Even Silence Is PraiseExemplo

Just Try Praying . . . and You’ll Be Doing It!

“I call on you, my God, for you will answer me; turn your ear to me and hear my prayer.” (Psalm 17:6)

Intention is everything. Trying is more than enough. To try to pray is to pray. It’s the same with meditation, or with anything that involves giving up and trusting.

Part of me wants lists, a roll call of specific Bible readings, a roster of psalms to make my way through day after day. Indeed, the psalms have been part of my prayer practice for years. I used to have a pocket-sized Gideon Bible of the New Testament and Psalms and would turn to it on the subway. There was even a period when I would print out a psalm and carry it with me on my morning run. (You can imagine what a curious sight that made. “Why is that man reading a slip of paper as he runs?” Goodness knows.) I’ve listened to recordings of the Bible and inspirational podcasts while exercising.

The thing about such efforts is that they are very humbling. I’m filled with questions: What does that psalm mean? What does that passage say? What was the psalmist thinking? How does it apply to me? Why has it been saved and sung for all these years? The biggest mystery: Why do I feel better for saying these psalms? I don’t feel like an expert for doing it. Just the opposite; I’m repeatedly made aware of how little I know. I close my eyes and shut everything out and concentrate on God or love or faith and trust that I’m becoming the person God wants me to become.

When you’re all alone in meditation and contemplative prayer, you can’t weasel out of anything. You can’t pass the buck. Challenging stuff is going to come up, times you didn’t measure up to who you want to be. You might try to focus on all your successes, but your failures will speak out. They will humble you. Wrestling with them is worth every minute of it.

Humility is perhaps one of the most misunderstood of virtues. It’s not pretending to be less, putting yourself in places where you are scorned and belittled. Please don’t do that. Life is tough enough as it is. There’s no need to pound your chest or scrape and bow. True humility is simpler and cleaner. James 4:10 tells us, “Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up.” Humility, as I’ve come to understand it, is acceptance. That cleansing attitude of, Okay, God, I’m struggling here, in over my head. We’ll get through this together somehow. Stay close to me. I need you. I can’t do it all on my own. And I know you don’t expect me to do it all on my own. Only with your help. As Jesus said, “To sit at my right or left hand isn’t mine to give. It belongs to those for whom my Father prepared it.”

It is out of our hands.

Think of that when you are meditating and you’re distraught that a million things are going through your mind. You become obsessed with all that seems to be going wrong in this world. You say your sacred word. You invoke a single syllable, like God, in the midst of your thoughts. You come back to stillness. And then your silly mind has taken you off to the races. You’re upset by a comment someone made on social media. You’re irritated by a story you read in the news. You can’t abide the political scenery any longer. It pains you and makes you physically ill.

Perhaps it’s your back that bothers you or your butt that’s gone numb—you’ve just noticed that all of a sudden. There’s an itch on your nose. (Scratch it.) Your phone buzzes in your pocket. (No, you don’t need to look at that text. It can wait.) You start to think that you are the worst in the world at doing this meditating stuff, this sitting, this attempt at contemplative prayer. Why not give it up?

Welcome to the club. If I were a champion at it, if it came effortlessly to me, I don’t think I’d be writing about it. I wouldn’t have anything to say. I wouldn’t know how hard it can be or what challenges we sainted sinners face. This struggle is the process, is the pleasure, is the practice. I can accept that God is working through me. My job is simply to intentionally put myself here in this sacred space, in this sacred time.

Intention is everything, especially in our prayers.

Respond

Who or what are you currently intenionally praying for?

Make a list of ways you can encourage them and help them.

Prayer

Lord and Savior, help me to intentionally seek your presence today. I love you!