Naked in Prayer: A liberation to be curious?
Okay, I know what you’re thinking. “What in the world are we on today?”
Rest in. The discussion topic will be demystified in a second.
Sometime back, I made a proposal that given the demanding nature of course correction -especially the demand on strength- from our possibly damaged inner selves, we would need to enlist power from on high if we are to course correct long-lastingly.
My assumption is that I write to young people in their early to late twenties, some who believe in God and others who don’t, but all identify- one way or another- with the need to course correct. As such, it is my hope that the next couple of paragraphs make sense.
Whether you pray or not, I think there is a tendency among very many of us to assign characteristics to God, that are informed by our own limitations, as opposed to truth.
Hear me out:
This one random evening, I am in the shower, cleaning my hair and face as a ‘self-care-kind-of-evening’, and I think of talking to God, you know, like, pray. After all, He is everywhere, right? Then, out of nowhere, out of this hellish condemnation hall or whatever, this random thought pops into my head, “Risper, how could you pray while naked? Isn’t it like, dishonorable and/or disrespectful to God?” Let me tell you, my soul had quite the day after that question, we’ll get deeper into that in a second.
Just to be clear, this is still Course Correct: The Place where we are intentionally reclaiming ourselves- from the inside out- with the goal of eventually reporting into the world as our most whole, most authentic and most alive versions of ourselves. In these early days of this journey, I have made peace with the fact that majority of the course correction work is actually mine, before I can be in a position help others do the same in their lives, in a significant manner.
One of the bigger areas of course correction in my life is around internal beliefs- the stories and narratives I have told myself over and over again, and believed, and lived from- even if they were not founded on truth.
One such limiting belief to overcome is the characteristics and traits I have assigned to others out of my own bias, and out of my limited knowledge, and yet still judged those ‘others’ based on my prejudices and limited information.
One of the ‘persons’ I have found I must re-educate myself about is God. And as much as this may be a personal reflection, I think it does apply to many people in the world.
Remember that naked in the shower and thinking of praying incident? And the sort of condemnatory thought that followed?
Well, the truth is that my soul went into this place of division between what amounts to honoring God, and the reality that we can pray at all times.
I have struggled with condemning myself for very many years. Some may have experienced it- this state of perpetual guilt- where one feels as if they are just wrong. Perpetually wrong. Perpetually not meeting some ideal standard of behavior or feeling. I have literally found myself, in the past, feeling ‘guilty’ for being happy and ‘not paying attention to where I am wrong’. I’m studying books to understand this phenomenon, and I would encourage anyone struggling with any such feeling of ‘perpetual’ guilt or shame, whose source cannot even be pinpointed, to start by researching about it.
Anyways, due to this former internal state of always believing that ‘I am falling short of some ideal standard, this very moment, and I shouldn’t be, and therefore I am guilty”, even when I didn’t know what this ideal was, it was easy for me to fall into the trap of this voice of condemnation. That somehow, it could be offending to God, that I would call on his name when not ‘properly/decently attired”.
Then last night it hit me! That because I had always felt condemned for a long time, I assumed that God was condemning me too, ie, that His character is that of a person who perpetually looks for ‘wrongs to punish’. And that because nakedness could somehow be considered ‘indecent’ when seeking an audience with someone (you know, because eyes will be wandering everywhere, and it may even be uncomfortable for the recipient of this attention), I concluded, and treated it as a fact, that God would equally feel ‘offended’ by my ‘naked’ ‘lack of respect”. That is to say, I projected my human perversion to him, and treated that as His character.
It got me thinking today: How many people in the world are mad, or angry, or disappointed, or judgmental towards others- and are living with those emotions as a ‘justified’ stance towards those persons- out of the ‘undesirable traits’ they see in those others, that they feel justify their attitudes towards them? Okay, that’s a long sentence. Lets try again:
What if there is someone you hate, or dislike, or detest, or ‘can’t stand’ — because of what/ who you believe they are- and perhaps you do not even have enough information about that person informs your beliefs about who they are? Isn’t that what we do with ‘celebs’, for example, and thus feel justified in our ‘hate’ or self-righteous attitudes towards them?
Isn’t it the same thing many of us in the world have done towards God, projected our limitations towards him, concluded that our thoughts about him are his character, and thus related with him out of our bias? We self-condemn, and thus assumed that God is a condemner? We are petty and unforgiving, and therefore believe God deals with offence in the same manner?
I am no Christian apologetic (theologist/defender of Christianity), but I do wonder how many people in the world have a miserable life/attitude toward God/others because of what they believe about Him/them, and have therefore denied themselves the gift of getting to know Him (or others), because they projected their own limitations unto Him/others … Could you be in such a situation with God or someone in your life, where you have denied yourself the gift that is pure curiosity, because you drew conclusions about them that weren’t informed by facts?
I’ll share my experience- I was so glad when it dawned on me that it is possible I could have assigned God characteristics that aren’t true of Him. I was glad because this meant I could be free of my not-so-good assumptions, and instead I can just study Him, and about Him, to get to truly know Him better. I was glad because this realization made me feel liberated to be just curious about God, with no obligation to hold onto any of my former (especially) internal biased conclusions about his Character.
Perhaps get curious today?
Shalom.
As always, written with all my love, Risper.
