Wrestling Gorillas

Draw close to God, and God will draw close to you. – James 4:8a

Have you ever tried to grapple a 300-pound gorilla? It would be like wrestling under water. When you push, instead of moving your opponent, you actually end up moving yourself. I understand that this same effect is found in space. Astronauts end up spending many, many hours in huge pools, trying to get used to the difference in leverage.

Unfortunately, many Christians have not learned how to use the different leverage that is found in prayer. We believe that by praying, we are going to move God to perform a certain action. Instead, we find that prayer is like pulling on a rope that is attached to something immoveable. Instead of moving the anchor point, we end up moving ourselves. This is not necessarily a bad thing. Through prayer, we end up with a different perspective on things. We learn that by moving ourselves, we still end up at the same relative distance and we are now in a new position of power and leverage. It is counterintuitive, but works.

When I say that prayer draws you closer to God, I don’t mean that He loves you more. He could never love you any more than He already does. After all, Christ showed His love for us in that while we were still sinners, He died for us. I also don’t mean that you are closer to God in the sense of space. God at times created things that allowed us to “see” Him like the shekina glory over the tabernacle so that we would know when to address Him and would have a place to look. He allowed Moses to see the “back” trailing edge of His glory which caused Moses’ face to shine for days. But Christ tells us that “no one has seen God (the Father) at any time.” Your prayers cannot bring you any closer to a God who is omnipresent. But it does bring you closer to His way of thinking. It causes you to become more “Godlike”. Remember the Devil’s lie to Adam and Eve that if they would disobey God they would become gods? The truth was sadly the opposite. They became mortal and further from being Godlike than they were before. Only through prayer, only through righteousness, only through obedience and submission to God does that hope ever get fulfilled.

If you let it, prayer will also allow you to begin thinking outside of the box. It will allow you to see the world from God’s perspective. Instead of trying to cause your circumstances to change, you will begin trying to see what God wants you to do IN your circumstances. It will teach you the wisdom of God. But you cannot try to move the immoveable throne of God. Instead, pull on the towrope of prayer and you will find yourself a little closer to the throne with a whole new perspective opening up for you.