To know Christ, grow in Christ, and share Christ's love.
Our Spiritual Journeys - June 19, 2006
Do you have trouble praying?
Perhaps you long ago quit trying. Or have never really tried. I have often struggled to pray, largely because I have been trained as a male adult to be a doer, a mover, and a shaker. I am supposed to make things happen. In my 20's I developed a desire to know God and to be a person on a spiritual journey. So I persevered in praying. Mainly, I just prayed for my projects and concerns, so that I could succeed in moving and shaking, doing, and making things happen. Prayer became a mental process of figuring out what God would approve of and then asking for God's power to make that happen.
Then I was ordained. As a minister in a church I prayed regularly: in our church services, with sick people, over meals; and in spite of all these opportunities to pray I felt hollow inside, out of touch with God in a personal way. When I took time for private prayer, I simply felt that prayer had become another way of striving and proving myself. I lacked humility and inner peace.
I needed another way.
And another way came my way! I learned about silent prayer. Yes, silent prayer. That is to say, believing that the Spirit of God is present always and that we do not need our words and our agendas to commune with God. In fact, our words can at times become noise instead of the true inner yearning of our own hearts. In the last few years I have learned to pray in silence, at least 20 minutes per day. I experience two benefits in simply falling quiet in the presence of God. First, my anxiety driven agenda is disarmed for a few minutes. Second, when I choose to rest in the presence of God, I feel a little more humble, one Child of God that needs the Love of God.
As a Christian, I value the example of Jesus who, many times, after being deeply engaged in the stress of his work to bring hope and joy to the world, would go apart for times of prayer. I am absolutely certain that much of that was quiet time, trusting in God's presence and goodness.
Sometimes we just try too hard. We all feel so much pressure to succeed, to win and prove ourselves. Prayer is about loving and being loved. Many of us are so hard-wired and conditioned to compete that we are easily unnerved by the simpler, quieter promises of Our Spiritual Journeys. Nevertheless, I have learned that prayer that begins with silence can be a wonderful antidote to the noise and anxiety of our lives.
Will you give a little quiet prayer a chance in your life? And feel free to let me know how it goes.
The Rev. Merrill Wade is an ordained priest in the Episcopal Church, serving at St. Matthew's Episcopal Church in Austin, Texas. You are encouraged to contact him at
Merrill@StMattsAustin.org.
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