Question Series: Week #4: Is this the best I've got?

I can vividly remember the way my youth pastor at church used to pray. Even now, I can picture the way he looked when he spoke to the Father in the midst of our little holy church huddle. With one eye cracked open, I would watch him almost every time.

His eyes tightly shut, he would tilt his face upward, as if looking at Someone through closed eyelids. He would sway sometimes, back and forth, with a half smile on his closed lips. I can remember the way his voice would sound when he would pray – bold…honest…convinced…and madly in love with the One he was talking to. Innately, I knew he meant every word he said. Watching him pray, my overwhelming teenaged thought was always the same…

I don’t think I’ll ever pray like that man. But I wish I could.

I admit, I was envious of his ability to pray in such a way that I knew he meant it. I guess what I was really envious of was the kind of relationship he had with God that would cause him to be able to pray like that in the first place. It was the one I always wanted to have but wasn’t sure I ever would.

It was the same kind of feeling I would have when someone would tell me they craved more of God or longed for God or hungered after the Word. It was the way I felt when I would read Scripture like Psalm 42:1, “As the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul pants for you, O God.”

Longing for God? Craving God? Panting for Him? What did all of it mean?

I wasn’t sure. But what I was sure of was that I didn’t. And I didn’t know why.

I was ashamed to admit that even the concept of craving God was a bit foreign to me. But even in my teenaged mind, I knew enough to know it wasn’t something that could be taught. If it were so, I would have already learned. After all, I was practically born in a church pew. I knew all the acrostics and catchy word pictures to prayer and all the Christianese and buzzwords to use to impress someone with my knowledge of Scripture. I knew what I was supposed to say and how I was supposed to feel.

But I also knew enough to know that wasn’t enough. It wasn’t “it.”

It was years later that I would find out just what that “it” was and what it was all about. It wasn’t anything fancy, nor was it anything profound or something I could learn my way into. There was just one thing missing to my life and my relationship with God that kept me from praying and meaning it -- from my longings and cravings for God.

Very simply, I wasn’t giving him my best.

Oh, I was giving Him my kind-of best. I was giving Him my runner up best. I was definitely giving Him my Sunday best. But it wasn’t my best-best. It wasn’t the kind of best that allows a person to pray like my youth pastor prayed.

And He wanted more of me.

He wanted me to love Him like I had never loved anyone before. He wanted me to desire Him like no desire I had ever had before. He wanted me to crave Him like the strongest craving I had ever had before. But there wasn’t anything He could do to get me to feel those spiritual urgings. He had already done enough. The rest was was all up to me.

It was up to me to choose to give Him my best.

What that meant, was no more half-hearted living. No more clinched fists or “maybes.” No more things to control. No more means to my end. It would mean lots of questions and self-inventory and “yes’s” instead of “nos.” It would mean an uncluttered heart and a single mindedness and a death to self and a release of control.

I would have to give Him best.

And then, it would mean cravings like never before. Longings like none other. Hunger pains to trump all other hunger pains. It would mean sheer abandon and beautiful impulse and crazy, insane amounts of love.

And yes, prayers coming from a heart that meant them.

Though I now know what this kind of love and meaning requires, the question “Is this the best I’ve got?” is a question I still often ask God and myself. Even now, when my prayers feel stale and my longings are seen heading in the wrong direction, I have to re-visit the question.

And when I do, I find out that I am offering Him less than my best.

And then I have to, once again, unclench my fists...take the padlock off my heart... and present my little and my much to Him to do with what He wants.

Lisa