Lectio
“Prayer is primarily a ‘useless’ hour to be with God, not because I am so useless to God, but because I am not in control. If anything useful comes out of my prayer, it is God who does it. Over time, our time spent with God may become more fruitful. But this is not of our doing. The time set apart for prayer is in our control, but the results are not.”
— Henri Nouwen, Spiritual Direction
Meditatio
On a morning much like this one and so many before it, I woke up feeling overwhelmed. I am hosting an event that needs my attention, I have a class to teach, a business meeting after that, event prep after that, and I have to get my daughter dressed, fed, washed up, and on the bus. And yet, in spite of all of this — in the midst of all of this — I find myself sitting down to do nothing. Not nothing, exactly — but nothing useful in the sense of completing any of the many tasks I have to get done, and nothing useful in the way the world measures it. I find myself sitting down to pray — to do nothing with God, to do nothing but to be with God, to do nothing but to be still and trust that He is God and that I am not.
This is my reminder — my reminder that I do not sustain myself, that I do not move myself, and that I do not live for or by myself. My life is from and for Him. My life is by and through Him. From the beat of my heart to these words on this page, none of it happens without His animating the dust of me with the breath of Him.
And so, in this moment of utter uselessness, I give myself over to the Giver of Life, as a reminder that I am not Him, as a reiteration of my nothingness without the All, and as a recollection of who and what I am in who and what He is.
In this moment of utter uselessness, I offer myself in my finiteness to Him who is Infinite. I abandon myself in time to Him who is Eternal. I let go of all that is not love to receive Him who is Love. And yet, it is not I who does this, but His Spirit within me being drawn to its Source, the Home in me being called Home, the All in me returning to the All.
Within all of the needs, wants, and demands of the world and my flesh, God beckons me to God. God summons me to rest. God invites me into Sabbath with God who is my Sabbath.
Oratio
Dust In The Breeze
all of my ideas
plans
designs
vanity of vanities
a speck of dust
on the eternal breeze
of the breath
of the Lord
without His Spirit
moving through me
from All
through all
to All
dust is all I am
blowing from shore to shore
without a home
take me home
Contemplatio
Can you sit with the possibility that your prayer — however distracted, however brief — is already His Spirit in you being drawn toward its Source?
Related Scripture
“Unless the Lord builds the house, those who build it labor in vain. Unless the Lord guards the city, the guard keeps watch in vain. It is in vain that you rise up early and go late to rest, eating the bread of anxious toil; for he gives sleep to his beloved.”
— Psalms 127:1–2 (NRSVCE)
For Further Reading
If you enjoyed this post, you may also like Becoming Worship: Silence, Consent, and the Sacred Dance, which traces the same non-instrumental logic of prayer — that worship is not a transaction but a mutual pouring out of love, and that silence is where the word rises and where we become what we already are.
Robert Van Valkenburgh
Grappling With Divinity.
Wrestling With God.
Returning To Love.
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