Conversation starter

This week, my daughter asked me a strange question: “Do only girls die?”

I had no idea where she got that idea from or how she had come to that conclusion, but eventually, as we had a conversation about it I discovered that she had jumped to this conclusion because in her fairy tale books it seems that only princesses are pricking their fingers on spindles or choking on apples and dying. The male princes always seem to stay alive so they can come to the rescue.

The minds of other people, especially children’s, are so fascinating. And you can only truly get to know the mind of another person through conversation.

Conversation is like a window that allows two people to look into each other’s minds. It allows us to find out who the other person is, how they think, why they act as they act. It can deepen our relationships and create intimacy.

In today’s Gospel, Jesus teaches his disciples how they can encounter God in conversation. How they can know what God thinks and what His will is. He teaches them the Lord’s Prayer, probably the most familiar prayer in the Bible. But I think we can learn something about prayer from all of our readings this morning.

Three things stood out to me: 1) God wants a conversation with us; 2) He wants it to be a two-way conversation; and, 3) He doesn’t want the conversation to end.

1. God wants a conversation with us.

He wants to share His mind and His ways with us and he wants us to share what’s on our minds with Him. In our Genesis reading, God himself goes down to where Abraham and his family have pitched their tents by the oaks of Mamre. The Lord enters into the centre of Abraham’s life, he meets him where he is, the place where Abraham eats dinner, sleeps, plays games with his nephew, argues with his wife. God wants a conversation that involves all of us, not just the parts of us we want the world to see. Not the Facebook or Instagram version of our lives. Not our Sunday Best version of us. He wants to meet us where we are, where we live. The real us: warts and all, the dust and the ashes. He wants us to share with him things we do that need to be forgiven as well as the things that others have done to us that we need to forgive.

He wants a true meeting of the minds, to share his plans, his ways and his words with us. He wants us to be honest about our plans, how we feel, what we are struggling with. God already knows what’s in our minds but through our conversations with Him, we can often discover for ourselves what is in our minds, what we actually believe.

God wants our conversations to be ones with true intimacy. He wants to have a close relationship. The Lord’s Prayer begins with “Our Father”. We say this prayer so often that it can be easy to take for granted how amazing this opening statement is. The God who created the Universe and everything in it, wants to have an intimate parental relationship with us. He wants us to address Him as our Father.

2. God wants it to be a two-way conversation

This morning’s Psalm tells us that “When we call, God answers” and that although the Lord is high above us, he cares for the lowly. God invites us into a two-way conversation. He listens to us and cares about what concerns us, just as he listened to Abraham’s concerns about the judgement of Sodom and Gomorrah. God listens and responds.

If we ask, it will be given to us; if we search for God’s will in our lives we will find it. He is open to our questions. He wants us to enter into conversation with Him that includes us speaking as well as listening to what He has to say to us.

3. God doesn’t want the conversation to end. He wants us to persist in prayer.

We read that Abraham “remained standing before the LORD”. He continued in conversation with God, trying to understand His ways, expressing his own feelings and desires. And God wants us to do the same: to remain standing before the Lord. Paul encourages the Colossians, “as you have received Christ Jesus the Lord, continue to live your lives in him”.

Remaining standing before the Lord means continuing in Bible reading and prayer and living our lives in constant conversation with Him. Just as a parent shares in the triumphs and celebrations in their child’s life, God wants to be part of ours. He wants to hear us say “thank you” for the many things he does for us each day. And just as a parent wants their children to come to them with problems, God wants us to do the same.

We walk in the midst of trouble: we have difficulties in our family relationships, financial troubles, health issues, political turmoil and social problems. But God promises to walk with us, to increase our strength to deal with our troubles, and to continue to love us with His everlasting love. If we continue our conversation, He promises to share His mind, His wisdom and His ways with us, to build us up and establish us in the faith.

Sometimes our conversations will be uncomfortable and challenging. At times we may struggle to align our wills and minds to God’s Word and mind. But the more we remain in conversation, the stronger and deeper our relationship will become. The more we spend time standing before Him, the more He will rub off on us, we will be changed and influenced by Him. He gives us His Holy Spirit to live inside us and change us from the inside out. He will enable fruits of the Spirit to grow in us as we remain rooted in Him. Just as a tree cut off from it’s roots will die, so our relationship with God will suffer if we allow the conversation to dry up.

In Jesus, God forgave us all of our trespasses and sins, he set aside everything that could separate us from Him. He has opened the door to us to live our lives in conversation with Him, to call Him “Father”. So let’s keep that door open. Let’s persist in prayer, let’s remain standing before the Lord.

I find it fascinating to see how my daughter tries to make sense of the world around her as she experiences all these strange and confusing things. I enjoy seeing how her mind puts the jigsaw pieces together. I believe that God also delights in us as we try to do the same, as we ask questions, as we seek the answers. Our Heavenly Father loves to watch and hear us grow.

Prayer is an amazing privilege. That the creator of the heavens and the earth wants to keep company with us and engage in an intimate life-long conversation with us. Let’s not take it for granted. Let’s persist in prayer and grow deeper in our love and knowledge of our Heavenly Father.