So, here’s a funny, yet poignant story that came from my time working on my workbook manuscript.
I’ve come to rely on Siri quite a bit for my creative writing work. As you may know, Siri is Apple’s virtual assistant found on all its electronic devices. With my ADHD tendencies, it’s quite freeing to walk around my office with an iPad and just tell Siri what I want to write. For the most part, she’s fairly accurate. My need for corrections is minimal.
But yesterday, I had a humorous, but surprisingly teachable moment. I was dictating the prayer I wanted to use at the beginning of each chapter in the workbook. I ended the prayer with the traditional word amen. Sometimes we Christians become so rote in our spiritual routine we don’t stop to think about what some of our more common “Christianese” phrases actually mean. This is one of them.
I have to admit, I wasn’t paying much attention to its meaning yesterday, either. But Siri got my attention. Instead of interpreting the word amen, she translated it this way:
“I’m in”.
In Hebrew, amen can translate “so be it”. When used at the end of a prayer like the one Jesus prayed in the Sermon on the Mount, the phrase represents our total surrender to and agreement with God on His truth and plan for us.
In my humanness, I don’t fully appreciate some of the circumstances God allows in my life. So it got me thinking: Am I really “all in” to His plan? In what ways am my resistant to what God is up to? Where am I holding back? How am I attempting to follow my own plan, all the while saying I’m following God’s?
Am I really in? All in?
This last phrase reminds me of those guys playing high stakes poker in the World Series of Poker. Each one with their own eccentric personalities, in it to win it. At some point, each one of them decides to take all their chips and put them on the line. They call it going “all in”.
Perhaps the next time we end our prayer to God, the Holy Spirit will prompt us to think about the meaning behind this little word “amen”.
Are you in?
All in?
Amen!
