Thoughts from Mark "Hat" Rackley

“I have revealed you to those whom you gave me out of the world. They were yours; you gave them to me and they have obeyed your word. Now they know that everything you have given me comes from you. For I gave them the words you gave me and they accepted them. They knew with certainty that I came from you, and they believed that you sent me. I pray for them. I am not praying for the world, but for those you have given me, for they are yours. All I have is yours, and all you have is mine. And glory has come to me through them. I will remain in the world no longer, but they are still in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, protect them by the power of your name, the name you gave me, so that they may be one as we are one. While I was with them, I protected them and kept them safe by that name you gave me. None has been lost except the one doomed to destruction so that Scripture would be fulfilled.
“I am coming to you now, but I say these things while I am still in the world, so that they may have the full measure of my joy within them. I have given them your word and the world has hated them, for they are not of the world any more than I am of the world. My prayer is not that you take them out of the world but that you protect them from the evil one. They are not of the world, even as I am not of it. Sanctify them by the truth; your word is truth. As you sent me into the world, I have sent them into the world. For them I sanctify myself, that they too may be truly sanctified.

• John 17:6-19

Now the Lord God had formed out of the ground all the wild animals and all the birds in the sky. He brought them to the man to see what he would name them; and whatever the man called each living creature, that was its name. So the man gave names to all the livestock, the birds in the sky and all the wild animals.

• Genesis 2:19-20

“Jesus prays in what Eugene Peterson calls ‘the middle voice.’ In the active voice, I (the subject) am the actor. I initiate the action. ‘I give advice.’ In the passive voice, I (the subject) am being acted upon. I receive the action. ‘I am given advice.’ In ancient Greek, the language of the original New Testament, there’s a third way of speaking—the middle voice. ‘I take advice.’ The middle voice means, ‘I am an active participant, but the action did not begin with me. I am joining the action of another.’
“Eugene Peterson, whose work is instrumental in defining these terms, Writes:
“ ‘Prayer and spirituality feature participation, the complex participation of God and the human, his will and our wills. We do not abandon ourselves to the stream of grace and drown in the ocean of love, losing identity. We do not pull strings that activate God’s operations in our lives, subjecting God to our assertive identity. We neither manipulate God (active voice) nor are manipulated by God (passive voice). We are involved in the action and participate in its results but do not control or define it (middle voice). Prayer takes place in the middle voice?’
“The middle voice means I am an active participant but the action began with another. We participate in the action, and we reap the benefits of the action. We are not entirely active. God’s action doesn’t depend on our initiative. Neither are we entirely passive. God has freely chosen to act almost exclusively in partnership with people. When we pray, we both participate in God’s action and benefit from God’s action. We join God. All of our interaction with God in prayer happens here-in the middle voice, the voice of participation.
“Jesus not only taught us this way of prayer; he lived it. Take, for instance, Jesus’ prayer in John I7 …
“In Eden, the middle voice was the only form of communication. Adam and Eve were participants in God’s action: naming the animals, harvesting the garden, generously ruling and reigning over every other species. None of what they were entrusted to steward began with them.
“When Eve’s teeth cut that crisp apple (or, more likely, that fig) from that one forbidden tree, it introduced the active voice into God’s world. And when Adam, equally guilty, sheepishly passed the buck (‘The woman you put here with me—she gave me some fruit from the tree, and I ate it’), he introduced the passive voice into God’s world.
“The middle voice is the language of Edenic relationship. In prayer, Jesus invites us back into the relationship we knew in Eden at first and then lost in that first tragic act of deception. The assumption of biblical prayer is that God’s action always precedes my request. The aim is not to get God in on what I think he should be doing. Rather, the aim of prayer is to get us in on what God is doing, become aware of it, join it, and enjoy the fruit of participation. Prayer is the recovery of our role in God’s created order, the recovery of our true identity and the relationship that defines that identity to us.”

• Tyler Staton, Praying like Monks, Living like Fools

The Rev. Staton quote is rather lengthy, but it enlightens us to pray in such a voice that we recognize that we participate in our relationship with God, but we really have no power other than the power from God.  God initiates and we rely on Him.  When we keep that concept in our hearts as we pray, the verb tense and the use of verbs will change.

While the world is going crazy these days, they seem to change the meaning of words by the minute, but words have power.  They have meaning.  Do not let the world dictate what you can and cannot say.  Rely on what God gives you and boldly speak to your Savior.

Lord, guide me. We struggle at times because we look away from the strength that You gladly provide.  Help us as we try to glorify You with our very lives.  In Your name I pray.  Amen.

Soli Deo Gloria.  Only to God be the Glory.