Praying Outside the Box

I recently returned from a writing class held in the mountains of which no words exist to adequately describe.  I would arise early when the mist still clung to the hills in layers as if the mountains were emerging from a bed piled high with quilts.  Two dawns, painted in tones of rose across the horizon, just about took my breath away.  I was there to pursue writing, but I realized that some things stand beyond language.

The writing exercises that week were designed to help us look differently at the pieces we write, indeed to look at those things around us from another perspective, whether observing the commonplace – including a humble mouse hole – or contemplating our own life stories, written on one page in ten minutes.  The week helped us approach our writing on fresh paths and, at times, right through the underbrush where there is no marked trail.

On my LONG drive home, passing through mountains and prairies, both lush forests and drought-stricken fields, the radio faded in and out as I traveled through invisible barriers.  At one point, during a fuzzy section of highway, I turned off the radio and used the time to pray.  And suddenly, I caught myself.  After stretching my brain all week, a new path emerged.  Instead of continuing to pray, “God, please do this and that,” I began to thank Him instead.  Not just for what He has done, but for what He has already initiated, both things I can see happening and those things yet invisible.  “Thank You for what You are doing.”  -- that which is not yet evident, that which seems impossible at this time, mysteries He has already solved and is leading us through.  He sees what we cannot see.  He knows what we can never comprehend.  And someday, someday, we will finally “get it.”  So, that is why that happened, we will all exclaim.

As I prayed, I realized that it is in contentment and thankfulness that we can more clearly receive and trust.  I found myself that day continually slipping back and forth from praying for someone and then intentionally thanking God for them.  Thank You for how you have designed her.  Not “Be with him” but “Thank you for Your Presence with him in that scary place.”  Not “Lead her this way or that,” but “Thank You, LORD, for how you are leading her through this situation.”  Not “Keep him from going there,” but “Thank You for how you will use and redeem that experience in his life for Your glory.”

Try praying entire prayers in words of thanks to God.  It is HARD.  It is difficult to thank Him for what we cannot yet see, and yet what He has already established.  But whether we can comprehend or not, He is still God, Creator of the Universe, not restrained even by time.  Thank Him for what He has done and is doing past, present and future.  It is not what we pray, but how He has already answered.

His faithfulness reaches the heavens, His ways unsearchable, His love more than we can know.

 

Enter His gates with thanksgiving,

      and His courts with praise!

Give thanks to Him, bless His name.

For the LORD is good;

His steadfast love endures for ever,

and His faithfulness to all generations.

                          Psalm 100.4-5