When I was in sixth grade I remember my church hosting a lay renewal event, during which I experienced the richness of God's love for me.  I recall waiting for my parents after most of the people had left the church facility. I went outside with a football.  It was dusk.  The sun had set, but the sky was full of magical colors. My heart couldn't contain the powerful abundant love I felt.  I stood looking up saying "thank you, thank you, thank you!"  I started throwing the football straight up over and over again.  Each time my muscles shouted at the ball to go further toward heaven like a prayer.

Many years have passed since then and I have had spiritually lucid times as well as times of utter foolishness.  I have uttered many, many prayers--most have been the kind about which the Apostle Paul wrote when he declared that when we do not know what to pray, the Holy Spirit intercedes for us.  I have mis-prayed many prayers--asking God to fit into my will which was twisted in fears and pride.  I have also listened to many prayers and have heard people ask for things that I and others were praying for the opposite.  How is this possible?  I have learned that opinions do not prayers make.  Asking God for something that is crafted from our opinions is like throwing a ball into the air hoping it will fly so high that it will be free of gravity.  The ball falls back to the earth and so do our opinion prayers.

Jesus' most honest and humble prayer is "not my will but Thy will be done."

What is God's will?  That should be the substance of prayer--no shortcuts, no substitutions, no alternatives.  

Earnest, open, honest prayer leaves our hearts open to being shaped by the will of God, so that our prayers become an expression of God's will, God's kingdom.  This prayer is like biting into the sweetest, richest part of the fruit.  Over and over again.  If this is what praying is, can be, why would we settle for nibbling on the mealy core?

We are created to be one with God and the only way to be one with God is to accept God's will and realize it is home, it is what our hearts most desire.  Anything less is violence toward our own heart.  No "one-der" Jesus prays that his disciples (followers) become one with the Father as he is one with the Father.  He knows the gift such one-ness is and he loves us and wants us to experience the one-ness with the One who made us.

© Stephen Carl