Today’s Word: Changed

Danish philosopher and theologian Søren Kierkegaard once wrote that, “the function of prayer is not so much to influence God, but rather to change the nature of the one who prays.”

We grow up learning to pray by asking for things – take care of me and my parents, give me things I think I want or need, answer my prayer, hear my prayer, be with me during this difficult time. In short, we pray to try and grab God’s attention and influence God’s will for our lives. If we just pray hard and often enough, we believe, God will certainly bend his ear to us, hear our prayer and give us what we want. And, certainly God can do just that and sometimes does. Scripture, indeed, tells us to ask for what we need: “Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks, receives; and the one who seeks, finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened.” (Matthew 7:7-8)

We perhaps never give up this approach to prayer entirely, but as we grow in our faith we learn that we are the ones changed by prayer, not God. God is the unchanging changer. We are changed by placing ourselves in the presence of God, by spending time in gratitude and contemplation of all that God is and has done. We are changed not by what we are given, but by the giver of the gift, by the Spirit of God that moves and works and lives in us. We cannot help but be changed when we empty ourselves of our desires and open ourselves to the presence of our loving God, content to be held and sustained by the mere touch of the hand of the giver of all that is good and holy.

Ask yourself in silence: When and how have I been changed by prayer?