Consider the Lillies

Praying in a new way

About two year ago, I was very discontent with my prayer-life.

God felt far away, and my normal ways of talking to him just didn’t seem to be working. So I stopped praying. Stopping didn’t help.

I started praying again. But my prayers - whispered out loud whilst on my knees, talking like a child to his father, and spending time listening in silence for an answer - were met with… nothing? This went on for weeks and weeks and months and months.

I was so used to having connection - to feeling heard - to feeling that I was receiving answers of some kind or other - to feeling at times like there was a literal physical hand on my shoulder comforting me when I needed comfort - to feeling reprimand when I was being a dick - to feeling a trust behind certain silences, a silence which said “This one is for you to figure out kiddo” - to feeling like I just got punched in the face by a YES YOU IDIOT! when I finally asked if I should propose to my (then) girlfriend. I was even used to crying myself into exhaustion when I found myself enmeshed in seemingly unescapable sinfulness, when “Lord Jesus Christ, thou Son of God, have mercy on me a sinner - of whom I am first!” was all I could say; and when that darkness would finally dissipate - cast out by the bright rays of Jehovah’s forgiveness, his voice was like the rushing of many waters saying “Thy sins are forgiven thee.”

So a year-long silence really really sucked.

One day, I got tired of it all, and I sat down and wrote God a very angry letter - a part of which said the following:

“Dear God,

Where did you disappear to? I feel as though I once knew you deeply and personally, and then you went away! God, I am seeking, and now I hope to find. My soul is knocking (perhaps ahead of my hands) and I hope you can hear me at the door.”

In response to my letter, I experienced a quite unexpected and tremendous outpouring of Peace. And hidden neatly within that peace I felt an answer. But not an answer in any kind of form I had ever know. It wasn’t in words per-se, but it also wasn’t pure feeling or emotion. It was a Conveyance. And the best I can do to re-convey necessitated something like poetry - it said:

Consider the Lillies…

     Think how they know me

     Feel     how they know me

     Know  how they know me, 

     Hear me in the way they hear me.

Know me as the stars do

                       as the trees do

                            as the infants do

     Only in Stillness and Smallness

     Will you hear that voice which speaks

     The language of Creation.

And Fret not! Your soul’s request speaks far louder than your words.

     This is a good start. 

     Now listen deeper

     And consistent too!

I don’t know if I am yet able to pray in the same way the Stars pray. I don’t know if I can hear Christ as well as the trees can. I don’t know if I can array my heart to match the praises sung by the lilies. But after a year of practice, I can feel my Soul beginning once again to speak in her native tongue. I can hear her Longing, and through the silence of her longing I can hear God more clearly than I ever have before; and I can’t help but feel that He hears me more clearly now too. Today I thank God for his Silence - for his silence taught me to truly hear him for the first time.