The Transcendency of God
 
We who now enjoy the closeness of God the Father, because of the work of Jesus Christ, tend to forget just how majestic and transcendent God is.  We spend a great deal of time in the New Testament studying all of the many wonders of our new relationship with God, and rightfully so.  But I believe that some of us fail to realize that the One who is our loving Heavenly Father is the same One who shook the mountains when giving His Law.  He broke forth in wrath and judgment often.  This One that was feared and almost unapproachable is the same One that now bids us to boldly enter His presence in prayer. 
  
I believe we have begun to accept this invitation all to flippantly.  I have sensed a prevalent lack of humility in the prayers of Christians today.  We have confused boldness with brashness.  We have begun to approach God with an attitude altogether unworthy of Him.  If we look at David's prayer in II Samuel 7 or our Saviour's model prayer, we see a marked humility and contriteness on the part of the petitioner. 
  
The brash, demanding prayers of many of today's believers are nowhere exemplified in Scripture.  Furthermore, they are built upon the fallacious assumption that the petitioner knows best.  Ultimately, they seem to completely ignore that nearly two-thirds of Scripture is spent establishing the utter transcendence of God.  Only the final one-third establishes any familiarity at all.  The entire book of Job builds to the final expounding of God upon His transcendence.  His only answer to Job for all that occurred was that God was greater than Job.  Let us note also that, once Job had been in God's presence, this answer was sufficient to silence his protestations. 
  
We are greatly in need of a divine infusion of humility into our prayer lives.  We need to place ourselves back in our rightful place as humble petitioners.  We need to place God back in His rightful place as Sovereign Lord.  Finally, we need to place ourselves in a position where we are seeking God's will, not demanding or persuading Him to do our will.
-PF