Friday, December 21, 2007
Kindly Cockleburr
I was praying one night. "Please hold her."
Prayer is an interesting mirror. God said "You ask me to hold her, but you won't let me hold you?"
I didn't have much to say. He was right.
Everything God does leads to something else. He wanted to hold me because... I need His holding. His holding makes possible other necessary things, just as His direct help with some thinking a while back got me through a difficult night.
He holds me against my well-trained tendency for centripetal activity: everyone heads for the weeds to hide when conflicts come along. Wait for the storm to pass. This approach does nothing to solve the problem that led to the storm.
Who am I to challenge a storm? I stand up, shake my fist, and get knocked flatter than last week's sand sculpture. It's a battle I've never won. Never.
God started working on this years ago. The path to today's solutions started in times and places far away. Faith seems to be optional and belief is just kind of a challenge for God. What seems to matter more is wanting, and more than that perhaps is just being too damned stubborn to give up before I fall farther behind.
What do I want? I can't fit it into words. The Holy Spirit does his praying with groaning too deep for words. I think I understand some of that now.
Prayer is an interesting mirror. God said "You ask me to hold her, but you won't let me hold you?"
I didn't have much to say. He was right.
Everything God does leads to something else. He wanted to hold me because... I need His holding. His holding makes possible other necessary things, just as His direct help with some thinking a while back got me through a difficult night.
He holds me against my well-trained tendency for centripetal activity: everyone heads for the weeds to hide when conflicts come along. Wait for the storm to pass. This approach does nothing to solve the problem that led to the storm.
Who am I to challenge a storm? I stand up, shake my fist, and get knocked flatter than last week's sand sculpture. It's a battle I've never won. Never.
God started working on this years ago. The path to today's solutions started in times and places far away. Faith seems to be optional and belief is just kind of a challenge for God. What seems to matter more is wanting, and more than that perhaps is just being too damned stubborn to give up before I fall farther behind.
What do I want? I can't fit it into words. The Holy Spirit does his praying with groaning too deep for words. I think I understand some of that now.
# posted by Larry @ 08:46 
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sometimes my "best" prayers are said for others and/or said with groaning I can't even understand.
I've been asking for God to hold me a lot more lately and it does help so much, what a concept.
I've been asking for God to hold me a lot more lately and it does help so much, what a concept.
How many times have I prayed for other people...for God to hold them...take care of them...heal them..comfort them...etc..and all along I won't God hold me.
Do you ever find yourself scared to let God hold you? Or perhaps, resisting the prompting of the Spirit to let God hold you because you want to stand on your own yet knowing that you would never survive if you got what you wanted?
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Do you ever find yourself scared to let God hold you? Or perhaps, resisting the prompting of the Spirit to let God hold you because you want to stand on your own yet knowing that you would never survive if you got what you wanted?
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