This is a second journal attempt at this particular day. It's probably the fourth attempt at the day itself, though. I'm lingering here, without being guided to so perhaps I shouldn't be, because I'm not feeling it like I was a few weeks ago. After that time I got so busy I kind of lost the feeling and verve for prayer that I had at the time. Nonetheless, I've got much more time now, and I'm here.
Dear Lord,
I know you're already here, but I want to let You know that I want You here. Thank You for inviting me to this prayer time. You invite me to all prayer times, and to pray always. However, I'm thankful for this prayer, at this moment, because this moment is all I have, therefore this prayer is the only one I have. I am here with You, and I'm glad. Thank You, Lord.
Lord, you know I've struggled to even sit down for prayer for a while, and when I do pray it's not been the sort of awe striking, emotionally enraptured prayer I was having before. But through your words, through little things I've read that you wanted me to read, and little things I've heard that you wanted me to hear, you reminded me that my desire, or my desire to desire, and my attempt to pray please you. The fact I take the time and that I bother to try, regardless of how I feel, is most important. Lord, here I am. While my heart isn't stirred at the moment, I know I'm glad I'm here at this moment. I feel a sense of calm and satisfaction I haven't felt for a while, and I know that's a gift from You. I think you know I need that right now in order for me to actually come back to you. It helped me connect the dots of the reminders I just recounted, and that I needed to take real action. It's good to be able to see Your actions, Lord. It's heartening.
Where do I see the awesome glory of Your creation revealed in my life?
Lord, it's everywhere, in all things in everyone. I've been marveling at Your creation in nature for my whole life, and especially since my family moved to Montana. For decades I've seen You in the rolling plains of Nebraska, in and between the corn rows, and all of the man hours, love, sweat, anxiety, equipment, technology and science which went into those perfectly straight rows, and their abundant production. I've seen it in the rugged rocky mountain junipers which seem to defy nature by growing and thriving on ground which seems to be trying to reject it. The little eroded mini-canyons carved in the loess soil as the glaciers melted away tens of thousands of years ago. The countless dry stream beds which are almost like Your finger prints left on the earth. The strangely formed bison which seem to be hold overs from an older, more exotic and wild era.
But more recently, and somewhat ironically since I'm in magnificent Montana surrounded by Your breathtaking vistas and stark seasonal changes, I've been more captivated by Your people. And I've been arrested by what Your people, and the physical world You created mean. This, to us, is humbling. Your universe is vast and wild and dangerous. It's exhilarating and interesting. This universe and it's mostly predictable laws were created entirely out of love, and at least in part for us to use as a means to attaining eternal communion with You. To You were are physically small. You who created this universe whose measurements are so big, and is populated by so many galaxies our human minds cannot entirely fathom it. Even the physical realm is beyond us, let alone You. Nonetheless.....you have invested much time and effort in tailoring something that we may come to know, love and serve You, thus spend eternity with You.
Yet in spite of this set of revealed, or discernible truths, we often fight. We judge, we get snippy, we are passive aggressive, we murder, we steal, we lie, we harm, we wish harm on others. We are truly terrible and lowly sinners. Yet.....You long for us to love You back. We're thrashing in a sea of Your healing love. You are bombarding us with Your grace, if we'd only let it in.
While this is sometimes a terrible existence, it is always a wonderful existence. I see that even though we humans create such ugly things and horrific tragedies, this can really only be a creation of and for love. Of love, because it's absurd. Nothing can be created by nothing, except by You, God. And through Your tender, patient care You revealed Yourself to us. You did it through rainbows, burning bushes, bronze serpents, the words of Your prophets, the building and destruction of Your temple, and, ultimately, Your own descent to us as a man. The one who has been with you for eternity, was sent down among us, as one of us, in such a lowly you perfectly loved form. A form which all of humanity share with You. Part of You was subject to sickness, to pain, to awkward stages of puberty, to boredom, to backbreaking labor, to very human fatherly and motherly love, to terrible and humiliating torture and death. Lord, forgive us, for we did not, and still do not know what we do.
Lord, you came as a mere man to show us the way. You showed us that we are to love perfectly, and You both showed and told us how to do it. You revealed to us the sanctity of all life. The faces which are sometimes ugly and pointed at us in anger or disdain we are supposed to love. Our own ugly and disdainful faces we are to love, and to heal. You have told us that You are in all of us. God, I am so slow to love. Only somewhat recently have I begun to see the wonderfulness and lovability in others. Only somewhat recently have I begun to see You in others. It's so hard, but it's also so exhilarating at the same time! God, give me the grace to do it.
I love You, Lord, but it's imperfect. I feel my soul longing for you. I feel all the feelings of desolation, which is both a sign of my imperfection, but a sign that I'm made to love You. In a way those symptoms are good. They point me to You. I want to love You perfectly, right now. I don't want to wait, Lord. But I know in order to love You perfectly, I must love all others perfectly. I know this does not mean condoning sin, but I do know that this means loving sinners with all my heart. I also know it means loving myself with all my heart. Not to accept all parts of me and my behavior, but to internalize that I am Your child, Your loving creation which You love more than I can love. If You have decided to love me, and to love all others infinitely, then I know I ought to love everyone as best I can.
All of us really are created in Your image and likeness that we may be vessels of Your grace which impels and empowers us to love You and each other if we only let it. Lord......I invite You in. I imperfectly invite You in, in hopes that one day this invitation may be perfect. I'm scared to love others, and frankly I don't even know what it means to love others, but I ask for the knowledge, the wisdom and the courage to do so. Help me to step onto the narrow bridge of the radical Christian life, with the confidence and faith in Your presence which will keep me from falling off of the edge.
Lord, I love You, but only a little. I invite you in to make that a lot.