Make me know Your ways, O LORD; teach me Your paths. Lead me in Your truth and teach me, for You are the God of my salvation; for You I wait all the day. – Psalm 25:4, 5
Let integrity and uprightness preserve me, for I wait for You. – Psalm 25:21
Vindicate me, O LORD, for I have walked in my integrity, and I have trusted in the LORD without wavering. Examine me, O LORD, and try me; test my mind and my heart. For Your lovingkindness is before my eyes, and I have walked in Your truth. – Psalm 26:1-3
Hear, O LORD, when I cry with my voice, and be gracious to me and answer me. When You said, "Seek My face," my heart said to You, "Your face, O LORD, I shall seek." Do not hide Your face from me, do not turn Your servant away in anger; You have been my help; do not abandon me nor forsake me, O God of my salvation! – Psalm 27:7-9
I sought the LORD, and He answered me, and delivered me from all my fears. They looked to Him and were radiant, and their faces will never be ashamed. – Psalm 34:4, 5
“For the Church has no beauty but what the Bride-groom gives her; He does not find, but makes, her lovely.” – C.S. Lewis (Eph. 5:22)
Journal Entry - 12.2.05 - rough draft revisited
It seems to me that it gets harder to pray, the longer I go on. Not that I don’t desire to pray, but words have become hard to find. As I have been reading some of the prayers and cries of David and the promises of God in Hosea, it’s become difficult and feels obtrusive for me to break into the silence with halting prayers of my own. I think I’m just beginning to understand what Henri Nowen writes of regarding the silent prayers of the heart (“pray at all times in the Spirit” … Eph. 6:18), unceasing in nature. As the attitude of the heart is and the filled life of the Holy Spirit may be, so our prayers are continually lifted up to God, though the mind may not be conscious of it. When our spirits are in constant communion with God, our lives are a continual and living prayer to Him.
As the last two weeks have been a constant reminder to bring myself and my concerns, my will, my future, my heart and my mind before Him in surrender, offering these things up to Him consciously, the more it seems I feel them being lifted again and again without conscious recollection. Such a mystery, this attitude of the heart.
And as my shallow understanding deepens of His greatness and His love for me, I realize how unimportant words have become. He doesn’t need them quite as much as I think He does. Of course, He loves our simple conversations, the ones when I thank Him for warm cherry pie, for getting off work early, for a car that runs; when I ask Him to help me choose the right words in an uncomfortable situation; when I can laugh with Him over human blunders; when I can cry to Him because it hurts so much; when His love is so real …
He loves to hear me come to Him in prayer when I just want to chat, like old friends. But then … there are some days when all I can do is sit and be; when it’s simply enough to lift my throbbing heart, pulsing with raw emotion and feeling, on my hands for Him to see and understand. And we sit there together in silence, me feeling and Him understanding. And after a while, I know that He’s heard everything I’ve never said and He feels what I haven’t been able to express. He’s absorbed my silent cries and He caresses my now still heart. I look up at Him and smile. And He nods as I put my heart back into the shell called me. My heart beats steadily again, bringing back to life something once broken. All of this, the daily miracle of unspoken prayer. An attitude of the heart. As my Creator, He knows it all. And silent surrender is simply enough.
This is the miracle of a human being loved and cared for by God, our own love being deepened and radiating joy, His grace imparted daily and our faith strengthened for His glory. This is the incredible story of our redemption and what angels long to look in to …
