Precarious

So, I'm just starting in on a book I've been wanting to read for quite some time.  Apparently I started in on it at some point because the first page or so was familiar, but that soon ended, and then I came upon this little gem:
 
"The very word prayer comes from the Latin root precarius — a linguistic cousin to precarious." Yancey, Philip. Prayer.

I had to stop right there and write down some thoughts before I lost them.  So here goes.

If the concept of prayer has it's roots in the concept of being precarious, perhaps that very state of being precarious is a GOOD place to be.  I know that those days, just after the storm, when life was VERY precarious were days when we simply felt God near to us.  There was not alot of praying going on, but there was a distinct sense of God being there with us, in the mist of all the craziness.

I think, as fiercely independent Americans we strive so hard to be self sufficient and secure in our perceptions of life that we tend to lose that sense of percariousness that we seem to need, in order to sense our NEED for God in our lives.  Or, quite possibly even to sense GOD Himself in our lives.   It's almost as if, without the sense of our need for Him, and a healthy sense of how precarious our situation is without him, we can't sense HIM.

It makes me think of the song 'Brokeness, brokeness is what I long for..."  we have to come to that place of realizing God is all we have, in order to have a true understanding of all that He can be for us.  As long as we are holding it together, making it work, on our own, He has a hard time reaching our heart.

Ok - back to my book now...