By Drew Williams
Sentinel Columnist
When a doctoral student at Princeton asked Albert Einstein, “What is there left in the world for original dissertation research?” he replied, “Find out about prayer. Somebody must find out about prayer.”
I have not always been a pastor. In fact, I started my career as a litigation attorney. I recall very clearly how strange faith appeared—in particular, I was highly skeptical of prayer. From afar, prayer appeared to be well intended but serving no practical purpose, save making the person who indulged in prayer feel a little better. I recall that in describing some challenge or difficulty to a friend, he might say he would pray for me. My unspoken response was always, “Thanks for the offer, but I have a real problem here.” On the other hand, there were times when I caught myself praying and wondered why I had taken leave of my senses. It was almost as if I was somehow hardwired to pray.
But what if this impulse to pray was actually, all the time, God’s initiative? The psychiatrist Gerald C. May wrote, “After 20 years of listening to the yearnings of other people’s hearts, I am convinced that human beings have an inborn desire for God. Whether we are consciously religious or not, this desire is our deepest longing and most precious treasure.”
With this precious treasure in mind, C.S Lewis writes, “An ordinary simple Christian kneels down to say his prayers. He is trying to get into touch with God. But if he is a Christian he knows that what is prompting him to pray is also God: God, so to speak, inside him. But he also knows that all his real knowledge of God comes through Christ, the Man who was God—that Christ is standing beside him, helping him to pray, praying for him… The man is being caught up into the higher kinds of life—what I called Zoe or spiritual life: he is being pulled into God, by God, while still remaining himself.”
I had the privilege of baptizing many adults and young adults this summer.
I recall a particular sunrise baptism service in early August.
As I led a good friend into the waters, he paused and said, “Right up until this very moment, God has constantly pursued. I can see so clearly that in His love, He has always taken the initiative.”
Perhaps we can look back on our lives and see something of the same or perhaps it is a whole new idea that, even in our half-finished prayers, God is, all the time, taking the initiative and reaching out to us. Soren Kierkegaard wrote, “You have loved us first, O God, alas! We speak of it in terms of history as if You have only loved us first but a single time, rather than that without ceasing You have loved us first many things and every day and our whole life through. When we wake up in the morning and turn our soul toward You—You are the first—You have loved us first; if I rise at dawn and at the same second turn my soul toward You in prayer, You are there ahead of me, You have loved me first. When I withdraw from the distractions of the day and turn my soul toward You, You are the first and thus forever.”
Drew Williams is senior pastor at Trinity Church in Greenwich.
