A Praying Life...

The adult Sunday School at my church is working our way through "A Praying Life" by Paul Miller (which, although I'm only 5 or 6 chapters in, I highly recommend). I was just reading it and came across this passage:

"If you are not praying, then you are quietly confident that time, money, and talent are all you need in life. You'll always be a little too tired, a little too busy. But if, like Jesus, you realize you can't do life on your own, then no matter how busy, no matter how tired you are, you will find the time to pray" (49).

Wow. I personally find that very convicting. Obviously there is a huge part of me that IS "quietly confident that time, money, and talent are all [I] need in life." Which...when I say it out loud, is just moronic. And yet I think there's part of every human being that feels like that's the case - if only we had a little more time, a little more money, a little more talent...surely THEN we could do x, y, or z that we want to accomplish or become because we think it would fulfill us. And yet we could have all the time, money, and talent in the world, and still have NOTHING if we didn't have the love of God.

Reading this passage came at an interesting time in my life, too. As I read it, and felt the conviction that so often I do feel like this, I almost simultaneously thought to myself, "But you don't have any time, money, or talent!" Now, this isn't 100% true, of course. But honestly, I'm ME, I'm always way overcommitted - I have no time. And I'm a grad student, trying to live off the meager sums Penn State finds it appropriate to pay me for my slave labor hard work - I have no money. And lately, especially as I've been wrestling with crazy spatial math/music and thinking about doctoral programs, I've been realizing how little I know - that I have no talent.

Jesus, like You, I cannot do life on my own. Even if I had all the time, money, and talent in the world, I could not. And I have none of those. Help me, no matter how busy, no matter how tired, to find the time to pray. "Let me hear in the morning of your steadfast love, for in you I trust. Make me know the way I should go, for to you I lift up my soul" (Psalm 143:8).

On goat demons and other whorish pursuits...

I was just reading Leviticus 17, and verse 7 says (in the ESV): "So they shall no more sacrifice their sacrifices to goat demons, after whom they whore. This shall be a statute forever for them throughout their generations." Not gonna lie, I found that first sentence pretty amusing. Like, what the heck are goat demons, and why are the people of Israel whoring after them?!? I felt a little weird laughing at something like that from the Bible...especially from Leviticus...it's a pretty serious book, after all. This is God's Law for the Israelite people.

Then I started to think about it a little bit more, and I realized how ridiculous so many of the things I (and other 21st-century Americans) whore after would sound if they were put into that verse. We whore after popularity, after various artistic pursuits, after romantic relationships, after career success, and after so many other things that are just ridiculous - particularly when held side-by-side with the living God that we're supposed to be worshiping!

That said, I really don't know (and hopefully this isn't heretical), but maybe Leviticus 17:7 is meant to strike us as kind of ridiculous. To the Israelites it was written to, yeah, there probably were goat demons that they were spiritually whoring themselves out to, and so it was probably pretty serious. But to us, it's ridiculous, in the same way that if the Israelites heard what we whore ourselves out to, they'd probably find us completely ridiculous. But the seeming ridiculousness of this verse helped point out to me (not for the first time, but I can use all the reminders I can get) of how utterly pathetic all the things I whore myself out to are.

God, on the other hand, deserves our wholehearted worship: “Worthy are you, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power, for you created all things, and by your will they existed and were created” (Revelation 4:11). Jesus, help me to cast all the goat demons that I'm whoring after out of my life, and worship you and you alone. Amen. :')