(An exploration of our relationship with God in 4 parts)
Endings, beginnings, ongoings: “Amen”, “Come with me”, “Let’s go Lord”
Part 1: Amen
This article is very personal as I try to describe an aspect of my relationship with God. If you are left wondering, “What on earth is he talking about?”, then please just move swiftly on to something else. However, I’m putting forward these comments, as always in my blog, in the hope that they may be helpful to some people. I think there is a theological dimension – that is, what ideas about my relationship with God do they express, but also a psychological dimension, that throws light on the inner dynamics of my relationship with him.
When I say, “Amen”, it could mean, “Get on with it, Lord! I’ve told you what I need, now I expect you to get on and deliver the goods”. I don’t think this is a particularly good attitude! With a prayer, we do say, “Amen”, but it’s intended in a thankful, confident note of trust – “I have made my prayer to you, Lord, and now, as I leave it with you, to act according to your wisdom and grace, I add my “Amen” to say, “Let it be so”. What we are declaring in saying “Amen” is that, to whatever degree our prayer is good and pure and lovely, that God will honour the goodness of the prayer, and be at work to bring it about. This is, of course, subject to the limitations that God works within to act within a material world, in a moral way. This important point will wait for another occasion – we are simply recognising now that making a prayer is not an automatic process whereby God waves a magic wand to give us whatever we want. When I say, “We leave our prayer with God”, I do not mean that we thereby simply abandon all responsibility for achieving the outcome that we want. I think that a very big dimension of prayer is us articulating before God what we would like as a good – and therefore Godly – outcome, and trustfully placing it in God’s hands because we acknowledge his sovereignty, goodness and love, only for God to respond, “Thank you very much; I’m now handing responsibility for achieving the good outcome of this prayer back to you. As you have so beautifully explored what is required, and committed yourself to serving me, then it is obvious to me (that is, God) that you are the ideal person to achieve the good outcome you pray for”. Of course, the crucial transformation is that we are now acting in the power of, and in the company of, God.
So, I think, at its best, saying “Amen” is a powerful, but gentle, yet decisive, transformative ending. In our prayer we have reached the conclusion of what it is we desire, and entrusted that to God, who is “the all in all” ultimate repository of all that is good and pure and lovely. When we can do no more, we say, “Lord, I hand it over to you; I place my concerns, my life, in your hands, and now I trust you for whatever happens next” – and sometimes God hands that back to us, but as a shared mission. “Amen” is therefore an ending of our search, our distress and confusion, our struggle to know what to do and how to do it, because we have been able to say our prayer and add our “Amen” to it. As we have recognised, it can also be a beginning, because God honours the commitment we have made to living a new kind of life. However, for me, most often, it is an end of striving, a release of a burden into God’s love. I rest in my “Amen” because I delight in God’s loving care. So, “Amen” is both an ending and a beginning: I leave my distress and my hopes with God in trustful peace, for I believe he is at work to answer my prayer, and I now need to get on living in tune with my prayer, so that my prayer is not an abdication of my responsibility and a simple “dumping” on God, but instead my prayer is a joint consultation on how to go forward, and then I and God travel that way together.
Spiritual Devotion 