on Prayer

In every time of spiritual growth and renewal I am reminded of turned back to the primacy of prayer in all things. It is always my soul recognizing the place of a mystical unknown, a thing which it has yet to fully grasp, and yet longs to know desperately. 

It is more than the ACTS method taught in evangelical Sunday School (Adoration, Confession, Thanksgiving, Supplication) or the prayers of the church fathers I find in my Book of Common Prayer. It is more than the prayers of the Spirit groaning within me of incomprehensible utterances or the quiet cry of "Lord, I need you" in moments of desperation. Nor is it just the loud clamoring of a congregation praying together, though not in unison. 

It is somehow none of these and all of these wrapped into one. If we could somehow put each of these sentiments into one act, that, I suspect would come closer to what the depths of my soul longs for in prayer. 

I also have sneaking suspicion that is has something to do with the prayer the Christ gives his disciples in the gospel stories. I have not read many commentaries or heard many explanations of it. But yet again, that which I have heard falls marvelously short of what my soul tells me to expect from the Messiah. 

Yet another ache in my soul leads me to think of prayer as more than words in my heart, in my head, or my mouth. That it is more than words, but has something to do with how I live. That somehow prayers are made manifest in the ways we act and choose and exist. That if our prayers and times of communion with the LORD in his presence are not somehow changing how we live, then they are not really prayers at all, but something we do to make ourselves feel better, to mark something off our spiritual checklist. 

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Unfortunately, though this, as a theory and idea, comes back to me over and over again in my life, I have yet to do anything about it. I find myself in the same spiritual cycles which never include any alteration in how I pray. I often attribute this to my lack of understand of what prayer really truly is. However, in my heart of hearts, I know it is because I lack discipline to be faithful in figuring out more of this thing called prayer, of discovering the various ways I've to touch it. 

I make excuses, all of them, about time and wanting to pray alone (something about where two or three are gathered). I want to pray aloud, because it seems to impact my heart more, but I don't want my chance that I might be heard by someone who is not praying with me. I'm waiting for the right way and the right situation and the right time. But really, those things, if "right" even exists when we're talking about prayer, can only be discovered in practice, not in waiting around for everything to be "right". 

what the Lost Son teaches me

we have never been worthy to be his children

and yet we are

we make ourselves his servants every day

because he asks us to

we have the mindset of a servant

we have the privilege of heirs

holding them together

without losing either

he celebrates us, and we along with him

we do all that he asks, in faithfulness

though we are broken, he triumphs

The 4th of July

I've never been much of a fan of holidays....just in general. I would have just let this day slip right past me without even noticing if I could have (with the exception of my good friend's birthday today, she most definitely would have gotten some of my recognition). But my host dad, well, he watches a good amount of television. And he knew what today is for this country of mine. He started planning a party about a month ago. Mostly he was concerned with the food. Hamburgers. French Fries. I decided to make homemade chocolate chip cookies too. And we're gonna do coke-floats (don't worry not the kind with cocaine, the kind with Coca-cola). 

But really, I got myself thinking today. Independence Day. American's sure do like their independence. We are a nation that values, above almost anything else, our independence. That's why we are the only ones who still don't use the metric system, or celsius (much to my chagrin now that I am in a country that does).  But originally, what were we declaring independence from? From Britain? Did we just hate the British? No. We were declaring our independence from an unjust system, from the oppressive way that Britain had decided to rule over us. We were declaring our independence and our freedom from oppression. 

I have almost no patriotic spirit, and I will likely never cheer for America. But this idea of freedom from oppression, this I can get behind. This is a message Jesus would agree with. So in celebrating our freedom, lets not forget those who are not free. And (maybe more importantly) lets try our hardest not to oppress others, not to subject them to the very thing we declared freedom from. We are not the only ones who deserve this freedom, because, remember 'all men are created equal', which means that everyone deserves freedom from oppression.