Are You Talking to God or Just to Yourself? How Do You Know?

According to the researchers, over half of Americans do it every day.    Heck, even among those who call themselves nones,  who don’t affiliate with religion at all, even there, one out of five pray every day, even a few atheists    

But whatever the numbers show, what do they tell us?   Yes, people are praying, actually praying a lot.   But are people really connecting to God?  Now I’m not saying God doesn’t hear their prayers.    I believe God hears every prayer.    But are people hearing God back?    Sure, God may be listening in, but how many folks are really connecting with God versus just talking to themselves?   How do you know the difference?    In these words between God and Abraham, God shows us the way.   Let’s listen and hear what God has to say. 

Genesis 18:16-33

How do you know you’re really connecting to God when you pray, and not just talking to yourself?     How do you tell the difference?    In this story, God shows us the way.   In real prayer, you’re not actually starting the conversation.  God is.    Real praying isn’t you starting a conversation with God.   Real praying is God starting a conversation with you.  

In order to see how this works, let’s dig into this story.   This conversation with God all began when Abraham was sitting outside his tent, and these strangers walked out of the desert.   Now in desert culture, when folks walk up to your tent, you don’t do a wave and send them on their way.  No, you invite them in.  You feed them.  You provide a place to stay.   Why?  In that environment, you might find yourself out in the desert one day, and you sure hope someone would do that for you.   So Abraham and his wife Sarah welcome them in, and as they are sitting and talking Abraham gets it.   He realizes in these strangers, God has come.  

But when Abraham and God start the conversation about Sodom and Gomorrah, who begins it?   God does.    God even says out loud.  Hmm, shall I tell Abraham about this?  Now when somebody says out loud something like that, you know what it means.  It means they really want to tell you.    But beyond what God says, what matters is that God talks first.  

In reality, when anyone prays, they never pray without God prompting that prayer, without God so to speak, talking first.   But even with that prompting, you can still miss the real conversation. Why?   You don’t recognize God’s voice.   Human beings have a terrible tendency to think they’re talking to God when they’re actually talking to themselves.   This past week, I read an awful letter that someone had sent to a pastor I know.   I can’t remember when I had read such a vicious, brutal letter to another human being.  But what made it more awful is that the person who wrote it said she had done so after her afternoon time of prayer.    Let me tell you.  I guarantee that God had nothing to do with that letter.  But she sure thought so.   

It can be perilously easy to think you’re talking to God, when you’re actually just talking to yourself.    That’s why in those statistics, another number really disturbed me.  It said while one out of two people are praying every day, only one out of three are reading the Bible even once a week.    And sure, God can speak to you through nature or through other people, but, it’s all too easy to get those signals crossed.  But if you believe what the Bible says about itself, that God is speaking there, what better place to start than there.   Now you can still miss it, sure.  But at least there, you’re going where God says he is always speaking.  When God is going to talk to you, God is going to do it there more than anywhere else. 

So if you’re not going there on a regular basis, you’re likely not hearing much from God at all.  You could just be talking to yourself.  

And as you actually connect to God, the more three things will happen in those conversations, the three things that happen here.          

First, you’ll get both bolder and humbler with God than you could have ever thought.

Second, you’ll pray to God for things you would never have prayed for before.

And third, you will understand who God actually is in ways you could never have come up with on your own.   

Each of those things happens in this conversation between God and Abraham.   Do you see how bold Abraham gets with God?     Abraham bargains God all the way from 50 down to 10.  Sheesh, I get intimidated when I return a product to Target.  Yet here Abraham pushes God again and again, and again.   Abraham won’t let it go.   But do you see how he does it?   He doesn’t come to God like he’s entitled.   No.   He says.  “Let me take it upon myself to speak to the Lord, I who am but dust and ashes.”    He doesn’t arrogantly demand, but he boldly and humbly asks.   

So many folks get confused when the Bible talks about fearing God.  They wonder.  Why should I be scared of God?    Well, let me tell you, even when I’ve had a chance to chat with Hollywood’s mayor, Peter Bober, I get a little nervous.  I have a bit of fearful awe.  Why? Well, he’s the mayor after all.  I feel that a bit around anyone who has power, a very wealthy person or a celebrity, heck, even a great chef or brilliant musician, even a large church pastor.    So if you’re talking to the Creator of reality, of the infinity of the universe, doesn’t feeling a little awe make some sense?   And clearly, Abraham knows that is who he is talking to.  

In your own prayer life, could you stand to have a bit more awe, and a bit more boldness?  Just this past week, I was talking with someone, whose spouse has not become a Christian.   And she said, even though I’ve been married to this wonderful man for years and years, only recently did I start praying for God to work in his life.   And she said that a few weeks ago, her husband said, “Well, you know I was christened so technically I am a Christian.”    She couldn’t believe her ears.  This came from a man who had hardly wanted to be associated with Christianity, much less admit any affiliation with it.  It gave her a little bit of awe.   Are you praying boldly for your family, for this church, for this community?  Are you praying with a bit of awe, with the realization that you are talking to the most powerful being in existence, who actually sustains existence?  

And as you pray, what are you praying for?   It’s a bit shocking what Abraham prays for.  When God talks about the great outcry that has come from Sodom and Gomorrah, the word outcry means the cries of the poor and oppressed.   God is telling Abraham. I have heard how awful these cities have become, how the innocent suffer at their hands.   And so I am going to bring justice.   And Abraham knows God’s right.    He has dealt with these cities, even fought them.  He knows how bad they are.   But he doesn’t say.  “Oh, yeah, God.  Take those people down.”  No, he says to God.  Please spare them.     He literally prays for his enemies, for people who richly deserve the justice God will bring.   Now, if you know more of Abraham’s story, you might say.  Well, Abraham does have a nephew there, who has a wife and two daughters.  So he’s really concerned about them.  Really?   If that was the case, couldn’t he have just said?  “Ok, God destroy them, but get my relatives out first.”  That would have been a far simpler prayer.   But no Abraham pleads for thousands of people who he doesn’t even know, who not only care nothing about him, but who may even be his enemies.   When you start having real conversations with God, you’ll pray for folks you might never have thought to pray for before, even your enemies.

But more than how Abraham pray or who he prays for, what is most mind-blowing is how Abraham argues his case.    In Abraham’s day, if someone in your family did an evil act, the whole family felt the responsibility for that evil.    They felt a collective guilt.  I’m sure it’s what many Muslims felt when they first heard about Oman Mateen, the shooter in Orlando.  

But Abraham makes a remarkable leap from there.   He asks God.   Could that work for the righteous?  Could the righteousness of say 50 people make up for the evil of thousands?    Could the credit of their righteousness cover the debt of the others’ wrong?   Would you save the evil for the sake of the righteous?   And what does God say?  God says yes.  Yes I will  

You see, Abraham knows that God has to see justice done, but he also knows God has shown forgiveness again and again.   Abraham has failed God a lot.    He has done pretty ugly things, and God has not walked away.   God has loved him in spite of that.    So, knowing that about God, he pushes the envelope, to see how far God’s compassion goes.   He gets God down from 50 to 45 to 40 to 30 to 20 to 10.  Will God save the cities for the sake of ten righteous people? Yes!  But hold it.  That’s when he goes home?  Why does he stop there?  Why doesn’t he go all the way?    Why doesn’t he go to one?  Why doesn’t he ask?  God would you save these cities for the sake of just one righteous person, just one?  

Why?   Because, Abraham realizes something.  There isn’t even one righteous person there.   He knows his nephew, Lot doesn’t make the mark.  More than that, Abraham knows he doesn’t make the mark either.   He realizes. No one on the face of the earth makes the mark.  Abraham has discovered the way to save not simply these cities, but everything and everyone.  After all, God has to deliver justice, and no one is innocent.  Yet, Abraham now knows.   For the love of just one righteous person, God will save everyone.  Yet even so, no one can open that way.   Because, no one is righteous, no not one.    

But what Abraham pointed to in that conversation God actually did, thousands of years later.    Since no one righteous could be found, in Jesus God became the righteous one.   And so while Abraham prayed for people who might kill him, in Jesus God prayed for people who were killing him.   Abraham risked his life before God for people who didn’t deserve it, but in Jesus God gave his life for people who didn’t merit at all.   Abraham represented the undeserving before God, and in doing that, he risked God’s anger.   But in Jesus, God represented us, and on that cross he didn’t just risk the cosmic wrath of God’s justice, he took it on himself for us.   So, we can ask the question that Abraham couldn’t.  God will you save not just these cities, but will you save everyone, all of us, for the sake of one, for the sake of one righteous person.   And we will hear God say.   Yes, I will.   No, more than that.  We will hear him say.  Yes, I have.       

As that beautiful old hymn put it:

On the mount of crucifixion Fountains opened deep and wide
Through the floodgates of God's mercy Flowed a vast and gracious tide
Grace and love, like mighty rivers Poured incessant from above
And Heaven's peace and perfect justice Kissed a guilty world in love.

And above all that is what God is saying to you.   You are far more flawed and messed up than you dare admit.   But you are infinitely more loved than you dare dream.   And if you listen, every word of this book proclaims that truth.   And if you listen, you will become humbler and bolder at the same time, as you realize how far you have fallen away, and how far God came to bring you home.  And as you see that grace, you will pray for everyone, even your enemies, as you realize how God prayed for you when you were his enemy.   And in that grace, you will come with confidence, knowing that God’s righteous love has covered everything for you.  

What gives you the power to pray, to really pray?  Knowing what God has done for you.  Do you know that?  Do you really know it?