𝐖𝐇𝐀𝐓 𝐀 𝐁𝐄𝐀𝐔𝐓𝐈𝐅𝐔𝐋 𝐖𝐀𝐘 𝐓𝐎 𝐒𝐓𝐀𝐑𝐓 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐃𝐀𝐘:

In my time with the Lord this morning (which has been far too infrequent of late) I happened upon a note sent to me years ago following Jimmy’s loss. The sender was someone I did not know at the time, but who now is one of my very favorite people.

I texted her the pic at the top with this message, “Spending time with the Lord this morning and stumbled upon this.”

She responded with her own pic and this message, “We’re both hanging out with Jesus.”

What a joy, the peace that accompanies return. No matter how much time elapses, it is always like coming home again.

We are received. Enfolded.

We discover, much to our delight, that God doesn’t scold our absence, He welcomes our return.

𝐉𝐞𝐫𝐞𝐦𝐢𝐚𝐡 𝟏𝟓:𝟏𝟔 says, “Thy words were found, and I did eat them; and thy word was unto me the joy and rejoicing of mine heart: for I am called by thy name, O Lord God of hosts.”

God’s word has once again nourished me this morning in ways nothing else has the power to do. It is He who meets me on its pages.

It is He who beckons me home. It is He who moves on the edge of His throne to receive my prayers, inclining His ear the moment I speak His name.

What an unspeakable privilege is ours to go beyond the veil.

Years ago, our dear friend, Alan Hirsch introduced me to Abraham Heschel.

A scholar and extraordinary writer in his own right, Alan became a sort of curator of my soul’s library. Time and again, he has pointed me toward men and women I would never have discovered on my own. I have devoured the works of these exquisite writers, savoring sentences that stop me in my tracks, lingering over words that knock my socks off, and growing in my own yearning for a life spent pursuing God.

Alan ruined me for mediocre writing, and I am better it.

So, friends, as we begin our day in the Word and before the throne, I humbly share Heschel’s words from his essay, Prayer. May they bless you as they have me.

“We do not refuse to pray; we abstain from it. We ring the hollow bell of selfishness, rather than absorb the stillness that surrounds the world, that hovers over all the restlessness and fear of life—the secret stillness that precedes our birth and follows our death. Futile self-indulgence brings us out of tune with the gentle song of nature’s waiting, of mankind’s striving for salvation.

Why do we not set apart an hour of living for devotion to God by surrendering to stillness? We dwell on the edge of mystery and ignore it, wasting our souls, risking our stake in God. We constantly pour our inner light away from Him, setting up the thick screen of self between Him and us, adding more shadows to the darkness that already hovers between Him and our wayward reason.

Our mind has ceased to be sensitive to the wonder. Deprived of the power of devotion to what is more important than our individual fate, steeped in passionate anxiety to survive, we lose sight of what fate is, of what living is. Rushing through the ecstasies of ambition, we only awake when plunged into dread or grief. In darkness, then, we grope for solace, for meaning, for prayer.

But there is a wider, voluntary entrance to prayer than sorrow and despair—the opening of our thoughts to God. We cannot make Him visible to us, but we can make ourselves visible to Him. So we open our thoughts to Him—feeble our tongue, but sensitive our heart. We see more than we can say. The trees stand like guards of the Everlasting; the flowers like signposts of His goodness—only we have failed to be testimonies to His presence, tokens of His trust.

How could we have lived in the shadow of greatness and defied it?
We discover that He is not austere. He answers with love our trembling awe. Repentant of forgetting Him even for a while, we become sharers of gentle joy; we would like to dedicate ourselves forever to the unfoldment of His final order.

To pray is to take notice of the wonder, to regain the sense of the mystery that animates all beings, the divine margin in all attainments. Prayer is our humble answer to the inconceivable surprise of living.

It is all we can offer in return for the mystery by which we live. Who is worthy to be present at the constant unfolding of time? Amidst the meditation of mountains, the humility of flowers—wiser than all alphabets—clouds that die constantly for the sake of beauty.

Only one response can maintain us: gratefulness for witnessing the wonder, for the gift of our unearned right to serve, to adore, and to fulfill. It is gratefulness which makes the soul great.”
~ 𝐀𝐛𝐫𝐚𝐡𝐚𝐦 𝐉𝐨𝐬𝐡𝐮𝐚 𝐇𝐞𝐬𝐜𝐡𝐞𝐥