Love and Prayer

January 3, 2019

It’s humbling to have to admit that I have a lazy mind. If I weren’t a preacher, my inner life, the life of the soul would probably be pretty shallow. Someone once said that many preachers preach to save their own souls. I believe that. I know preaching has saved mine many times. So I started out the new year preaching on motivation, and in the course of it, spoke of Paul’s motivation for preaching the Gospel: the terror of the Lord, and the love of Christ. He could see as others could not, the devastating consequences of lives dominated by sin. It doesn’t take much perception to see the calamity sin brings upon people; broken lives, broken homes, broken communities are all around us. St. Paul saw beyond that to the eternal consequences of sin, and was terrified to think of anyone having to face them. That’s the terror of the Lord. But there was also the love of Christ; God’s gracious answer to our predicament.

I challenged my people to begin praying for one person to whom they could offer Christ. Such prayer must be grounded in Scripture, which is this Sunday’s topic. But there must be prayer, and prayer is where things get a bit dodgy for me. I’ve listened to many people praying over the course of my life; I’ve heard some pretty eloquent prayers. I’ve listened to long and flowery prayers, loud and fervent prayers, quiet and tender prayers. I’ve listened to people talk about their vibrant prayer life, and I look at myself and wonder what’s wrong with me. Most of the time, I can’t think of much to say. God doesn’t need my explanation of the problem, so my prayers tend to turn into laundry lists of requests. That is, if I don’t fall asleep in the middle of them.

Some years ago, I came across some teaching about relationships, particularly for marriages. The author of this particular book talked about what he called the five languages of love. He said that people understand and experience love in different ways, but couples rarely speak the same love language, which results in frustration and often anger as they sincerely try to let their partner know of their love, but express it in ways that the other isn’t skilled in receiving. It’s like an Spaniard and a Russian wanting to communicate, but unable to do so because of the language barrier.

The five love languages are Touch, Time, Words of Affirmation, Gift Giving, and Deeds of Service. In our marriage, Linda’s love language is words of affirmation; mine is time. You can see where this is headed: If she spends time with me, my love tank gets filled up. She doesn’t need to talk; just being together blesses me. But if I’m not listening to her words and verbally telling her how special she is to me, her tank soon is empty. Words of affirmation are not my native tongue, and I often forget to speak her language, and in earlier years, she liked to be on the go so much, that coupled with raising our children, I often found myself running on fumes. Even today 48 years later, we both have to work to remember each other’s love language.

So one day, I got to thinking. “God made me the way I am. What if he just wants me to spend time with him instead of talking all the time?” God speaks my love language; there doesn’t have to be a lot of talk. I just need to carve out the time for us to be together. Once I figured that out, prayer began to make sense to me.

Whatever one’s love language is, God speaks it. We don’t have to learn a foreign language to love, and be loved by God. For me, words are ok, but not always necessary. Time is. Linda needs the words. So we each pray our own way, and God hears us both. For that, I am thankful tonight.