Somewhere out there. . .

Just because God is everywhere does not mean He is not somewhere.  Sadly, we treat God as if He were a hidden or disguised deity who must be found and unmasked and then convinced to do what we think is good and right.  It is no wonder that prayer is a labor.  If prayer is directed to a God who is somewhere out there, it is hardly intimate or personal in nature but a word that searches for Him as much as expresses the heart of the petitioner to Him.  In addition, it fails to regard where God has placed Himself for us and in our weakness to know where He is always to be found.  That is another connection too often lost in our prayers.

In truth there is no somewhere out there.  God may be less than fully accessible to us on our own because of sin but that hardly consigns Him to a place far removed from where we are.  Like the pair of glasses or the cell phone carelessly laid down and then missed, we carelessly treated God and His Word and awoke in the midst of sin, longing for Him but fearful of Him and uncertain of Him.  It was not God who was laid aside but has remained there among us though we were blind to Him and to His mercy.  So He undertook to reveal Himself in words and actions throughout time and history, not far off but near, so that we might be prepared to receive Him when He came as one of us.  

God is never somewhere out there except in the human imagination clouded by sin.  For the Church and for the Christian God is near, not brought close by any of our wish or will or works but because He has never left us.  Such is the character of His mercy.  He is not the distant deity who must be bidden but bidden or not God is here and this is one of the more profound distinguishing characteristics of the Triune God over the gods of Islam or other human imagination.  Indeed the language of Scripture is always of the God who is present, even in time of trouble and even when we do not seek or want Him.  This is a reflection of the God whose Law always accuses.  We do not want Him around unless He is nice to us and acts as we please but our conscience cannot escape His judgment against our sin and our death cries out to Him for mercy even when we have made our peace with it.  

We have to be taught to pray not because it is a complicated art or skill to be learned but precisely because in our hearts we constantly face the temptation to fear Him and the job of prayer is to summon the feared one and put Him in a good mood.  Think of the damage we have done to our children by teaching them to think of the God who is somewhere out there!  Instead of learning from Scripture, we have continued to foster the illusion that God is lost and we must find Him, angry and we must tame Him, reluctant and we must convince Him to mercy.  Instead, we should have been pointed to all of those places where God is without question -- the living voice of His Word that is efficacious as well as true, the water of baptism that churns with life for all the dead who are placed under that water, the absolution that actually lifts sins from our shoulders and renders our consciences call clean, and the bread and wine that allow us to feast upon Christ as the food for today and foretaste of eternity.  Then they would grow up with the God who is near and maybe their whole mindset of themselves, their place and purpose in this world, and their relationship to God might be different from the get go.

Alas, we are too comfortable with the God who is somewhere out there and find it hard to let go this false idea even for the true comfort of God's nearer presence in Word and Sacrament.  It fits us.  We meet Him at Church, we go to Church, and we leave Him behind to return to the world of our domain to do as we please -- inviting God in when we need Him but conveniently having Him at an arm's length when we do not.  This is also the part of the heart that needs to be converted.  When it is, prayer will be easier and no longer begin with us but with the God who always hears, always answers, and always bestows more than we ask or dare imagine.  In this we can to little more than to pray God be merciful to me, a sinner and Thanks be to God...