Come to Me

 

Hey, Cobblestone,

     I hardly ever do this, but I’m compelled to repeat a letter I wrote to you about eleven months ago. Hoping that I’m picking up what the Father is putting down, here it is, from March of last year:

     Every book you’ve ever read, or not read, on the topic of prayer can be summed up in three words. Every publication, podcast, and coffee conversation – if it had anything to do with approaching the throne of grace to find help for yourself or someone else – can be distilled into a trio of first-grade sight words:

     “Come to me.”

     It makes me groan to see a shelf full of paperbacks, minimum 200 pages each, competing for allegiance to a very particular form and pattern of prayer. “You gotta say this!” “No, you gotta say that!” I groan even more when I picture us standing before such a shelf, feeling the onset of paralysis-by-analysis, afraid of doing prayer the wrong way.

     “Come to me.” 

     If there’s one passage of Scripture that is covering and congealing everything we’re doing as a church these days… well, here it is:

    “Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light” (Matthew 11:28-30, Jesus speaking).

     Yes, there are different forms of prayer. First Timothy lists a few: First of all, then, I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for all people (2:1). But read on: For there is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus (verse 5).

     “Come to me.”

     Yes, we just heard a rousing sermon – and solid, too – on how to pray for one another, followed by a prayer practicum Sunday night. By all means, preach! By all means, practice! But all of it is going nowhere unless we first accept the invitation Jesus extends.

     “Come to me.”

     Lest I stand convicted of writing the first few pages of my own 200-page book, I will finish making this one point and forthwith shut up. Three one-syllable words, eight letters total – in the mind’s eye and the heart’s understanding, we don’t even need the punctuation. Only hear his voice…

     “Come to me.” 

Grace and Peace (on your way there),

 

John

 

P.S. from February 2024: None of us has to be a superstar around here… just come to Jesus. A simple “Here I am” will do for a start.