looking through me

Tag: faith

August 31, 2014

unplanned prayer

Some days my prayers are thoughtfully constructed with great attention to each word and grammatical structure. They’re crafted. They’re deliberate.

And some days they’re no-holds-barred, heart-to-lips-do-not-pass-brain outpourings.

Today is one of those days.

They are thoughtless prayers. Not without care, but without thought. They come from my depths, not from my intellect. I’m not thinking. I’m praying.

I pray without planning to pray. The jumbled words and emotions and fragmentary phrases of petition and praise become one incessant prayer while I work, while I walk, while I carry on conversation, while I eat.

When life jars me and I’m powerless and vulnerable, my normal prayers never get off the ground. They’re completely overwhelmed by the instinctual, untrained, natural-as-breathing communication flowing to the very One who designed me to be in constant communion.

With a fragile but fighting heart I begin to grasp praying without ceasing. And it’s not some hyper-spiritual, haloed, so full-of-faith-nothing-can-touch-it thing. It’s not passive and removed from life. It’s active; it’s visceral.

I have a moment-by-moment awareness of my great need and great inadequacy comingled with unshakeable confidence that regardless of how my prayers are answered they are being attended to by the greatest physician, wisest counselor, strongest defender, ablest protector, tenderest comforter.

And unlike the days and prayers when I struggle to engage in the dialogue—when it feels more like I’m spouting a soliloquy to an audience of none that echoes back silence—on days like today there is a presence I cannot deny. I am heard. And while the answers are not audible, they are everywhere . . . in the snippets of scripture that come to mind, in the unexpected hug from a friend, in the peace that cradles my cracking heart.

So here I am. Spilling out my fractured, unedited self and words because there is no time—or need—for polish and perfection with the God who knows my thoughts more intimately than I ever will.

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August 24, 2014

present hope

I took few notes during the sermon. My mind was too busy processing what was being said and playing it out in my own life. I jotted down a few references and a sentence fragment, and I did manage two complete sentences:

Everything about my situation is exactly what God has called me to in this present moment.

It’s not about getting beyond any situation; it’s about serving God (not Him serving us) in this moment.

As we stood to sing the closing songs my mind raced. And then the thoughts coalesced into a series of questions. I dropped back into my seat and wrote them across the bottom of my notes:

When I say I have hope, what is that hope? Is it for the moment/situation to pass? Is it for answers? Or is it for God to be glorified in the present moment as well as the moments to come? Am I present in my hope?

They’re questions that have been tapping my shoulder and asking to be addressed. But they’re still dangling just out of answerable reach. Being present is a familiar concept. And hope makes cameos. But putting them together . . . that’s new.

Hope has been an escape—it’s the dream of change or the possible fulfillment of long-held desires. But if it’s holding out for something down the road, is it helping me live fully as called in this moment? Or is it offering an out from engaging in this moment? Is a potential change making now bearable? Or is realizing the present is not inherently the future allowing me to be present?

I guess I never asked those questions before. But if I had, the answers might have shown I disengage from serving in the moment because I’m focused on “hope” for something else. I look for an out from my reality, and I label it hope, all the while missing the opportunity to engage now, to serve now, to let true hope be the strength that allows me to be present now.

Hope is not wishful thinking; hope is the fuel to live well, to connect deeply and to be all in this very moment. Hope is less about getting to the future and more about participating in the present.

So . . . am I present in my hope?

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