Prayer in the Theater

As a scuba diver, I have always been amazed at the richness of the colors, the diversity of life, the amazing creatures that God placed beneath the waves. I am also a bit dismayed at the condition we have allowed this piece of our superintendency to fall to, but that's for another time. John Calvin referred to the world as a "theater of God's glory." There is nothing in it that is left to chance. Most often, things work precisely in harmony as God intended, no matter our interference and the impact of our fall on His creation. As a scientist who studies things under the seas, I have seen such things as what is called "social foraging" in which two unrelated species travel together, one following another, one uncovering food for itself and in the process stirring up food for the other. I have also seen what we may consider the violence of predation, one species killing and eating another. There is beauty, and cooperation, there is sand - there is violence and conflict, there is mud; yet all of it is a part of the real world.

We are part of that same real world. We live in it, make our way in it, love in it, plan in it, experience pain in it, experience joy in it. Every part of this "theater of God's glory" carries His fingerprint. And so we live in this material reality, and it impacts us. Prayer also exists in this theater, and is every bit as real. In "Answering God," Peterson says it this way:

"....there is no prayer, real prayer, outside the theater. Dissociated from creation, prayer drifts into silly sentimentalism, or snobbish mysticism, or pious elitism.

....The Word did not become a good idea, or a numinous feeling, or a moral aspiration: the Word became flesh and then went on to change water into wine and wine into blood."

I think about the real grit of the psalms and of the psalmist. When I was young, I encountered the "heroes of the Bible" as just that; glorified men and women who rose above the everyday, seemingly above it all. But they were not. See David as he hides from Absalom his son, who instigated a coup and ran David off into the wilderness, the same wilderness in which David hid from Saul years before, fighting for his life. Consider David as he sinned and repented before God - he was no spotless lamb. He was, however, "a man after God's own heart." He was cold, he was hungry, he was dirty, he was scared. He rejoiced, he danced, he praised, he sang. No mere enlightened gnostic spiritual teacher, David was fully immersed in the physical, he was a "theater-goer." And he prayed like it. Many times he begged, pleaded, bargained, argued, complained, was dismayed and all was not always to his liking - and he said so to God. Yet each time, he seemingly went back to the same place - that God had it under control and David acquiesced to Him. Why? Because David knew who God was. How? Because he talked with God, he listened to God, he knew God's words, and he believed them. He walked with God from his youth, he prayed. David prayed in the context of the material, physical world in which he lived, and that is how we should do it. Prayer is never separate from our story, it is not a compartment of our life. Prayer is not a laundry list, it is a conversation, perhaps about the laundry, but a conversation none the less. Share your life in the theater with the One who created it, and then listen for His answer.