2022-10-30 Prayer - Approach God as the First Thing in Your Life

“I’m bored!” How many of you have ever heard a kid say that? How many of you have ever said that? How many of you still say it? So what is the feeling of boredom?

Boredom – the feeling of being wearied by dullness, tedious repetition, etc. Dictionary.com

Weariness caused by dull, tiresome people or events. World Book Dictionary

Here’s hoping this sermon won’t be dull and tiresome or that you find me dull and tiresome!

I think most of us would also add the idea of having nothing to do. We’ve run out of interesting things to do. We’re tired of the same old things again and again.

Certainly, its true that the same things can be dull and boring to one person and very interesting to the next. If you like doing puzzles, you find them a good way to relax. If you don’t, you’re soon wishing for something else to do. If you like reading, curling up with a good book sound enticing. If the thought of reading makes your eyelids droop, I’ll probably more likely find you outside doing something physical.

It’s probably also fair to say that most of us don’t like to be bored. We like to be engaged; we want to do things that we find interesting.

Can boredom ever be a good thing? What are some good things about being bored? Shout them out.

In a 2020 article in Forbes magazine called “Why Neuroscientists Say, ‘Boredom Is Good For Your Brain’s Health.’”, Bryan Robinson, Ph.D. says, ” Neuroscientist Alicia Walf, a researcher in the Department of Cognitive Science at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, says it’s critical for brain health to let yourself be bored from time to time. Being bored, she says, improves social connections. Social neuroscientists have found that the brain has a default network mode that is on when we’re disengaged from doing. Boredom can actually foster creative ideas, refilling your dwindling reservoir, replenishing your work mojo and providing an incubation period for embryonic work ideas to hatch. In those moments that might seem boring, empty and needless, strategies and solutions that have been there all along in some embryonic form are given space and come to life. And your brain gets a much needed rest when we’re not working it too hard. Famous writers have said their most creative ideas come to them when they’re moving furniture, taking a shower or pulling weeds. These eureka moments are called insight.”

In other words, you sometimes have to stop doing in order to move forward. The article went on to say, “The Italians have a name for it: “il dolce far niente”—the sweetness of doing nothing. It doesn’t translate in the United States, where tasks and schedules define us. The closest translation we have is “killing time.” But “il dolce far niente” demands more: to intentionally let go and prioritize being alongside of doing.”

Here’s where the Paraguayans among us have got it figured out with their Maté time! Intentionally stopping and doing nothing while they drink Maté.

What Drives our Desire for God?

So, why all this talk about boredom?

Well, today we come to my last sermon on the PAPA Prayer. I’ll quickly review all the aspects.

“P: Present yourself to God without pretense.

A: Attend to how you’re thinking of God.

P: Purge yourself of anything blocking your relationship with God. Then our theme for today,

A: Approach God as the ‘first thing’ in your life, as your most valuable treasure, the Person you most want to know. (blank)

Well, stay with me. When I’m engaged with an activity or a person, I have a sense of fullness in my soul. When I’m bored, I have a sense of emptiness in my soul. Nothing in my life in that moment is satisfying me. Not an activity and not any people. Boredom is a sense of emptiness. Nothing to do.

Now think of prayer. Think of our desire to know God and be known by him. Our desire to hear from God and be in relationship to him. What drives that desire? What makes you want more in terms of God? What is this relational longing?

There are two key things that drive our desire to be with God. They are quite different and yet intertwined.

The first one is a prior experience of deep relationship. If you have once had a really good friend, you know what it is like and what it gives you; companionship, belonging, good times, etc. In terms of God, if you have had a deep relationship with God in the past, if you have experienced his love and care you will want more of him. You will continue to pursue him. Our past good experiences of God cause us to desire more of him.

The other thing that drives our desire for God is an internal sense of emptiness. Think about human relationships. Why do people pursue relationships, apart from the hormones? Loneliness. We don’t want to be alone. There is something about knowing someone and being known by that someone that draws us. In our state of loneliness, we want more than what we have. Our lives feel empty, so we pursue relationship. It’s the emptiness that drives us towards others. This is true if we haven’t experienced good relationships and if we have. I have talked to people who haven’t had a close relationship with a parental figure. Either because they had died or abandoned them or because they were unhealthy parents, and the relationship wasn’t positive. The longing for a good relationship is still there.

This emptiness inside, is the same emptiness that we experience with boredom, an emptiness because the things and people in our live aren’t satisfying us. This emptiness drives us towards something more. This emptiness has been a part of us ever since the Fall in the garden of Eden. We desire God because we were designed to have in a deep relationship with him. We were designed in such a way that the deepest part of our souls would only be satisfied by him. In a sense, we have a vacuum inside that only God can fill. Blaise Pascal, a French mathematician, physicist, religious philosopher said “What else does this craving, and this helplessness proclaim but that there was once in man a true happiness, of which all that now remains is the empty print and trace? This he tries in vain to fill with everything around him, seeking in things that are not there, the help he cannot find in those that are, though none can help, since this infinite abyss can be filled only with an infinite and immutable object; in other words by God himself”

Psalm 42 captures both the emptiness and past experiences of God that drive us towards God. (Read Psalm 42) (blank) The Psalmist talks about his longing, his soul being downcast. I hear in this his internal emptiness that he longs for God to fill. He also talks about having spent time in worship in the past and hoping to do so again.

The PAPA Prayer Leads to Emptiness

The first three parts of the PAPA prayer accentuate and make known this emptiness of our souls.

The more that you are real in how you present yourself to God, the more you accurately and honestly describe your present state, the more you will realize that you need help. That you don’t have it all figured out, that you need a guide and healer.

The more you attend to your image of God and correct it according to what the Bible reveals, the more you realize that he is incredibly loving, all-powerful, and completely just. His holiness is terrifying and his love overwhelming. The more you gain a correct view of God the more you will desire and long for union with him. You’ll discover that he is your king and your best friend.

The more you purge everything that blocks your relationship with God, the more you discover that these things that you’ve pursued, these ways of living that are not loving towards God and people are in reality idols that draw you away from God. And once you purge them, you find yourself strangely empty. Longing for something to fill the vacuum.

Isn’t this true? Haven’t you experienced this in your life before? When has God often been most real to you? Hasn’t it been in times of greatest loss?

When the person you loved deeply has passed away or a relationship you relied on has died, and you’re all alone. Isn’t in times like this that you have experienced God’s love wash over you? Filling the emptiness that is there.

When you’ve realized that the thing in life that you’ve pursued, the sports championship, mastering a song, the holiday you’ve always dreamed of taking, etc., etc., doesn’t give you what it hoped you would. Isn’t it in times like this that you’ve found your emptiness filled by God?

When you’ve been deeply convicted of sin and you realize how far away from God you are and how empty you feel. All alone. Then God’s Spirit flowed in and reassured you that you were forgiven and that you were not alone, that he loves you beyond measure.

You see, it is in times of emptiness that we experience God most deeply. It’s in times of emptiness that we often turn to God. When everything is going fine and our hearts are full, we don’t turn towards God.

Embrace this emptiness. Don’t run away from it. Lean into it.

At the same time as I’ve been reading and working through the PAPA prayer book which speaks of this emptiness, I’ve also been reading a book called Spiritual Authority by Dr. Rob Reimer. On Thursday I brought our van in to be serviced at Toyota. So I brought Reimer’s book along to read while I was waiting. I couldn’t believe it when he spoke of this same sense of emptiness in the pursuit of God. Here’s what he said,

“It is hard to pursue the face of God with persistence. There are dry spells and hard places. Getting alone with God is sometimes just plain lonely. There is often an element of emptiness associated with pursuit. Even when I feel His presence, sometimes I still feel this emptiness associated with pursuit. Even when I feel His presence, sometimes I still feel this emptiness inside. It is actually a homesickness; I feel homesick for Heaven. And if you’ve ever felt homesick, it doesn’t feel good. It is a good in one sense; it means e have someplace to call home, someone who welcomes us, loves us, and is waiting for us. What it symbolizes is rich and meaningful, but the feeling here on earth—well, it isn’t pleasant.”

Are you homesick for God? Have you ever been? I can remember that exact feeling 15 years ago when I was severely depressed. I was as empty as I could possibly be. All I wanted to do was to go to heaven to be with Jesus.

“As the deer pants for water, so my soul pants for you, my God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When can I go and meet with God?” Psalm 42:1, 2

We will not find God, truly be in a deep, deep relationship with him unless we come to a place of emptiness.

Approach God as the 'First Thing' in Your Life.

The temptation we face all day long is to fill the emptiness inside with other things. Things that are evil and things that are good. Satan tells us that sexual fulfillment will fill the emptiness. It doesn’t. He tells us that achieving success will fill the emptiness. It doesn’t. He tells us that a loving family and a house will fill it. It doesn’t. He tells us that our hobbies and good desires will fill it. It doesn’t. Don’t try to fill your life with other good things to get rid of the emptiness. These are all secondary desires, second things. Many good. They can’t fill an emptiness that only God can fill. Every one of these evil things and good things on this earth that is in our lives cannot fill the emptiness inside. Every one of them will be taken away. Family members die, fame disappears, hobbies come and go, our health disappears, our work comes to an end. Our wealth fritters away or gets left to our heirs. Then we will either go to eternal emptiness in Hell, where it will never be filled or we go to our eternal home with Jesus and our greatest longings will be fulfilled in him.

Since this is our future, why not embrace the emptiness while we are here, cultivate it and pursue God so that he can become the first thing in our life. “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength.”

You see, all these thing that we want in life, all the good things are second things. None of them have meaning apart from God. Without God’s presence, none of them have value. It’s not that God doesn’t want you to have any of them or that he doesn’t want you to enjoy them or that he doesn’t want you to pursue them. If God has granted you a family, enjoy your family! If God has granted you solid friends who build you up, revel in those friendships. If God has granted you a fulfilling career, work hard in it and make a difference. But none of these things as good as they are, should be first in your life. Make God first. When these things don’t fulfill you and you feel this sense of emptiness, thank God that you do! Pursue him. He is the only one who can fill you, he is the only one who can give living water for your thirsty soul.

Cultivating Emptiness

Some of you might be thinking that you don’t really feel any emptiness, nor do you want to. The want to I can’t really address other than to say that only God can change this. However, be warned, it may come through pain and heartache.

As far as not feeling any emptiness but still wanting to pursue God. Awesome! Pursue him. There is a saying that you have to get to the end of your rope before you make needed changes. I disagree. I have often made needed changes because I looked down the rope and new that if I didn’t change now, I would soon get to the end, when it would be much harder to make those changes. You can pursue God even if you aren’t feeling empty. You can also cultivate emptiness. How? Pray the first three parts of the PAPA prayer. Fast and pray. I want to talk about fasting in a future sermon. I haven’t done much fasting, not nearly enough. But when I have, I have used the hunger pangs to remind me to hunger for God more. Another way to cultivate emptiness is to sacrifice your time, money and effort. When you sacrifice for God you will experience times where your sacrifice really hurts. This is an emptiness. You are giving something up for God. I think of those who move to other lands to serve God. They give up time with their families and friends. Their hearts long to be restored to them. Then they find friends and a new family in their new country, and they have to leave that behind when they move home and are empty again.

Emptiness alone doesn’t lead to filling with God. But when we allow the emptiness in us to move us to pursuing God, then we are in a position to be filled by him. Think back to the Jewish people exiled in the land of Babylon. They were experiencing every kind of emptiness imaginable. Loss of loved ones, loss of home, loss of the land, loss of their independence, etc. Listen to the words God gave them through Jeremiah. (read Jeremiah 29:10-14) (blank) This was a specific promise to the Jewish people of that day, but the principle holds true for us. When we are in our place of emptiness caused by all the traumas of this world, if in that place of emptiness, we seek God with our whole hearts, God will make sure we find him.

There is however one caveat that I want to give. Pursuing God isn’t a science. Remember, he’s not a vending machine. It’s not do this and he will for sure do that. He is a person. I again want to quote Rob Reimer.

“Too often we come after God for intimacy, and it gets hard. It gets boring or lonely or empty. And we quit. Or we fall back into religious pursuit, checking off our religious duties. Focused pursuit of His face involves intensity. If we are going to pursue God’s face we will have to press in and press through. Sometimes we pursue God because we are desperate, but when we get a little relief, we quit pursuing. We have the wrong goal; our goal is to feel better. As long as our goal is to feel better, we will stop short of the prize. Our goal has to be Himself, not His gifts, not His benefits, and definitely not our feelings.”

Pursuing God, pursuing a deep, intimate relationship with him won’t always be easy. You will need to persist in doing so. But He is worth it.

Embrace your emptiness, pursue God and he will fill your heart, soul and mind. You will know him and be known by him.

Pray.

If any of you want to talk to me about your emptiness, I would gladly do so. Just come to the front after the service. I would like to pray with you and invite God to meet you.