Recently I’ve been focusing on the way agape has improved my prayer life over the last few years. As I’ve mentioned before in this blog, the scripture verses that speak to much of that are Rom. 5:5; 8:26-28, which link the Holy Spirit with agape, and thus show the Holy Spirit praying through us and for us.
In those verses (Rom. 5:5; 8:26-28), we find the basis for God not only giving us the agape of God through the Holy Spirit, but also we find that when we are living with the agape of God, our best prayer practice comes out of realizing that the Holy Spirit actually is returning the agape of God from us to God. In other words, when we agapao God, it is not a case where the human generates agape for God.
The reason for accepting agape as a gift from God is because of the need for accepting the way agape flows through us. If, on the other hand, we acted as though agape was merely a form of human love, then we would have the basic attitude that we generated agape. But the best prayer practice is to be in God’s agape with God. In that spiritual sense, we would be in the agape relationship with God, that God initiated -- rather than think we ourselves are ‘loving’ God with our human-generated affection and adoration. Many religious writers (such as Thomas Merton) have called such prayer, "infused contemplation."
If I try to think of the infinite vastness of God’s Presence, I find it to be dumbfounding that any human could form a relationship with God. Such actions don’t seem to be humanly possible. Our necessary humility before the vastness of God (for example, as portrayed in the last chapters of Job), leaves us realizing that our very limited reasoning ability can’t help us begin to know how to form such a relationship.
The only way such a relationship could be possible is if God initiated it. That of course was one of the key themes of Paul’s writings. One way he expressed it is Rom. 5:5 where he said that our hope lies in the agape of God being given to us through the Holy Spirit. So the more I’ve prayed about that verse for the last several years, the more I’ve come to understand that verse to mean that agape is our God-given access to a relationship with God. In the Gospel of John it is expressed, of course, in those famous verses showing how Jesus was sent to the world to teach how to live by agape and how humans can be accepted into the eternal Life relationship with God. (Jn. 3:16-36)
It is such teaching that I bring into my prayer practices, as I open up to let God’s agape draw me close to God’s Presence.
Nicely put. I would take from that (and my own journeying) that agape is part of our makeup, given by our Creator, that we are called to use to connect to the source. Some of us need to be more intentional about the connection than others, (speaking personally of course.) Then again, some folks go through live never knowing that is agape is possible or intended.
ReplyDeleteThat was also 'nicely put.' I agree that God gives us agape, but also the freedom to use it for our own good. Unfortunately, it's then possible to misuse the freedom in a way that ignores all the wonder that is possible when we accept agape. When we use agape in the right way, we can open up to develop our true identity with the vastness of God's Presence.
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