"... strengthen you ... in your inner being ..."

Reading Ephesians 3:14-21

"I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being..."

In this passage and throughout this letter the riches of God are applied directly to "the inner being" or "the heart." These passages do not provide a recipe for material prosperity or even for physical well being. Certainly there are a multitude of references to God's interest in our material and physical condition. God loves and cares for his whole creation, both physical and spiritual. Notwithstanding this fact, it is not material deprivation or physical disability that most deeply threatens us. It is the emptiness of the "inner being" that cries the loudest. Our most glaring pain is our inner pain where we experience abandonment, feeling unloved, uncared for, unappreciated, and hopeless. Mighty resources are required to sustain the human spirit, which lives in a world that is under judgment, that is cursed, and that waits and is longing for a complete redemption.

The "glorious riches" of God are aimed at "strengthening you ... in your inner being." Paul recognizes this when he makes it the heart of his prayer for the Ephesian believers. Yet, when we pray, it is so often the physical and material that we cry out for, which only shows that we really don't know our own needs or God's character very well. If all we see is the physical and material we are only looking at the surface of our need. To call on God to help us deal with how our life context is pressing on our "inner being" is to begin to move more deeply into the wells of his "glorious riches." Through this prayer we begin to "taste and see that the Lord is good." Through this prayer our heart may become awash in love, acceptance, meaning, and hope. This is one of those things that does not come to us unasked: "You will seek me and find me when you search for me with your whole heart."

"For this reason I kneel before the Father..."

Reading Ephesians 1:14-21

Spiritual ergonomics. The best posture for a healthy spiritual life is the posture of submission and surrender before God. The word that is used for kneel here is a word that means 'to bend.' It speaks of flexibility as opposed to the 'stiff neck.' Kneeling before God is a recognition of who is really in control in this world. All thought of demand is laid aside. It is not that Paul thinks of God as the cruel task master who must be appeased. Quite the contrary he prays that the Ephesians would come to know the unbelievable dimensions of the love of God. The bending of the knee in this prayer brings together the twin facts that the most loving being that anyone could contemplate is nothing less than the God of the universe. In kneeling we accept that only our loving and powerful God knows whether a greater good is achieved by granting or by denying or be delaying our request.

"...a wall that was ready to fall by its own weight."

From James Houston's book, "Prayer: the transforming friendship":

Leo Tolstoy, the Russian novelist, once told the story of two brothers who met for a weekend after a long time apart. On the first night, the older brother was fascinated to see that his younger brother knelt and prayed by his bedside. 'Huh, you still do that?' he said. The younger brother did not reply, but from that time he never prayed again.

Tolstoy remarked:

'This is not because he knows his brother's convictions and has joined him in them, nor because he has decided anything in his own soul, but simply because the word spoken by his brother was like the push of a finger on a wall that was ready to fall by its own weight.'"

Oh, Watcher on the Wall, how solid are your foundations?

Thanks for Nothing, God!

Thank you for nothing, God! Thank you for doing nothing about the things I am suffering because you know that the place I have to get to is through these sufferings. Thank you for not answering me when I pray to you because you want me to learn to trust you even when you are silent. Thank you for denying me those things I think I need so that I can see that I need you most of all. Thank you for occasionally sticking your foot out and tripping me so that I don't spend my whole life on the run. Thank you for the vacuum at the center of my being that refuses to be filled with any of the things of this world for this is what Solomon speaks of as "eternity in the heart." Thank you for nothing. Thank you for everything.