Living As If

Dave Brisbin 10.11.26 You have not because you ask not…all things for which you pray and ask, believe that you have received them, and they will be granted to you…whatever you ask in my name, that I will do…if you ask the Father for anything in my name, he will give it to you. This is all more or less like putting a loaded pistol the hands of an eight-year-old. Between Jesus and James, misunderstandings abound. How are we supposed to understand sayings like these when our human needs scream so loudly our prayers can’t consist of much else? We want to believe our prayers, our askings, will be answered as formulated, yet they seem never to exceed the law of averages in desperately desired outcomes. We humans naturally see God in human terms, gauge God’s attributes—love, forgiveness, acceptance—as action verbs that God may or may not choose to give, as a human would. But scripture tells us God is love, unchanging, degreeless, as oblivious to the state of recipients as sun and rain. God doesn’t choose to give—what God is can’t be withheld. Approaching God is simply approaching every quality God is. God is what God has eternally chosen. The rest is up to us by whatever James and Jesus mean by asking. Jesus said in all things for which we pray and ask, believe that we have received them, and they will be granted. Problem is that last phrase is a translator’s addition. The ancient texts simply stop at believe you have received. This is no passive request for something withheld from a God who has eternally chosen. The word translated as belief includes both faith and trust: if we faith-act as if what we long for is already present, we will experience trust—the sensation of no longer being afraid. Jesus says if we ask in his name, it will be so. So we tack on in Jesus’ name to the end of our prayers like an incantation, but shem, name, is also essence, character. To ask in Jesus’ essence is to value what Jesus values, desire God’s eternal choice. There is no formula for making God give us what we want. True asking is the realization that by living as if the essence of God for which we long is already present, we find out it is.