Lectio
“If you wish to pray laudably, deny yourself every hour (cf. Lk 9:23), and even if you [pass through] every kind of suffering, study it carefully because of prayer.”
— Evagrius Ponticus, On Prayer (De Oratione)
Meditatio
God does not merely desire our attention when we think we need Him. Nor does He desire our attention merely at certain times of the day that we have set aside for Him. God wants our attention always and forever. More so, He wants our entire lives and the entirety of our being to be directed toward and by His love.
Therefore, the question is not simply how often do I pray, at what time, or for how long, but do I pray without ceasing? Is my entire life an act of prayer, devotion, and worship? Am I living for His glory rather than mine, for His satisfaction rather than mine, and in accordance with His will rather than mine? This is what the Lord desires for us — that our whole lives, and not merely our words, become the prayerful response to His love.
But we want to have a say and we want to give the world a say. We want to believe that our fates rest in our hands and in our efforts, and that, if we only try hard enough, things will work out in a way that brings us joy and satisfaction. Or, conversely, we fear that if we do not try hard enough, we will fail and God will have abandoned us. For as much time as we spend trying to please ourselves, we spend an equal amount of time trying to please others or to conform to or be successful within the measures of the world. And so our prayers, we tell ourselves, can wait, or they should be reserved for a specific time and place separate from our everyday lives.
We have families to feed, careers to tend to, and bills to pay, after all. Prayer, our actions demonstrate, is somehow separate from or subordinated to our material and emotional needs. Prayer is part of our life, but it is not our entire life. This is not only a misunderstanding of prayer and of life, but it is also an utter tragedy because it is a denial or rejection of the very gift that God desires to give us, which is Himself, in every moment, every relationship, and every experience, if we will only receive Him.
Through prayer, we unite ourselves to God, or rather He unites Himself to us. Our prayers are not, in fact, a reaching out to God as much as a response to His reaching out to us. He is constantly reaching out to us — even, and especially, in the moments we turn away. Our task then, our calling, is to respond in kind — to reach back through our prayers — but not merely when we are in need or when it is convenient or even in thanksgiving. Our calling — the Lord’s invitation — is to turn every day, every hour, and every moment into an act of prayer.
Through His grace, He calls us into perpetual and eternal relationship with Him. Through joy and celebration, through suffering and hardship, and through the tragic and the mundane, He invites us to trust Him, to commune with Him, and to respond, love for love, to Him giving Himself to us in and as the very moments unfolding before us. This is conversion. This is salvation. This is eternal life shared, here and now, with Him who is eternity itself, with Him who is life itself.
Oratio
Every Moment
every moment
for You
every moment
from You
every moment
with You
every moment
a prayer
a miracle
a gift
every moment
an opportunity
to love
Contemplatio
You do not have to wait for the right hour to meet God — this moment already holds Him. Whatever it contains, joy or ache or the merely ordinary, He is already giving Himself to you within it. Let your whole life, not just your words, answer Him now. Sit in the quiet, and consent.
Related Scripture
“I keep the LORD always before me; because he is at my right hand, I shall not be moved.”
— Psalm 16:8 (NRSVCE)
For Further Reading
If you enjoyed this post, you may also like Not by Knowing, But by Loving: Brother Lawrence and the Practice of Simple Love, which finds the same unceasing devotion Evagrius calls for, but through Brother Lawrence’s quieter path of loving God in every ordinary task rather than through discipline and self-denial.
Robert Van Valkenburgh
Grappling With Divinity.
Wrestling With God.
Returning To Love.
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