Addressing God

How do you address God in prayer? Is it personal or is it stale and rehearsed? Unless I find the right name to address God by, I have to question from the get go how free or real my connection with Him might be. If I can only address God on general terms, I cannot find a personal connection. If I have to put the word "the" before the term I use to address God, it is only an anonymous prayer. It is general and not personal.

There are moments you read through the Psalms and other spiritual writers to find a bursting prayer connection, and it most often comes from the address of God at the get go. Anthony Bloom says these moments "burst out with something which has the quality of a nickname, something which no one else could possibly say...which is made possible only because there is a relationship."

The Psalmist comes right out and says, "You are my Joy." Not that God is joy (which he is). Not that God is the Almighty (which He is). Our prayer becomes personal when we are not only stating facts about God, but when we come out of the gate personally addressing God with relational terms.

You are my God. You are my joy. You are my refuge. You are my greatest good...

I want change but not really

The majority of us can admit a need for change within ourselves.  We know the parts of our lives where change is needed and would be favorable.  For some of us, we know these things well as we continually obsess over them and dwell on them for long periods of time. A majority of us, if asked, could give a great account of the deep wounds and hurts as well as the hang-ups and struggles that plague us all the time.  We know where change is needed.  We know where healing is needed within our lives.

What great relief we would know if we could be healed!  What a wonderful instance it would be if there was a great healer and physician to heal and bring change to the areas we most need them!

Another majority of us would say, "But there is!"  There is a great physician who is capable of changing and healing those areas that darken our daily lives.  We know God calls us to him for that healing and change.

There is one great problem!  The problem is in the way we come to that healer.  The problem is in how we come to God.

We typically come to God without those things which need to be healed and changed.  We most often come to God with our spiritual selves, our spiritual words, spiritual actions, spiritual presentations.  We come with all the pretty parts and leave the ugly parts that NEED the healing and the change.

We "come to God" in our prayer (among other ways), but how do we pray?  What do we pray?  Do we come praying all of the pretty words we have learned?  Do we pray the pretty things that look very spiritual and "okay" or "fine"?

What a shame that we who know we need healing refuse to bring the parts of ourselves that need change before the master healer and physician!

Transformation and change is possible to us who need it so drastically, and we, the majority, refuse to bring those areas before God who is capable and willing to heal and transform.