who am I that You are mindful of me?

 

   I am currently reading Philip Yancey’s book PRAYER: Does It Make Any Difference?.  I have also read his Reaching for the Invisible God, The Jesus I Never Knew, and some of What’s So Amazing About Grace?.  The first few pages of PRAYER reminded me of how God is so much bigger than the universe…how, if the universe were the size of the North American continent, our solar system would fit into a coffee cup (p. 20).  Who am I to bring my petty problems to a God that huge?  Why would he even care?  Why am I so brazen as to request help from a big God for a miniscule problem?  Aren’t there billions of other people on this earth in more need than I am?  (Yes.)

   When I offer my self-centered, insignificant prayers up to God, it’s a little bit like what one author calls “a desire to lay my personality at someone’s feet as a puppy deposits a slobbery ball” (p. 31).  Is God the type of god to pick up my spitty ball with distaste?  Does he look at my offering with condescension—”Aww, how cute…look at her, she’s trying”?  Will he toss it over his shoulder, causing me to chase after it again, endlessly?  That is a fun metaphor.

   Reading about Yancey’s desire to “be still and know that [God is] God” made me want to get back in touch with that experience.  E-mail rules my life.  I needed to escape from it.  I took a bike ride on a forested path last night as the sun was setting.  It was cold, but the pumping of my legs warmed me up.  I saw half-frozen puddles, honking geese atop a creek, birds migrating overhead, tall trees with bare branches….  It all reminded me how small I am compared to this big world, compared to these trees that have been here long before me and will be here long after me.  Just as my ride was nearing its end, it started to snow.  I’m grateful for the humbling combination of Yancey’s book and my prayer bike-ride.

   If you want to check out this book, I’d recommend it.  It appeals to me because it sets out to answer so many questions I myself have wrestled with:

1. Why does God let the world go on as it does and not intervene?
2. Does prayer really help with physical healing?
3. If God knows everything, what’s the point of prayer?
4. Does prayer change God or change me?  (In my own wondering about this, I worded it like: Does prayer change God’s mind?)

I look forward to finding out the answers!  If that’s possible!

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When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers,
   the moon and the stars that you have established;
what are human beings that you are mindful of them,
   mortals that you care for them?

Psalm 8:3-4 (NRSV)