Struggling with Awe for Jesus While Knowing He’s My Friend
I don’t know about you, but I struggle sometimes with praying to Jesus. He’s my friend but also commands awe and deserves deep reverence.
I think we’ve humanized Jesus so much that my prayer life is becoming difficult. Jesus himself said we should ask things of the Father in his name, and that’s stuck with me. But I sense a tendency in myself to focus on Jesus’ humanity more than his divinity.
I came to the Lord as a kid, accepting Jesus at age five—I understood the gospel and it stuck. But around age 14, I met the Lord on a deeper level in the Psalms (that’s a story for another time). By 16 or 17, I got serious about obeying him. But I’ve always prayed to the God of the Old Testament, the big, awe-inspiring God who commands his universe.
In my prayer struggle, I’ve been thinking about the Athanasian Creed, which C.S. Lewis quoted in a few of his writings: “not by conversion of the Godhead into flesh, but by taking of the Manhood into God.”
This comes from a creed used in Western Christianity that explains the Incarnation, how Jesus is both fully divine and fully human. That phrase means the divine nature of Christ didn’t turn into human flesh; instead, God the Son took on human nature, joining it with his divinity.
In Letters to Malcolm: Chiefly on Prayer, a fictional book where Lewis debates theology through fake letters to a guy named Malcolm who doesn’t exist, he says, “In the Incarnation, God the Son takes the body and human soul of Jesus and through that, the whole environment of nature, all the creaturely predicament into his own being.” To me, this means God the Son, the power behind the universe, the Word from John 1:1–4, invaded an egg in Mary’s body, subsuming that bit of humanity into his awesome divine nature.
I remember one day in chapel at Azusa Pacific College when the dean prayed to “Jesus.” Calling him by his first name felt good, close and healthy. It feels like we’ve gone too far. When I go to church, though, I hear people tossing around Jesus’ name casually, like he’s their buddy and not their lord. Some of the songs we sing feel watered down. I may prefer rock music in church but I want the lyrics to challenge me toward higher ground.
Lewis said something else that hit me. He talked about the “dark side” of Christianity, how you can’t have the light side—comfort and grace—without it. It’s like furniture: it’s cozy, but you’ll stub your toe if you’re not careful. God is awesome, even angry when we’re disobedient, and that demands surrender.
Paul says in Philippians 4:5–6, “The Lord is near, therefore don’t worry about anything,” and we can pray about everything because of Christ. But Jesus, who is near, isn’t just a friend; he’s God the Son, the Creator of the universe, the one prophesied in the Old Testament as the second Person of the Trinity.
I think we need to “re-christen” Jesus in our lives—not literally, but by remembering his awe-inspiring power. The Lord Jesus, the Christ. If we pray to a God, who deserves reverence and obedience, it makes it easier to trust, and to rest in him.
I’ll probably keep groping for that balance between Jesus’ closeness and his divine majesty but today the Athanasian Creed shined a little light on my path.
Ralph Moore is the Founding Pastor of three churches which grew into the Hope Chapel ‘movement’ now numbering more than 2,300 churches, worldwide. These are the offspring of the 70+ congregations launched from Ralph’s hands-on disciplemaking efforts.
He travels the globe, teaching church multiplication to pastors in startup movements. He’s authored several books, including Let Go Of the Ring: The Hope Chapel Story, Making Disciples, How to Multiply Your Church, Starting a New Church, and Defeating Anxiety.
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