My girlfriend’s grandmother said something recently that has been present on my mind: “You can’t out-give God.” Whether it is time, money, energy, or lately, remembrance, you can never outmatch the everlasting love of our heavenly Father.
I came to a verse in Jonah that spoke to this idea of remembering the free-flowing gifts of God and the importance of remembering his faithfulness:
“When my life was ebbing away, I remembered you, Lord, and my prayer rose to you, to your holy temple.” (Jonah 2:7)
Jonah was speaking from a place of utter hopelessness, the belly of the fish that swallowed him in his disobedience. When he was at rock bottom, when his life had fully eroded, he called out to the Lord. Ebbs and flows in life are incessant, but our Father is unchanging. This is a potent reminder that we often seek God at our lowest and oftentimes shelve a daily remembrance of Him when life is going well. We tend to take God for granted, fostering an inconsistent up-and-down spiritual life. I, myself, came to a crossroads when I realized that I talked to God the most when I was presenting him with requests.
I had an intervention with myself to reevaluate the kind of prayer life I wanted to build moving forward. When I thought about my spiritual goals for the year earlier in January, I knew I wanted to work on two areas of my relationship with God: ask less and thank more, and be more active in pursuing the Lord when I was at the peak of the mountain. I needed to spend less time lamenting the arduous miles to the top of the hike and wishing I was elsewhere than exactly where God wanted me. We forget to remember God at the peaks because we are so accustomed to crying out for help when at the bottom. But remembering the Lord means more than recounting a list, presenting him with an itemized sheet of everything good that has happened. It is a surrendering to His love that transforms our responsiveness to the varied currents that can stabilize and rattle our day-to-day. Following God’s instructions on bad days is much harder than when your greatest ambitions have come to fruition. The Lord wants us to come to him in times of hardship, “[f]or My yoke is easy, and My burden is light” (Matthew 11:30). He wants to relieve us of our anxieties and reward our faithfulness—but remembrance should not come at the expense of His constancy. Jonah was calling out when he knew he was in distress when he or no other human could save him from drowning in his despair. Only the undying mercy and love of God could save him from himself when his life was in the balance.
Some questions I have been asking myself this week:
- When am I thinking the most about God or my relationship with Him?
- Where do dependence and reverence converge in my prayers?
- I depend on God for stability, comfort, and unconditional reciprocal love. I depend on His grace and revere Him for His merciful heart and for sharing it with me. I revere Christ for justifying my sins through His blood and guaranteeing my salvation, and depend on his judgment to assure my eternal life.
I speak to God through my pen. I feel that I am in the closest communication with Him when I am writing and/or reflecting on the Word—even more so than during prayer. I can remember God the way scripture implores us to through writing, not only because I can come back to my thoughts instead of having to reimagine them, but because I can be more organized about exactly what I want to say. It is an active form of remembrance for me because I am also able to see changes and maturation in my spiritual life. In the past, I have found myself frustrated in prayer when I cannot articulate what is on my heart and mind. Writing has given me the license to mess up, to be able to sit and think before I immediately hit the keys. I can revise my work, come back later, or change my exigence whenever I feel the main point has become buried in superfluous details. Writing has softened my approach to prayer, as I have realized I don’t have to know exactly what to say at all times. It doesn’t mean I am unprepared to approach God, but spending time remembering Him is more of a process than a product. God never goes halfway with us and there is so much encouragement to be found in knowing His hand is always extended towards us whether we are reaching for it, absent-minded, or turned around. I don’t want to only remember God when I am in the belly of the fish. I want my walk with the Lord to grow from sturdier roots, firmly in place in all seasons of life.
Tristan, my favorite part of your blog post is talking about how writing plays a role in how to speak to God. I find that this is the same for me. I think we can all benefit from writing and thinking about how that can get us closer to understanding God. Wonderful post!
“ I needed to spend less time lamenting the arduous miles to the top of the hike and wishing I was elsewhere than exactly where God wanted me.” I loved this image that you depicted of our walk through life. So often I find my prayers pushing for what’s “next” but then down the road I find myself looking back and missing the events of the past. God has us where we need to be & it’s so important to remember thankfulness for the present. This is my favorite post of yours yet!! 🙂
Amen!
This post made me think about the verse in Romans that tells us we don’t know how to pray as we ought but the spirit intercedes on our behalf. (Ro 8:26. So we have both Jesus and the Holy Spirit interceding for us. Knowing this comforts me. It also encourages me to pray in the spirit more.
Wonderfully put. I also have started to consider how many of my prayers are requests versus how many are simply giving thanks. Maybe focusing too much on the former keeps us obsessed with the future, while embracing more of the latter helps tether us more intimately to the present which God has placed in front of us. I am not sure. Looking forward to exploring prayer more deeply. Lovely article—thanks for sharing.
I can relate to so much of what you have shared here. Thank you for this insight!