Introduction
The company in the sketch is of course fictitious. The domain triebelmann.com is also still free if anyone wants to reserve it.
In most of the companies where I worked, I knew the managing director, in the current one too. But when I worked as a student trainee at Bayer, I didn't know the CEO.
You can imagine: The bigger the company, the further away the top boss is, perhaps so far away that you're no longer even sure whether he really exists.
The unknown god
I was inspired to create this image by an event in the Bible that the apostle Paul experienced in Athens at the time (Acts 17:23). He was walking through the streets of Athens, looking at the many shrines of the time and came across an altar with the inscription: "To the unknown God".
In Germany, according to statistics from 2011 (I have not found any more recent ones), 58% believe in God, 38% do not believe in God and 4% have abstained.
So the majority in Germany still believe that there is a God. Unfortunately, the survey did not break down how these 58% believe.
Is it perhaps for most people the unknown God who exists, but who is far away and doesn't have much to do with me? Or is it somehow more personal?
In the sketch, there was the well-known e-mail address of the boss and there is an old joke that God has a telephone number.
In a passage from the Bible, in Psalm 50:15; LUT is in Lutheran German:
Psalm 50:15, God's telephone number, is easy to remember.
"Call upon me in trouble" already makes it clear that a cry for help is meant here.
In fact, prayer in times of need is often the first prayer a person experiences. "Necessity teaches you to pray" is also a well-known saying.
I personally believe that God does not want to remain the unknown God. According to the Bible, He came into the world in Jesus Christ in order to become visible, similar to the junior boss in the sketch, but of course the image is not quite right here.
And God wants to hear more from us personally and not just the cries for help in great need.
Personal prayer
How can this look like? People socialised by the church may think of liturgical prayers or something like that, but it goes much deeper than that. Another quote from the Bible (Psalm 62:9; NL):
This is the beginning of prayer, pouring out your heart to God. God wants to be your and my refuge. That's how it begins.
What happens next? You might think of specific requests, such as "God, please give me a new car"?
That sounds impertinent, perhaps like an email asking for a pay rise from an unknown boss. According to the Bible, however, this is not so wrong.
Here is another biblical passage (James 4:2c; HFA):
But it goes even further and looks at the motives and attitude of the person asking (James 4:3; HFA):
You can't look into someone's head, whereas an almighty God can also look into their heart.
Some people might think that this statement is just a cheap excuse for saying that praying is useless, right?
Yes, it is the right way, but God doesn't just want to be a wish-fulfiller, a kind of super Father Christmas, but to open our eyes to him even more and also to our neighbours.
Prayer for one another
What can such togetherness look like? Here's a quote from the Bible (James 5:16; NL):
Confess our guilt to one another? That's nobody's business.
I don't know how you imagine church, but the real aim of church is to find people you can trust and open up to, so that you can share your burdens, your problems, your guilt, but also your dreams, and then pray for each other. You are travelling together with God.
That's an awesome statement. But we also realise that "righteous" and "selfish desires" don't really go together.
But what does "just" mean here? If we are honest with ourselves, we often make enough mistakes, hurt people unintentionally, perhaps even intentionally, because they "deserve it". We don't like this view of our own failures. Of course, we are not as bad as others, but hand on heart, we are not really that great either.
We can't really get out of ourselves, we tend to become self-righteous.
God wants to change us, everyone here, as the following Bible passage expresses (1 Corinthians 1:30; NL):
God sent Jesus Christ so that we might be justified and changed, so that we might become more and more like someone whose prayer can achieve much.
And prayer should not remain vague and generalised. Sometimes we may be afraid to pray for something specific, because if it doesn't materialise, then we are bad prayers or praying doesn't work.
When you are travelling with God, you don't have to prove anything to yourself. Of course it can happen that a prayer is not or not yet answered, but you know that it has been placed in the right place because you can trust God.
And if you really know the needs of the other person, then you can pray more specifically and the other person can pray for you.
Everyone should have someone with whom they can open up and confide and who can bring to God the things that overwhelm them, but also things that they are happy about.
How often do you pray?
The question is understandable, but when you see how "prayer" is described in the Bible, this question doesn't seem right to me. Another quote from the Bible (Ephesians 6:18; NL):
This description (in every situation) does not fit with prayer rituals where certain liturgical prayers are repeated at fixed times.
"With the power of the Holy Spirit" means that you are connected to God and regularly pour out your heart to God in your thoughts or with words and also pray for one another as it suits you.
Closing words
I come to the end. I don't want to lecture anyone, because I have only understood a small part of all this and will always remain a learner.
One last image: If you want to get people excited about sailing, it doesn't help to read out the questions from the sailing licence test, but you have to imagine the beauty, vastness and freedom of the lake or the sea.
In the same way, I want to awaken the longing to get to know this unknown God, not just in times of need, but as a confidant to whom you can come with all your worries and problems.
And you can get to know people, people like you and me, who of course also make mistakes and sometimes fail, but who have set out on the path with Jesus Christ and who are there for each other and pray for each other, which can achieve a lot.