Share and Prayer Group, I really appreciated and enjoyed our dialogue this past Tuesday as we further explored our prayer life.
This week we will be addressing the topic of Images of God and the Effect of Our Images on How We Pray
I am attaching (and copying below) some preparation thoughts for our focus next week (Tuesday, February 2, 7 pm).
Our Link (hasn’t changed) is:
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/94491376441?pwd=TlpscE9kc0ZBaWRETWNpY1AyN0UxZz09
Passcode (if you need it) : 209935
Images of God and the Effect of Our Images on How We Pray
Explore images of God in books you have read, movies you have seen, the Scriptures, your own discernment. Some examples from scriptures:
- Old Testament – Ezekiel 1:26 Above the expanse over their heads was what looked like a throne of sapphire, and high above on the throne was a figure like that of a man. Ezekiel 1:4-25 entourage following this “figure like a man”: stormy wind, lightning; four headed animal with the face of a man, an ox, and a lion.
- New Testament – Acts 22:17-28 28 “For ‘In him we live and move and have our being’; as even some of your own poets have said, For we too are his offspring.’”
- Book of Mormon – II Nephi 11:113-115: “And he inviteth them all to come unto him, and partake of his goodness; and he denieth none that come unto him, black and white, bond and free, male and female; and he remembereth the heathen, and all are alike unto God, both Jew and Gentile.”
- Doctrine and Covenants – 17:2f-g: “…God does inspire men and call them to his holy work in this age and generation, as well as in generations of old, thereby showing that he is the same God yesterday, today, and forever.”
- Panentheism: imagining God out there, in here, and everywhere; God who is with us and beyond us. God is in the tree but the tree is not God.
Who is the God to whom you pray? How do you name God in your prayers? Is your image of God the same one you had as a child?
Think of a time when you felt God’s presence.
Do you pray ‘with’ and ‘in’ God or ‘to’ God? “To pray with God is not to ask anything of God or to tell God everything. Praying with God is simply honoring the presence of God in every aspect of life. Praying with God is simply honoring the presence of God in every aspect of life….Praying with God is simply about presence—-my presence in God and God’s presence in me.” (p. 62 from Jane Vannier A Praying Congregation)