Endings, beginnings, ongoings: “Amen”, “Come with me”, “Let’s go Lord”
Part 3: Let’s go Lord
This leads me on to the third of my key “prayer words or phrases” and that is, “Let’s go Lord”. This is my way to attempt to express this sense of dynamic flow. In our life with the Lord, there is not simply an ending, nor a beginning, but there is always an ongoing relationship. This is already implied in God’s call to, “Come with me”, but “Let’s go, Lord” is my way to express my “Yes! Yes, Lord, I will come with you”. It expresses both trust and confidence in God’s ability to guide and strengthen, as well as the joy and peace that flow from his presence. It recognises the supreme blessing of being rooted into God, with your “feet on the right path”. It gathers up our commitment to stay true to God, to follow his way and to rely on his strength and guidance. “Let’s go, Lord” expresses delight that we are not alone, nor will we ever be. The relationship that we have entered into with God is an ongoing one of being in his presence, surrounded by his love, and being accompanied by him on the way. It expresses that whatever we do that flows from our “Amen”, that is, whatever we do under God’s guidance as he and we together respond to the prayer that we have made, is done jointly, in companionship with God, and, most fundamentally, in union with God.
We are not alone, for the Lord is with us. This is the very heart of the spiritual life. We are always our own person. We do not lose responsibility for ourselves, even if we feel that we have “lost ourselves” in union with God. I am me, and you are you. In order to honour God’s extra-ordinary gift in creation, his self-emptying, in order to make space for us to exist as independent, autonomous beings, we must not allow even our utter devotion to God to take away our sense of personhood. I am me, but I am not God. God is separate to me, even if, by faith and grace, we attain a union with him. I think our union is a reality, though clearly we are stretching the meaning of words here. Perhaps I prefer the word “communion”, that in the spiritual life we are enabled to live in communion with him. This expresses the idea that there are two persons involved in this relationship. However, because the union is so real, the communion brings our two persons into what we might consider as a joint personality, or a corporate existence, whereby, we are so intertwined with God, that where one is, there is the other. I do not mean this in some pantheistic way, as though we, as individuals, are somehow taken into the Godhead – there is always a distinction between creator and creature. However, this very depth of distinction emphasises how extraordinary gracious and powerfully effective is the sense of union with God that he allows, by sharing our lives – his life with us, and ours with him, so that the boundary between us and God is dissolved in the resonance of our spirit with his Spirit. It is difficult to explore this more deeply; we can end up using high-sounding words which are difficult to understand, but perhaps in our most powerful encounters with God we experience what it is we are trying to explain. The goal I was trying to reach is to express that relationship where two truly do become one. Thus, “Let’s go, Lord” expresses that impetus and commitment to go forward with God, and to live our lives with him, our lives immeasurably enriched by his life within us. We have not simply left our prayer with God when we said, “Amen” – though we did do that. We have not simply set out to love and serve God, as he commissioned us and sent us out on mission – though we did do that too. In our prayer, we have reached out to God, and he has responded by enfolding us in his grace. Together we have entered into a spiritual consensus about what to do in response to our prayer and God’s calling of us. We have then set out together to do it.
Spiritual Devotion 