Now that I have started my next online class, each week I will be participating in an online discussion with 13 others plus the professor. This week's discussion is based on a quote from Thomas Merton in a required read for the course, "Contemplative Prayer." He writes:
…meditation and contemplative prayer, is not so much a way to find God as a way of resting in him whom we have found, who loves us, who is near to us, who comes to us to draw us to himself (p.29).

Our discussion is then based around our reaction and thoughts on this quote. Most of the posts have dealt with us finding God in prayer or, to the contrary, God making Himself available to us. It's kind of hard to explain, I've taken it as us finding God not through our work but by His grace. I've also chosen to respond in the following way:

I've believed for some time that in the evangelical world, we understand that we are saved by grace, but we practice Christian life to the contrary. We feel that if we don't act in a certain way, do things like the (Christian) culture does, don't go to church or become a member of every committee, that we lose God's favor, maybe even that we lose our salvation. For many years I lived like this and bought into this lifestyle. But just recently I am learning more and more about the love of God, who He is and who we are in Him. I know this analogy is probably overused, but its really shed some light on God for me. I have two daughters and love them more than I can speak. When they do wrong, do they cease to be my daughters? Of course not! Am I waiting for them to disobey me so I can punish them? Quite the contrary! How many times is God referred to in Scripture as our Father, this is who He is, this is His character. He is our Father, we are His children, heirs to the throne! It seems we've gotten the paradigm all mixed up and it has affected our relationship with Him, mine anyway.

How does that relate to prayer? I believe here Merton is introducing us to a way of thinking about prayer that fits along these same lines. I know that I tend to think about prayer as reading a laundry list of wants and needs, of what I do rather than who God is and how He desires relationship with us. Merton seems to be saying that prayer is more of resting in God's grace and love than what we do or what we say in our time of prayer. I kind of like it as it seems to speak more to the essence of God's character and the Christian truths and life rather than what I grew up to believe was true.

In any case, in light of all of this, one classmate questioned this, writing My first response was, "does this mean God could choose not to come to us?" That's a little scary when you think about it. We have heard God may wait to answer, but not come to us?

A lady posted the following response, It may seem scary, the idea of God being able to choose not to come to us . . . but why would he? If he chooses not to come to me (according to his definition of coming, not mine), then perhaps he is not the God I want to serve? and I agree, for the fact that, as I responded, You're right, God is not in the business of not wanting to come to us, it's not in His character of Who He is.

You're probably totally confused by now, but my point is that we must look at the character of God in these questions and circumstances. The Bible says that God is good, all the time. He loves us no matter what. Grace is available to all, where sin abounds, grace abounds even more. God is love. I could go on forever. In light of questions like these, we must first understand the God we serve and seek and answer the questions or at least base our discussion from this foundation.