Joe Rogan has a great channel on YouTube I'm really enjoying (aside from the cursing)--he interviews interesting semi-famous people and just has conversations with them. I've watched a number of them, one being an interview with a former professional race car driver Danica Patrick titled "What Women Don't Understand About Men."
It got me thinking about that film/book that was popular a few years ago, He's Just Not That Into You and how these women in the dating world don't understand why a guy isn't calling them back, and it basically boils down to a few uncomplicated points that is for the most part summed up in the title: "he's just not that into you." Because if he was, he would find a way to be with you.
Though I didn't read the book, I think I saw the movie with my wife at some point, and there were some choice quotes that seemed to hit the nail on the uncomplicated head.
Here's the thing: This doesn't just apply to men and women and the interactions between the sexes. It pertains to the relationship between man and his God. If you think I'm being too soft, maybe I can temper the wine spritzer with a stiff shot of Chesterton: "Let your religion be less of a theory and more of a love affair."
Love affairs are a kind of dance, a courting, a pursuit, and a haunting. We see it in the erotic Hebrew canticles like Song of Songs, Francis Thompson's The Hound of Heaven, and the poetic pursuit of divine intimacy in saints like John of the Cross. We see how God courts us with sweet consolations early in our walk with Him, blinding us with the intoxication of divine love; once He has us, He withdraws Himself when we have moved from milk to meat so as to strengthen and refine us. Our drink may turn from wine and honey to gall and crosses, but if the love one has for the Lord has matured in "good soil," it does not wither or uproot easily, and one can pass through these desolations eventually into a love for Him where "deep calls unto deep" (Ps 42:7)
So, it's not unreasonable or gay to think of the relationship one has with the Lord in an intimate manner. But such a relationship is only as deep or intimate as one gives; the Lord's depths are infinite, and His longing for us without bounds, so it is only reasonable to conclude that when we don't "know" the Lord more intimately, it is not because of the Lord being aloof, but because, well, "we're just not that into Him."
I pulled a few quotes from Goodreads for the aforementioned book, and though these quotes are in the context of dating in the secular world, use it to reflect on your relationship with the Lord, which is really the extent of your prayer life (knowing and conversing with the Lord in an intimate manner):
“If you can find him, then he can find you. If he wants to find you, he will.”
“If a man is really into you, nothing will stop him from being with you - including a fear of intimacy.”
“Alone also means available for someone outstanding.”
“If he’s not calling you, it’s because you are not on his mind."
"The word "busy" is the relationship Weapon of Mass Destruction. It seems like a good excuse, but in fact in every silo you uncover, all you're going to find is a man who didn't care enough to call. Remember men are never to busy to get what they want.”
That last one kind of hit home: we make time for the things we care about. When we claim to be so busy that we don't have time to pray, or it's an afterthought, what we're really saying is "it's not that important." Prayer is how we get to know the Lord--what His will is for our life, what He wants from us, what He desires and what pleases Him, and how we learn the sound of His voice. It's akin to spending time with your wife as the bare minimum maintenance measure for a marriage. You simply cannot please the Lord without faith (Heb 11:6), and you can't deepen your faith without prayer.
So, what we are saying when we prioritize twenty minutes in the morning of scrolling around on Youtube or watching the news or checking the stock reports instead of closing our door and praying in silence before the Lord isn't that we don't have time, but that the time we have we don't want to spend with the One we claim to love. And what is the First and Primary Commandment, lest we forget: "You shall love the Lord with all your heart, soul, and mind" (Mk 12:30).
The Lord uses the word know frequently in scripture. "Then I will tell them, 'I never knew you! Depart from me, you lawbreakers! (Mt 7:23) to those He casts out into outer darkness. To 'know' someone in the biblical sense is also a kind of physical consummation, such as in when Joseph "knew Mary not" in Mt 1:25.
Let's just be honest about it: It's not that we're "too busy"--it's that spending our time in this way doesn't excite us or please our sensory appetites. We are willfully choosing something else over the something more. In the dating world, this would be called settling. We are settling for less. And as in a marriage that has the potential to grow stale and subject to the test, when we don't spend time with our love, we "know" them less and less--physically and emotionally. When we wake up years later and feel as if "I don't even feel like i know you anymore," we can ask ourselves, "well, why is that?"
Though it is true that people can drift apart or grow at different speeds that may not always match and align with one another, the thing about prayer and knowing the Lord in an intimate way is the deficiencies always lie with us. God pours out everything He has to those who earnestly seek Him: there is no lack, and no limit or bottom to the depth of His Mind. When we choose this-over-that, we are saying, "I value this thing over that thing." And how often does the One who should be our first love get the short stick, leftovers, and castoffs.
If there's a simple maxim in the dating world as to why you're not getting callbacks from that guy you're interested in, it may be that "he's just not that into you." If your spiritual life is coming up short, the answer is probably the least complicated: "you're just not into Him." How can you tell? You're not giving your time, or your giving it away to other things. You're not speaking, and you're not listening. Instead of asking, "How can I serve you? How can I please you today? What do you want me to do?" You're going your own way, doing your own thing, and consulting the Lord as an afterthought. And all this is not complicated--it happens in prayer, and if you're not praying or making time for prayer, it shouldn't be a surprise that you know the Lord less than you would otherwise.
The solution, too, is not complicated: make the time. Trade out the items in your time-budget so that prayer gets first seat and other things fill in around it, rather than the other way around. If all you have is early mornings for uninterrupted time, make the time then. If you're able to spare fifteen or twenty minutes, perhaps your priorities are out of whack, and you admittedly do not feel that prayer is time well spent. I know if I'm honest with myself, this is really what I'm saying when I choose to piddle opportunities away, or give into that inner-resistance (which the devil capitalizes on) that says I'd rather be doing x,y,z--anything really--then pray. And do it in the humility (that foundational virtue) that admits that you have failed to love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, and mind--that pre-eminent Commandment with which we cannot know--and thus love--either God or our neighbor or even ourselves.
So if you're not praying that much, of you've put it on the back burner as I have, maybe it's worth being honest with the self-admonition that "I'm just not that into Him." That's ok, as long as you don't stay there. As anyone who has been married a while knows, you can "fall back in love" through a renewal of that first love time and time again throughout the course of a marriage--but it often takes time, work, and a reorientation of the heart.
Do you really want to be one of those foolish virgins to whom the Lord said He "never knew?" Start making the time, shifting your priorities to get them back in line; right order has a way of keeping things from getting out of whack so that we keep first things first, and secondary things second. If you find yourself alone and uncomfortable, ask yourself why. Like the author said above, “Alone also means available for someone outstanding.” We know who that "someone outstanding" is--Jesus, our first love, whom we have neglected and shelved so often and on so many occasions when all he really wanted was our time and our heart. But it's never too late to get reacquainted.
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