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"God remains hidden
from the arrogant gaze of our investigating mind
which seeks to capture him and secure permanent
possession of him in an act of knowledge that
gives power over him." -- Thomas
Merton, Contemplative Prayer,
p.82
Controlling
God
The temptation to control God
-- to be God -- goes back to the Garden
and remains fully alive today. It creeps up on us
with great subtlety. No snakes in trees.
Merton's quote, above, exposes one of
the usual disguises. At times, we want to know more
about Him so we can have power over Him. We hope
that our knowledge might domesticate Him; make Him
predictable and manageable.
We trade in that knowledge ... give
money for it and give authority to people who
know what we want to know. We all desire a God
we can understand and regulate. If possible, we would
reduce His mystery to consistent formulae and
reliable dictums.
It's precisely this
mentality that makes prayer both necessary and
difficult.
Prayer, at its richest, emerges from
the relational context of reverence and dependence, not
over-familiarity and demand. It won't pin Him down. We
can make requests and pleas but our most mature prayer
responds to God rather than bargains with Him.
In prayer we
surrender control of ourselves and our circumstances to
Him. Prayer becomes the very transference of control
-- something we resist in nearly every area of
our lives. When we pray, we submit --
or should.
Of course, we can utter "Your will be done" with
the intention that He'll really do our will. We
can offer what we have to Him, in the hope that
He'll repay in far more generous terms. Prayer -
the unformed and uninformed kind - usually seeks to
control the Father. However, the prayer of intimacy and
attentiveness produces deep submission on our
part.
Praying seems easy when
it's simply a system. We run through the
motions, follow the pattern, and copy the model.
But such prayer usually degenerates into either
heartless repetition or subtle
manipulation.
May our prayers change our hearts before they move
God's. May they hand Him control. And in the
act of yieldedness and trust, we'll discover the most authentic
partnership of all.
In HOPE -
David | 
