Friday, July 04, 2014

Praying to a Creator God (Prayer Summer 2014)


1. If there is no Creator, then this universe is no creation.
2. This universe is a creation.
3. Therefore, God exists.

Linda and I and our son Josh are spending today next to Sleeping Bear Dunes in northern Michigan. Today Josh and I will go down a 400' dune and climb back up. Signs like these will greet us.


When we arrive at the dune overlook we'll look on this:



We went here last night and just... looked...  For me this is wordless, non-discursive experience.


When I consider your heavens,
    the work of your fingers,
the moon and the stars,
    which you have set in place,
what is mankind that you are mindful of them,
    human beings that you care for them?
Ps. 8:3-4


David Bentley Hart writes: "The human longing for God or the transcendent runs very deep— perhaps far too deep to be trusted, but also too deep to treat as mere primitive folly— and it has produced much good and much evil in human history. It lies at the heart of all human culture." (Hart, The Experience of God, p. 6, Yale University Press.)

Paul says the same in Romans 1:20: 

For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, 
so that people are without excuse.

I have no excuse. When I look out on the world I see a creation that transcends nature. But there is more.

I am a creation of God. I am God's handiwork. The God who made the heavens and earth and moon and stars and dunes is my Maker as well. 

God is mindful of me and cares for me. When I pray, this is Whom I address. When I listen in prayer, this Creator God addresses me. 

When you pray today, you are meeting with your Maker.

***
See also:

Praying to a Non-physical God (Prayer Summer 2014)