OK so bear with me here a minute.
Those who study languages will be aware that an action can be expressed in different ‘voices’. ‘Active’ voice is where I am doing the action, eg: ‘I speak to him.’ ‘Passive’ voice is where I am the recipient of someone else’s action, eg: ‘I am spoken to, I am being addressed.’
‘Middle’ voice is neither one nor the other but an interaction of both, eg: ‘We engage in conversation.’
Which seems a good description of Christian prayer, neither demanding that God skip to our tune, nor robotically fitting into His machine without discussion, thought or feeling. But two-way, interactive; a willing, mutual and fruitful collaboration. Eugene Peterson describes it like this:
‘I enter into the action begun by another, my creating and saving Lord, and find myself participating in the results of the action. I neither do it, nor have it done to me; I will to participate in what is willed.’ (The Gift p 104 Marshall Pickering)
Jesus invites us to ‘ask and you will receive’ but also teaches us to listen- ‘he that has ears to hear, let him hear!’ and submit, praying- ‘your will be done on earth as in heaven’. Far from being a distant autocrat or impersonal ‘force’, the Son of God expresses a desire for a real relationship with His followers, saying, ‘I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my father I have made known to you.’ (John 15 v14-15)
Those who have tasted the friendship of Jesus gladly live in obedience to Him. For in and through Him we find the ‘conversation’ that brings life!
Those who study languages will be aware that an action can be expressed in different ‘voices’. ‘Active’ voice is where I am doing the action, eg: ‘I speak to him.’ ‘Passive’ voice is where I am the recipient of someone else’s action, eg: ‘I am spoken to, I am being addressed.’
‘Middle’ voice is neither one nor the other but an interaction of both, eg: ‘We engage in conversation.’
Which seems a good description of Christian prayer, neither demanding that God skip to our tune, nor robotically fitting into His machine without discussion, thought or feeling. But two-way, interactive; a willing, mutual and fruitful collaboration. Eugene Peterson describes it like this:
‘I enter into the action begun by another, my creating and saving Lord, and find myself participating in the results of the action. I neither do it, nor have it done to me; I will to participate in what is willed.’ (The Gift p 104 Marshall Pickering)
Jesus invites us to ‘ask and you will receive’ but also teaches us to listen- ‘he that has ears to hear, let him hear!’ and submit, praying- ‘your will be done on earth as in heaven’. Far from being a distant autocrat or impersonal ‘force’, the Son of God expresses a desire for a real relationship with His followers, saying, ‘I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my father I have made known to you.’ (John 15 v14-15)
Those who have tasted the friendship of Jesus gladly live in obedience to Him. For in and through Him we find the ‘conversation’ that brings life!
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