Friend of God...

The focuses of my prayers are all wrong. "Let me HEAR you, Lord." Or, "SPEAK to me, God". "Let ME Walk after you, oh Lord." How can those prayers be wrong? How can praying like that be evil? Evil, really? The kind of evil that sends one to Hell? I'm not so sure, but look at this...

The most frightening scriptures to me are found in Matthew 7:21-23:

"I can see it now—at the Final Judgment thousands strutting up to me and saying, 'Master, we preached the Message, we bashed the demons, our God-sponsored projects had everyone talking.' And do you know what I am going to say? 'You missed the boat. All you did was use me to make yourselves important. You don't impress me one bit. You're out of here." (The Message - of course!)

There are those who do religious activities, those who make themselves busy with stuff; there are those who pray religiously and piously, "Father, let ME HEAR you," those whose subjects of their prayers are never Him... but always the stuff from Him. When will the church learn, when will I learn, that the substance of prayers must always be Him and only sometimes be about the stuff? Hearing. Is there anything wrong with praying to Hear from Him? Of course not. But, our prayers are consumed with all of this stuff and never the stuff Supplier. Should God always be the tag line of our prayers?

What if we each did something radical? What if He became the focus of everything that defines us and our prayers. What if we became God's friend and stopped approaching Him as our Wal Mart?

What if God had one half of our heart necklace? I know, I hear all the religious people saying, "He should have ALL of our heart!" Okay, then why don't you give it to Him?

Giving Him half of our heart necklace is, metaphorically speaking of, relationship. I learned this... again... this past Sunday morning in my pastor's message. If I was really God's friend - not His acquaintance - then we would already have been speaking as friends. The focus of my prayers wouldn't have to be the things that are the symptoms of friendship. I would already have those things. I would already be experiencing them as His friend.

Friendship with God is possible. This has become my goal... oh, wait, there I go again seeking stuff. Is it possible to seek friendship and still miss seeking God. I know what you are saying, "Okay, Jeremy, you are making this too difficult." That's not my goal either... to make things difficult. I'm simply trying to point out that God must be the object, not the things (stuff) He can do for us no matter how religious they may seem. Blessings and favor should be symptoms of a relationship that is established, not the goal of establishment. Get the picture?

Give God half of your heart... Relationship people, relationship.