I was talking with a friend the other day who is not a Christian and he asked me a question about prayer. "How do you know prayer is real? Or that the God you pray to is real?" It's a great question. And one I can find myself struggling with at times. I am not a man who takes much on faith. I have always been a skeptic. I have always been someone who needs to see the proof. I need to feel it, touch it, hold it in my hands. Because of the life experiences I have had, I am deeply cynical at times as well and that only makes things harder for me in terms of my faith. So without knowing it, my friend had pressed into a sensitive area for me. But in this particular instance, I found myself responding almost automatically, "I know prayer is real and I know God is real because he often tells me "No." Now I have to say that these words could not be my own. I had never had this thought before in my life. Somehow, someway, in this moment, in this conversation, this deep and profound truth crystallized for me and God made himself real to me (and my friend) yet again.
The people who share my faith talk a lot about having a personal relationship with God. We believe that God came to earth literally in the person of Jesus Christ in order to establish that relationship with us once and for all. We talk about how Christianity is not a religion but a relationship with the living Lord of the universe. But I am not altogether convinced that we really understand the depth of the friendship God desires to have with us. God isn't interested in being our sugar daddy. God isn't interested in being our therapist. God isn't interested in being our jury, judge, and executioner. God desires to be our father and God desires to be our friend. I think of Moses who spoke to God face to face. I think of Abraham whom God literally called a friend. Both of these men, among many other men and women throughout the Bible, truly understood what it meant to have a deep relationship, a great friendship with God. You see it in how they interact. They aren't afraid to argue, to fight, to talk, to share, to be vulnerable. They don't treat God like some cosmic bellhop here to meet their every whim and desire. They endure God's silences. They respect God when he tells them "No." They fall down in fear and humble submission when he confronts them on their sin. Most of all, they trust God has their back and their best in mind.
This is the essence of a truly great friendship and I shared all this with my friend. It was rather eye-opening for him as he had always judged the efficacy of prayer on the basis of the results it achieved. If God came through in the way my friend desired, then prayer must work. If God didn't come through then maybe God didn't exist. But this is not true friendship. True friends are able to say "No" to one another. They don't demand. They don't force. They don't require the other person to live life on their terms. It is give and take. It is honest. Real. Messy. Authentic. And that's the kind of friendship God wants with us.
We cannot "intellectualize what is at bottom the exchange of life with life." (Paul Scherer) The heart of the Christian faith is not a list of rules or set of demands nor is it a cheap and easy and superficial grace. It is the intersection of our lives with God. It is that deeply intimate space where God and I stand face to face in the mutual give and take of friend with friend. This is where we hash out how we will live together, walk together, serve together, love together. Like any great friendship, it takes time. Lots of time. And an investment of ourselves from the deepest resources of our souls. We can hold nothing back if we wish this friendship to grow. Faith that is strong and deep is not argumentative or intellectual or philosophical or academic. It is built on the love of a great friendship with God himself.