A Moment Aside ----- 21 July 2020
I know that
this photo looks as if someone dropped the sign. The words on the upper board
are all wiggly and squiggly, all messed up and incomprehensible. The second
sign might be even odder to us. It has God responding with “I know. I love you.”
This is the truest understanding of prayer
I may have ever seen. We often don’t know what we want when we pray or we may
not really understand what we’re praying for. We may think it’s for our best
and we could be all wrong. We can sometimes pray for things that are bad for us
or for those we care for. We can pray in a spirit of ignorance, of arrogance,
of vain-glory, or of even selfishness. We could spend a lot of time “crafting”
our prayers so they sound good in our own ears or tickle the ears of people who
might hear or read them. We could be jealous of “spiritual writers” who say
such wonderful and inspiring things. Truly none of that really matters unless
we pray from our own hearts, even as confused and mixed up as the letters in
the first board.
We do not pray alone. Paul the Apostle
assures us in his letter to the Romans that Likewise the Spirit helps us
in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but that very
Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words. (Romans 8:26) Our
words may not be our own for we can borrow words from the Scripture or from
books of prayers. There may not be any words at all! The Spirit of God dwells
in each of us and leads us to prayer and leads us in prayer. Even
if we have no words, this would be enough.
I’ve told the tail of a Christian teacher
who taught me the best way to pray. I asked “How do I pray?” He responded “Want
to.” I’ll remember that lesson as long as I live.
A woman of our congregation (who has since
passed on) told the story of the man riding his wagon through the woods on a
dark night. In his fear, all he could remember was the alphabet. He prayed “Lord,
you know me and you know the alphabet. Just take my letters and make a prayer
here and now! Amen!”
Who could do better?
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