God is not Alexa

Many of us have a small electronic communication device on our counter, our own personal assistant designed at the sound of our voice to fulfill our commands, control our music, keep track of our time, and even record our shopping list.

But God is not Alexa, sitting around listening intently to take our orders, waiting with a script of predefined answers, silent until asked, ready with what we want and when we want it.  God is not an impersonal voice with strictly practical information, but the lover of our souls.

Often I hear people—even believers—say “Well, your prayers worked,” as if there are magic words that elicit from God the response of our own choosing.  Or if there is only silence, well, it is surmised that prayer is just a coincidence, and God is not real.  But perhaps that is not God, but another god, to whom we pray.  God does not instantly reply with a carefully bubble-wrapped package on our doorstep.  God is not Amazon either.

God gave us prayer, because one of the ramifications of the Fall was the brokenness of intimacy in talking, communing, listening, and walking with God.  Through prayer, God does not work in answers or demands, but always in relationship.

God does not just say:  Ask, and it will be given to you;  seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. Matthew 7.7   But over and over in Scripture, He says “Come to Me, Come with Me, Come in, Walk with Me, Open the door, Abide in Me,” not just action verbs, but relationship words.

Be still and know that I am God. Psalm 46. 10

The most profound part of prayer is realizing who God is.  He is not a servant of our bidding, but the Almighty of our abiding.

We miss it all if we are just telling God what to do, when, and where to do it.  And then miss the relationship.  And the wonders.  And the awe of knowing Him.

In his recent and creative tale of adventure, The Many Assassinations of Samir, Seller of Dreams, author Daniel Nayeri writes:  “…prayer is not for the moon to stop for us.  It is for us to stop and consider the work of heaven.”

The more we know God, the more we realize we do not know.  Prayer is how we come to know Him more – and recognize Him.   God is not silent, but responds in thunderous wonder in unexpected ways.

“We may ignore, but we can nowhere evade the presence of God.  The world is crowded with Him.  He walks everywhere incognito.  And the incognito is not always hard to penetrate,” wrote C. S. Lewis in his book Letters to Malcolm, Chiefly on Prayer (1964).

Things don’t just happen. It is not that God disguises His hand, but we are so unaware, quite literally ignorant of all the Light we cannot yet see.

“The contemplative [prayerful] life, therefore, is not a life that offers a few good moments between the many bad ones, but a life that transforms all our time into a window through which the invisible world becomes visible.”  (Henri Nouwen)

Try that, Alexa.

O, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God!  How unsearchable are His judgments and how inscrutable His ways.  Romans 11. 33-34