Intermittent Geyser

Friday 8/8/2014 4:07 AM

In the book The Meaning of Prayer, Harry Emerson Fosdick gives a picture of prayer that often describes my life.  He writes, “Our requests spurt up like intermittent geysers; we cry out and fall back again.  We are not in earnest.”  That kind of on-again-off-again passion too often characterizes my life.  It stands in sharp contrast to David’s plea in Psalm 84:2, “My soul yearns, even faints for the courts of the Lord; my heart and my flesh cry out for the living God.”   He has a similar desperate intensity to his cry in Psalm 42:1, “As the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul pants for you, my God.  My soul thirsts for God, for the living God.  When can I go and meet with God?”

I tend to treat God more like a vending machine.  Too often I go about my life with a fixed routine with respect to God, much like I have a fixed routine for my physical wellbeing.  I get up in the morning and have my bowl of spiritual Cheerios before I start my day.  I sneak in a quick “Thank you, God,” before I have a meal and offer up a fleeting request to God when someone requests prayer for a certain thing.  What is lacking is the desperation that is evident in David’s prayer.  It seems as if he would die if he couldn’t converse with God.  In my life it seems like I get along fine without God but every now and then, when things get a little too sticky or overwhelming, I become desperate enough to approach God in the same way that I might get a Snickers bar from a vending machine when I have an unexpected pang of hunger between meals.

Fosdick follows his description of our requests being an intermittent geyser with a quote from Jeremy Taylor.  “Easiness of desire is a great enemy to the success of a good man’s prayer.  It must be an intent, zealous, busy, operative prayer.  For consider what a huge indecency it is that a man should speak to God for a thing that he values not.  Our prayers upbraid our spirits when we beg tamely for those things for which we ought to die.”  I realize that the intensity of my relationship with God ebbs and flows over time but I do wish I could live my life in such a way that I am more aware of my dependence upon God.  I, along with most Christians, acknowledge that every breath I take is a gift from God but, when push comes to shove, it is easily forgotten and often ignored.  Trivial, inconsequential things too often crowd out the time that I should sit alone and listen to God’s voice.  That is what I would like to change.