¹³ “But now I come to You; and these things I speak in the world so that they may have My joy made full in themselves.”

Many Christians include in their prayer to God, “I come to You.” On the one hand, this seems odd in that God is everywhere present, and therefore we are always in His presence. Jesus obviously would have known this better than anyone, and He lived on earth in the constant awareness of this truth. Yet these are the very words He used in praying to His Heavenly Father, “I come to You.” What do we make of this? Is it a big deal or just incidental words added to flesh out His prayer.

Unfortunately, at times we mere humans do fall into using filler expressions when we “say our prayers,” certain formulas and code phrases like finishing our prayers with the automatic, “In Jesus’ name we pray.” Some even go so far as to recite canned prayers someone else composed. However, Jesus’ words carried meanings that He fully intended; this was not ritual, nor was it rote. This should likewise be the case for us, who seek to imitate Him.

Jesus prayed, it seems, with an imagery of approaching His father like someone would approach another being. Obviously, He hadn’t physically moved anywhere, He was still in the Upper Room with His disciples. But the image comes to mind of the high priest entering the tabernacle where God is pictured as residing, to make sacrifice for the people. Even then, that Old Testament image (either the tabernacle or the temple) was really a picture of God in His heavenly throne room, for an earthly tent or temple could not contain the infinite God of the universe. Solomon, upon completing the building of the temple, recognized this when he said, “But will God indeed dwell on the earth? Behold, heaven and the highest heaven cannot contain You, how much less this house which I have built!” (1 Ki 8:27). He concluded by asking, “Listen to the supplication of Your servant and of Your people Israel, when they pray toward this place; hear in heaven Your dwelling place” (1 Ki 8:30).

Praying to God who is spirit must involve the use of imagery which in literary terms involves metaphors, figures of speech. Praying to God should be a conscious focus of our attention on Him, in the same way as one would make the effort and go out of his way to approach God in a physical temple. While the physicality of it is not required (see Jesus’ comments to the woman at the well in John 4:21-24), the imagery remains. We do approach God in prayer by focusing more acutely as though we were in His physical presence.

Lord, I do come to You. I am conscious of You right now, though not physically, but spiritually. You are every much as real to me as the chair I am sitting on.