Morning Prayer: Psalm 25

How much I don’t want to pray! I have been so far from myself. I am trying to work out why I don’t want to pray, but really I just need to go to the next level of coming home.

There is a depth in me, I feel it deep in my belly, to which I am reluctant to go, because it knows exactly what I want and I am frightened of the implications of that. It is like Augustine says: You are within and I am in the external world seeking You there. It is an utterly, utterly different level of being. Everything I need is within.

Is this The Two Standards?

  • The Standard of Christ: all I need is within; this body can teach me all I need to know;
  • The Standard of Satan: I lack; I must cast about for what will fill me up, complete me; and I want control of my life.

All the time I forget this experience of You within me. Everything we do in the world is to avoid You. I suspect that if I were to be this present all the time I would see how much of what I engage in is futile and a waste.

So, here’s another reason not to pray: we will see that most of what we do is futile, that most of our choices are wrong-headed, made for the wrong reasons, because we are not in touch with our depths. So much of the time there is the question, “What shall I do?” The truth is, much more of the time than I realise, I don’t need to ‘do’ anything. To sit, to be, to be with You, is enough.