Written Prayer

So, I took a break from this blog exercise last week ... at the same time that I took a vacation and really flip-flopped my schedule ... not to mention, at the same time that I finished reading Love Winsby Rob Bell, which really threw me for a loop. Here is not the place to discuss my opinions of the book, but this intro is just a way to explain my topsy-turvy spiritual limbo state this week. I've been finding it difficult to open up in prayer - I am first resistant, and then easily distracted, and often quite tongue-tied. So I made myself sit and write what I knew I needed to express.

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Heavenly Father, I am thrilled by my recent paradigm shift, by finding a whole Christian community across the globe and across the ages who share this shifted world view. What I am learning is what I have always wanted to be true. I do not, and maybe cannot ever, truly know what is true; it is not for me to know but for me to trust your will. Yet I cannot go back from this point. What I am learning matches up with reason – though I know your reason is not just superior to but even perpendicular to man's reason – but it also matches up with my understanding of your being. I should be ecstatic and full of praise, yet instead I am feeling like an anathema.

You have put me into a loving community, an accepting and attentive community. And I love your for that blessing! Rather than keeping my new insights and new feelings in the dark, I bring them to the light, and I am always surprised by the gentle reception I receive from even those who do not agree with me. Yet, I feel like an anathema because I do not feel your pleasure, Lord.

I live to bring you pleasure. I long for my life to be a source of delight for you. I know this is possible! Zephaniah says “He will take great delight in you, he will quiet you with love, he will rejoice over you with singing!” Almighty God, I crave your song over me!

But I do not feel your pleasure over my new direction, nor do I feel your displeasure. Somehow, I don't feel you at all this past week. Only a few weeks ago, I found your presence in every daily activity. I was almost playful in seeking you out at all moments of the day, reminding myself by reciting “God is here!” whenever I thought to say it.

Yet now to do so feels forced and shallow. What was playful and earnest has now become legalistic and empty. I don't know what to do to find you again, Lord. In fact I know that there is nothing I can do. That it is not me, but you, who draws near. I need you to show me what blockage, what plank in my eye, what stopper in my ears, is keeping me from realizing you.

I have discovered a freedom that is almost scary, and I don't know how to cope. I am in a position to follow you not from fear of eternal destruction but because I love you and you alone can give true life. This freedom requires, not obedience, but passion. A passion that needs to be unlocked because, truth be told, I am very scared, Lord, so scared I don't even know of what.

Please God, keep me in your truth, lead me in the ways of righteousness that restore me to your pleasure, do not let me slip away.

Amen.