,” maybe the prayer becomes, “God, how about you show me where you would lead me next in life?” Instead of, “God, give me an extra $10,000.00 in income so I can have the life I’ve always wanted,” it becomes perhaps, “God, provide for my needs and my kids’ needs, and show me what is worth having and what I can let go of in this life.” Those prayers are not less insistent or less sincere because they have stopped sounding like ransom demands; no, just the opposite. They are somehow more invested, more passionate, and more heartfelt, even when they look like they are less specific.

Well, there is yet further to go. There comes a point, it seems—Paul appears to be praying from this place in today’s verses—where you see that you most really need…Christ--the living, risen, Christ himself, alive and in that empty place within us by the abiding Spirit. Not for his power to do miracles for us when we wish them. Not for favors. Not for the promise of mansions in the sky along a gold-paved boulevard. But just him. It’s that often-quoted line of Saint Augustine, "God, you have made us for yourself, and our hearts are restless until they find their rest in you." You can have all the wins for your team you want, all the snow days or raises you can count, and still not be fulfilled. You can have a bustling social life, a million Facebook “friends” (talk about hijacking a word!), and your dream job, and still have an emptiness. Even if you’ve got the cookie-cutter family with the white picket fence and the dog, even if you got the miracle cure you had been wishing for, even if you are able to send your kids off to college and breathe a sigh of relief that you have gotten them that far… that’s not what we are most deeply in need of.

What we need… is Christ. With us. In us. Not just the historical record of what Jesus did a long time ago; not just the stories or teachings of this 1st century rabbi to inspire and challenge us; not just the idea of future bliss floating on a cloud with heavenly treasures in our accounts, but the living Christ himself. The Spirit's presence taking root in us, like a seedling sprouting from good soil. What we need is not brightly colored plastic—not in toy form, and not in gift-card form—but the One who loves us purely and deeply and fiercely all the way to a cross, and then out the other side to be with us. What we need is not “stuff”, and not even just “people” in the general abstract sense, but the one particular specific Person—Jesus himself—who makes it possible for us to bear whatever else comes our way, raise or not, win or loss, miracle cure or not.

If everybody prays to win the lottery, and if a lesser-but-well-meaning “god” gave everyone the winning numbers, everyone would have to settle for two-dollar winnings, and no one would really be satisfied. You can only divide a jackpot into so many pieces.

Ah, but Christ—he is immediately available to all of us, all at the same time, completely and fully. The Spirit is the One our hearts have been most deeply yearning for all along. So perhaps in our prayer lives, there will come that point for us, maybe even sooner rather than later now, where we ask for Christ to remove the obstacles we have set up in our lives, on our calendars, in our smart-phones, in our budgets, in our social circles, or at our jobs, that keep us from him. Perhaps now we can see that what we have needed all along is this One who promises to love us fiercely and faithfully.

I want to be like those wise people at Christmas or birthdays who are no longer tethered to the wants for “stuff” and who have found that the One who is Love is what they most deeply needed… and that he is the one who most freely gives himself away to us.

Lord Jesus, come to us more fully. Remove all the "things" we accumulate in our lives which turn out to be the roadblocks we put up to keep you from nearness. Let us see you as you come into our midst.