Moving Beyond Divine Transactionalism

One of the worst places prayer can be assigned to is the sad state of spiritual to-doism. It’s a version of prayer, because it’s doing the work of intercession, repentance and asking, but it’s drastically diminished from the real vision of what prayer is meant to be - a vital, thirst quenching meeting of our being with God.

And yet in my experience, to-doism is precisely how most people experience prayer. It’s just another place of work with the added terror of risking failure with the very One who holds the cards of eternity in his hands. And I know what that’s like because I lived there for a decade.

I’ve found that most people, like me then, don’t run toward prayer as if it’s the most restful, tender and energising part of their lives. They run from it because it feels completely the opposite - a place of barren, empty, transactionalism.

Transactionalism is all give and take with God, all business. It’s a working relationship with God. In this working relationship we may be great at getting stuff done together, we may even love prayer as a place of seeking God for things, but it’s rarely a place of enjoyment and pleasure. We pray always with an agenda, never to simply behold and drink of God.

This working relationship reveals itself in our only praying when we need something, before we’re about to do something important or when there’s a crisis be it ours or another’s. Here we turn toward God to alleviate guilt rather than experience joy, and there is a difference. Sure, it’s a relationship. But God is little more than a banker paying our debt and taking request deposits all the while remaining sitting on the other side of a long table. Distant, cold, a little unknown, more boss than friend.

But that’s not communion as it was meant to be.

It’s true that Jesus taught almost exclusively on asking, persisting and interceding in the gospels but there’s an important reason for that - his disciples literally lived in the loving, joyful presence of Jesus at all times. That’s assumed. They were abiding with him you could say, the whole three years of his ministry. They asked for things from the very context of Jesus’ presence. They learned prayer by experiencing Him first.

We can learn so much about prayer just by looking at how Jesus, Gods manifest presence on earth, spent time with his disciples. He was so full of life and enjoyment as he spent time with them that he was even accused of being a party goer and a drunkard! Which adds a whole new light to Revelation 3:20 where he speaks to His bride again, “Behold, I stand at the door and knock, and whoever answers I will come in with them and eat with them”!

Prayer you could say is Christ, feasting in our soul.

I’ve been teaching prayer exclusively for four years now and I can honestly say that from Aotearoa to Northern Africa, Malaysia to Central Europe or London, hardly anyone experiences prayer like this. Our traditions, I believe with the best intentions and without malice at all, have largely served up the cold plate of transactionalsm.

I think that’s one part due to our heady, intellectualised post-enlightenment worldviews. But it’s also due to our historical amnesia. We’ve forgotten how we prayed before modernism, revivalism and the industrial revolution.

But what if there’s a different way? A way practiced by our Christian ancestors for 2000 years. A way that is vital, restful and deep. A way so incredible that in it we’ll learn to pine for prayer, we’ll thirst to be with God, and come to call him friend?

That way, I believe, is the way of beholding - our learning to simply gaze lovingly into God as he gazes lovingly into us from the very depth of our being, unceasingly. It’s silent but full, ordinary but supernatural, quiet but with a deep burning, wordless yet saying everything. It’s unceasing prayer because it’s life in the Spirit who never leaves us and who groans from within. It’s the refreshing spring from which all other prayer flows.

It’s love.

It was in the hope of sharing that love that I wrote Beholding, and it’s with that same deep passion that I’m excited to invite you to a five week online course designed to help you do just that - BEHOLD.

I’ve led hundreds through this course over the last 18 months and it’s been transformative for so many that I turned it into a filmed online course to run individually or in a small group. Each of the five weeks includes teaching, guided prayer exercises, group and individual reflection guides and a daily practice that grows from day 1 into the rest of our lives. It’s practical, built to help you move from theory into practice.

And, I’m making it available free as a thank you to everyone who pre-orders Thirsting before October 1st. All you need to do is pre-order Thirsting and visit my website to get your thank you coupon.

Don’t settle for intimacy as theory, or communion as something other people enjoy but lives outside your reach. God’s greatest longing is to satisfy your longing in Him. He’s waiting for you to say yes, to give up transactionalism for the treasure of a hidden life of unceasing joy and love in Him.

May you, whatever you’re doing in this moment, take a deep breath and simply turn your being toward Him. He’s been waiting for it all day.

All my love,
Strahan.

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My new book Thirsting: Quenching Our Soul’s Deepest Desire comes out October 1st. You can pre-order it today here for New Zealand / Australia and here for the US or from wherever good books are sold in your region.