Heart more than Muscle

Why is it easier to work for God than pray to God?

Why is it easier to break our own backs than to come rest in Him?

Don't I believe God can do more with a moment of prayer than I could with a millennium of work? (He'll ask me to do both, but He asks me to do one first.)

Is it easier to have faith in our own flesh and sinew than in our own Father and Savior?

I have questions. Do I want the answers?

 

[The invisibility of prayer terrifies me]

 Its easier for me to work, to go,  to bluster and plan and delegate and do.  Its so very much tangible, so visible. 

But prayer? The unseen communication? 

Not tangible.

  To actually kneel before my God, who doesn't need his picture taken, or his house cleaned? To come before a God who need any of my services or duties?

How simple.

But also, how seriously foriegn to anything else in my life currently. 

He desires the duties of my heart. 

The affections of the inside man, not the currency of world events.

I am terrified of prayer, because perhaps, I know its power. 

And it requires me to die, die, die to self and to the world; something thats simple, yet very complex.

Because its so invisable, because it can't be seen... I ignore it most of the time. Trading  the Knees, so hidden, for the hands, so laudable.

I am a fool not to pray. 

 

But.... I am learning. 

This summer has been a whirlwind of events, days blowing off the calendar like leaves off the late summer trees. I scarcely find time to sleep. 

To rest. To pray. 

I am learning that in the whirlwind, in the day to day is when I need it most, 

this prayerful solstice, this redeeming rest. 

I cannot wait till the winter to revisit the knees, to find time to be quiet again. 

If I cannot pray in the crazy times, the times when each box in my calendar is filled, the times when each day brings work,work,work, then how will I even have a desire to pray in the slow times? the times when I have nothing better to do? 

So, in the midst of my crammed calendar, I'm learning to slow, even at this breakneck speed. 

I am learning to rest. To make time.

Its more a sacrifice of the heart than the clock, I am beginning to find.

So, I remind myself.

"He needs your heart more than your muscle, Laura."

"Heart more than muscle"

So, I am learning to rest. 

To find a quiet place, even in the mess.

So, I let the words come slowly, thoughtfully, out loud, out of the places of being...


Our Father which art in heaven,

Hallowed be thy name.

Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread.
And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.
And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil:
For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever and ever.
Amen.
Matt. 6:9-13