The World of Prayer III: dedication.

Wednesday, July 8, 2009. A world of prayer - for one week we want to focus on prayer. Today we come to “prayer of dedication”.

Often people think that faith is something concerned with believing facts. We believe that the earth is round or that the universe has no boundaries (tough it might have a closed topology in a higher dimension). But that is not primarily the biblical understanding of faith. In the bible faith is about our relation to God. Faith is about our own life, about the purpose and goal of our life, about the focus of our existence. Clearly, this is linked to reality. If there were no God, all this would be different. But we might believe that there is a God, and still have no faith in the biblical sense! That is an important difference.

Biblical faith links us to God. Faith is a dedication. Faith means, that we start to build a relationship to God which takes care of the facts. He is God, he is the source and goal of everything that is. He is the eternal, holy and just creator. He is just so amazing and great, that whenever a human discovers how he is he bows down in adoration. When ever we realize who God really is, we will dedicate everything we are and have to him. This is just the only possbile, the only adequate reaction. Dedication of our life, our existence, our goals and dreams to him is the only reasonable future, the only reasonable action, the only reasonable life we could think of in the presence of the beauty and greatness of God.

Prayer will be a prayer of dedication. “My Lord and my God!” said Peter the apostle to Jesus. He realized who he was and immediately responded adequately. This is what we will do when we realize how extremely beautiful God is. Human beauty is mere a hint and sign to the beauty of the God who created all this. If you admire nature or women - they are made by his hands. If you admire the strength of men or of natural phenomena - all that is his!

Let us bow down before God. Perhaps the action of bowing is nothing which would be close to your culture. Then choose another adequate gesture which fits his unbelievable character and greatness. We need to pray prayers of dedication, prayers of thanks, prayers of adoration - just because he is so wonderful, he is so beautiful, he is greater than anything we see daily, and we see great things!

Lord, my God. Please take my life into your hands. Please take my mind, my soul, my thoughts and feelings. Let them grow into your presence. Let them change in your light, let them be full of joy in the presence of your beauty. Let me learn to be humble from you, me, who is so focused on my own existence. Let me learn love from you, truth and purpose. Please take my life into your hands! ... more texts