by Amos Smith
I had a mentor in Seminary who would often say or write, “I pray God for you”. I was always a bit puzzled that he left “to” out of his statements. I wanted to say, “don’t you mean ‘I pray to God for you.’”
As the years passed, I realized that leaving out “to” was deliberate. With time I have come to understand that we are indeed in God. To say that we are in God changes everything. We no longer pray to God out there but pray God. It means that God is not separate or separated from us. What we are praying to we also participate in.
Emmanuel (God with us), dwells in us through prayer and Holy Communion. The risen Christ envelops us. We are God’s own. We can also have an influence on God. God becomes not so much something we pray to, but something we participate in.
“For in Him we live and move and have our being” (Acts 17:28).