Lost the Story, Part II

Enemy-occupied territory---that is what the world is. Christianity is the story of how the rightful King has landed in disguise, and is calling us all to take part in a great campaign of sabotage.
-C.S. Lewis

It is this story that Christianity is about that is most assaulted and diminished. And regaining the Story is not an easy endeavor.

The plastic Aslan shield I found (See Lost the Story, Part I) had the effect of shaking me awake a bit to see how much of Reality I have lost over the last few weeks through routine and duty. God had me find it in order to raise that longing in me for a battle to be engaged in and for a King to fight for and for a people to help rescue, but there’s more He’s up to. The poet Henry David Thoreau warned us that “We must reawaken and learn to remain awake, not by mechanical aid, but by the infinite expectation of the dawn.” In other words, by believing beyond belief that we live now (and will live ever more fully) in a Story of great proportions. (It is argued that Thoreau never became a believer, but it is hard to dissect his deep thirst for life with the offer from the Life-Giver. Perhaps he never accepted the offer. Perhaps there’s more to that story we don’t know. But that’s for another time.) Apparently, there’s more God is up to even this week to reawaken me.

De and I went last night to a bookstore with some dear friends. I started looking through Philip Yancey’s new book, Prayer, per my friend’s advice. It is another piece of the discipleship-calling I hear Jesus inviting me into. He might as well have said, “Come, follow me.” Here’s what Yancey wrote:

When I started exploring the subject of Christian payer, I first went to libraries and read accounts of some of the great pray-ers in history. George Muller began each day with several hours of prayer, imploring God to meet the practical needs of his orphanage. Bishop Lancelot Andrewes allotted five hours per day to prayer and Charles Simeon rose at 4:00 a.m. to begin his four-hour regimen. Nuns in an order known as “The Sleepless Ones” still pray in shifts through every hour of the day and night. Susannah Wesley, a busy mother with no privacy, would sit in a rocking chair with an apron over her head praying for John and Charles and the rest of her brood. Martin Luther, who devoted two to three hours daily to prayer, said we should do it as naturally as a shoemaker makes a shoe and a tailor makes a coat. Jonathan Edwards wrote of the “sweet hours” on the banks of the Hudson River, “rapt and
swallowed up in God.”

I interviewed ordinary people about prayer… Is prayer important to you? Oh, yes. How often do you pray? Every day. Approximately how long? Five minutes – well, maybe seven. Do you find prayer satisfying? Not really. Do you sense the presence of God when you pray? Occasionally, not often…

Pretty to-the-point, huh? Here’s the thing. I didn’t feel guilty or condemned or running around in my brain grasping and trying to figure out how to pray more. I’m not even sure this is what Jesus meant in bringing me to that portion of the book. What happened, though, was a certain kind of drawing. Something inside clicked. I said to myself, “I want that.” I want a deeper intimacy through prayer, a life lived more fully by abiding more deeply and immediately in Christ.

The disciplines are an important part of life with and in God. I know that has been largely lost in the Western church, but there is a move to bring them back to their rightful place as aids to help us live the life Christ has won for us. Dallas Willard brings to light the fact that Jesus never commissioned us to make Christians of all nations, but rather disciples, those who would do what they saw Jesus doing. And, well, Jesus spent quite a lot of time praying and communing with the Father, among other things. John Piper described prayer as “the walkie-talkie on the battlefield of the world. It calls in for the accurate location of the target of the Word. It calls in to ask for the protection of air cover. It calls in to ask for fire power to blast open a way for the tanks of the Word of God. It calls in the miracle of healing for the wounded soldiers. It calls in supplies for the forces. And it calls in the needed reinforcements.” That, of course, only makes sense if you are living in a Story where battle plays a major role. C.S. Lewis understood that, calling this world “Enemy-occupied territory.”

So last night I have it in my heart to rise a little earlier than usual this morning, and I set my alarm to help me up. But this is where the phrase “Enemy-occupied territory” is stripped of all cliché and all romantic allusions. I struggle – I mean, really struggle—to get out of bed, knowing I need this like I need food or breath and yet unable to force my muscles to push against the weight of gravity and heaviness. I lay there for awhile and kid myself into believing I can pray without getting up. Naturally, I fell back asleep. Forty-five minutes later I finally roll myself out of bed and head for another room, where I am hammered again by evil spirits that are troubling me (like in Luke 6:18), and I cannot even concentrate because of doomsday thoughts swirling in my tired head. Finally, after half an hour of trying to break through, I give up and head to the shower.

Now, I’m not saying that I am a loser for not being a “spiritual giant” like George Muller or Charles Wesley. It’s not my goal here to become a spiritual Charles Atlas or anything of the like. It’s that I genuinely desire to drink from the life-giving water that is God, and it is opposed.

It is hard to fight through all that is set against our life in God. If you don’t believe we are at war and that your heart is the target of our Enemy, just try spending unending hours in quiet adoration or passionate pleading or joyful communion with God. It happens, it can, it does. It’s won for us – that’s how we are called to come to the Lord God (Hebrews 4:16). But it does not come often without a fight. It becomes readily apparent why we must suit up in spiritual armor.

It was not until I was driving in to work this morning that something finally broke through. The lines of communication with God were unjammed somehow – maybe an angel came or my attempts at exercising the authority of Christ triumphed – and I felt as if I could breathe again, and lift my head beyond the ground just beneath my feet. I had the opportunity to take some time during lunch to drive around and pray. And I will set my heart to rise again tomorrow morning and “enter boldly into the throneroom of grace” and remain there throughout the day enjoying God and being enjoyed by Him. Because I must if I am to come alive to Him and to the Story of Reality.