Self-fulfilling prayers

I am in Gainesville, Florida this week to speak at the Family Church missions conference.  I was able to take a quick road trip down to Orlando on Thursday to spend some time with my folks and a few dear friends.  I have found over time that, besides my family, there are friendships that I will take the time and make the expense to maintain because they fill me up rather than drain me.  And I would have to say that our lives are rich in this respect because in every place we've lived God has added to this ever-growing circle of "fillers".   Relationships are kind of like my pickup truck - it runs pretty well most of the time, but without doing some routine maintenance it would sooner or later start to break down.  So my road trip down to Orlando gave me the opportunity for a relational "tune-up" with my folks and a few special friends.  Now that my folks are moving to Birmingham, Alabama, I won't have a convenient reason to travel to Orlando, so it was important to seize the opportunity afforded by the proximity of Gainesville.

  On the way there and back I listened to several sermons by Andy Stanley, who is one of my favorite communicators when it comes to speaking to those who are new to the faith or who are still "kicking the tires" of Christianity.  He said something that I had never really thought of before (at least not from this perspective) :  you can tell a lot about the spiritual maturity and depth of faith of a church by the kind of prayers that we pray.  According to Andy (and I don't disagree with him), most of our prayers as American Christians tend to be self-fulfilling in nature.  What I mean is that our prayers require no special intervention of a supernatural God to come true.  For example, before we take off to drive from A to B we'll stop to ask God for travel safety.  Well, if we drive the speed limit and our car is well maintained, in all likelihood we will arrive just fine.  Did God answer our prayer?  It's hard to say, since what we asked of Him requires no special effort on His side.  "Lord, help my son to do well on his exams." Again, if your son studies hard and doesn't party the night before the test, he'll probably come out with a decent grade.  No particular intervention of God is necessary.  It makes me wonder when God hears our prayers if He doesn't say, "Really?  That's it?  How will you even know if I answer you?  Come on!  Give me something that comes from deep down in your soul; something that ONLY I can do!"  The supernatural power of God is a a mighty river that flows fast and deep.  We'll never experience the wonder and adventure that we are created for while we wade in the shallows - "testing" God to see if we can trust Him.  We have to dive in deep, over our heads, and let ourselves be carried away by the current of His mighty love.  It's frightening, even terrifying at times - but the alternative is to be content with just a taste, a whiff, a momentary thrill.  I'm diving in.