Prayer as participation in the divine nature

This thought just occurred to me and I am not even sure if it is worth articulating, but here it goes: when I pray I am imitating God. I am not sure if that is actually the case or not...I need to think about it a bit more, but I think that it bears serious consideration. I know that I acknowledge my "creatureliness" to the universe when I converse with God. There is not greater trumpet of my contingency and lack of control over anything than my prayer life.

Yet I can't help but think that I am acting, more than a little bit, like God did in Genesis 1:26 and 3:22 when I converse with the Father in the name of the Son and in the power and direct supervision of the Holy Spirit. I can't help but think that the conversations that the members of the Trinity had and continue to have with each other are, in the most meager way imaginable. something like the conversations that I have with Him.

In fact, it seems to me that I can, with little effort, extrapolate this participation in His nature when I talk to others. That may be a bit of a better picture of Him than a prayer, but I am not sure. At any rate I am sure that I will think about this some more and try to more accurately explain why I think that me talking with Him and others is actually an imitation of Him.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

tightvnc keyboard mapping problem in Ubuntu 9.04

Image
I have been, off and on, having an issue with the keys on my keyboard mapping to the correct values when using the tightvnc client when paired with the vncserver vino in Ubuntu 9.04. I am not exactly sure what keyboard layout the client and server was expecting, but it seemed like every time I restarted the OS the keyboard mapping problem would come back and I would be at square one again. Well, I think I have found the workaround I was looking for . Hopefully this will help anyone else that is having this issue.
Read more

The manifestation of the "I" and the gift of self - Part 1

I am continuing my journey through Pope John Paul II's Theology of the Body and I had never realized how body-focused the 2nd and 3rd chapters of Genesis truly are.  But then it all makes so much more sense when it was brought to my attention that the body we have been given in a manifestation of me, or to put it another way, the "I". And it goes beyond that still. Not only does it reveal me, but my body also reveals, in no small measure, the image of God. That is not to say that God is made of flesh like me as is depicted in so many Renaissance paintings. The old man in the sky is nothing like the God as revealed in the Bible. However, the love that God is, the holiness that he is, the justice he is, the righteousness that he is...all of it is shown to the world through my body. In a very real way, my body allows for others, and for me, to participate in the mystery (the hiddenness) of the image of God. That is by design; from the beginning.  If God is revealed in nature...
Read more

Let me learn what I need to learn

In the “I don’t know what God is trying to produce in me…” portion of the blog: I work across (not with) an incredibly loud person. We are in cubes and he refuses to use a handset when he is in a conference call…or headphones. Everything is done via speaker phone. Maybe his handset is broken? I don’t know and am too timid (read “interested in keeping the peace”) to ask him. Of course he shouts into his speaker phone as well when he talks. Now he even refuses to use a keyboard. He has a speech recognition program that allows him to speak to the computer rather than type. Good for him! Now we can all hear “Comma…open parenthesis…close parenthesis…tab…tab...tab…” Was it my sin or my parents sin that relegated me to this placement in the office. We all know the answer to that but man…it sure feels like I am getting punished for something.
Read more