Lost Prayers

Lost: Prayer -

If found, please return to me.....

This has been my motto for the past few years. The first thing you do when you lose something is to re-trace your steps. So that is what I did. I re-visited my favorite places to pray. Then I dug up old prayer formulas I had used:

A Adoration
C Confession
T Thanksgiving
S Supplication

Still not finding the key, I re-read books that had been like small doors that opened to my original search for this furtive concept of prayer. Nouwen, Yancey, Swindoll, C.S. Lewis, Tozer, Brother Lawrence, Bounds, Murray, St. Augustine, St. John of the Cross, Teresa of Avila. I was no respector of century or gender - I pursued the Desert Father and Desert Mothers. I sought the prayer disciplines in other faiths - Jewish, Hindu, Moslem, Buddhist. Throughout, I read and read the words of scripture concerning prayer, diving deeply into the Greek and Hebrew.

But I am sad to report, I came out empty. I don't even think empty is the proper word for it. I came out unfulfilled.

I was not so much put off by prayer itself, but of my part in it. I am in a point in my life where I am fully OK with what God has planned for me. I trust Him implicitly. I find that sharing my concern, care, and presence with loved ones in times of trial and tribulation are the best things I can offer. God will lead me into offering more if and when needed.

But somewhere deep inside me I know there is more. I know there is more for me to experience and I have, at times in my life, passed into that realm. But this too seems half empty - as if there is a "thing" I must join God in doing. Part of my mind says He is omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent so of what use am I. But my heart tells me that God chose to come to this earth and through His actual death and resurrection, vanquishing sin and death, came to dwell within me in my human form. I think as Christians we have become so self-centered. What we feel in worship, what music speaks to me, what sermon benefits me - those are our main concerns. God does not dwell within my heart to give me warm fuzzies. There is some purpose in our symbiotic relationship and as exemplified in the example of the selfless life of Jesus Christ, it should be not be at all about me. If Satan is truly the Prince of this Earth, might I not be the living, breathing, praying, human vessel of God's spirit at work. Is my prayer, joined with my His Holy Spirit, a blazing sword against the injustice, illness, and evils of this world. As I pray for others am I clothing them in the armour my my intercession and standing before them with a shield against the Fiendish Foe of this earth. A foe that seeks out weakness and distress so easily, that only my diligence and His protection can save those from the Evil One.

The more I think and, you could say intercede, I realize that prayer is not a "nice" or "proper" thing to do. It is not about "me" but "God in me" and that is exactly what I have been searching for.

The more I seek what I lost, the more I realize it can never be found. Because it does not exist any longer. It is as if I was looking for something that was so important to me when I was a child and finding it, I realize it longer has the draw or function it once had.

It will always be precious, but there is so much more to see and do.