Meditation of the Day
Prayer and the Narrow Gate
When man encounters God in faith, he meets him with his entire existence, with everything that makes up his life. He cannot open himself to God, he cannot yield a space where God can work within him, without also trying to interest and involve God in what concerns him and what constitutes his life. There is a reciprocal invitation: Man invites God into his life, and God invites him to join in his world and to seek, as a believer, the cooperation of God.
If man’s faith is weak he will see in God primarily a support and will go to him with his little personal troubles. He will perhaps find it difficult to give way to God in everything and to trust that God understands things better than he. The more he believes, though, and the more firmly he is anchored in confidence and love, the more impersonal his petition becomes, not because he has lost interest in his own life but because he has to live it out in the service of God, and hence all his needs are dependent on God’s will.
In some way or other, all his petitions will be concerned with the will of God. He will use all his power of prayer to beseech God to carry out his divine will, to have mercy on the world and the church so they will be conformed to his will more and more and serve his purposes. His petition will become more and more a means of returning to God all things that have ever been his or that ought to belong to him. It will be like an attempt to involve God afresh in his creation, his church, his people, his faithful. But in this asking he will not forget thanks and worship. He will recall that he is only showing God one side of the relationship, and that world, church, and mankind must not cause him to forget the sublimity of God, his goodness to all beings, and his desire, and his desire to be worshiped by them.
Prayer and the Narrow Gate
When man encounters God in faith, he meets him with his entire existence, with everything that makes up his life. He cannot open himself to God, he cannot yield a space where God can work within him, without also trying to interest and involve God in what concerns him and what constitutes his life. There is a reciprocal invitation: Man invites God into his life, and God invites him to join in his world and to seek, as a believer, the cooperation of God.
If man’s faith is weak he will see in God primarily a support and will go to him with his little personal troubles. He will perhaps find it difficult to give way to God in everything and to trust that God understands things better than he. The more he believes, though, and the more firmly he is anchored in confidence and love, the more impersonal his petition becomes, not because he has lost interest in his own life but because he has to live it out in the service of God, and hence all his needs are dependent on God’s will.
In some way or other, all his petitions will be concerned with the will of God. He will use all his power of prayer to beseech God to carry out his divine will, to have mercy on the world and the church so they will be conformed to his will more and more and serve his purposes. His petition will become more and more a means of returning to God all things that have ever been his or that ought to belong to him. It will be like an attempt to involve God afresh in his creation, his church, his people, his faithful. But in this asking he will not forget thanks and worship. He will recall that he is only showing God one side of the relationship, and that world, church, and mankind must not cause him to forget the sublimity of God, his goodness to all beings, and his desire, and his desire to be worshiped by them.
- Adrienne von Speyr (+ 1967) was a Swiss medical doctor, mystical writer, and stigmatist.
Give yourself a treat on this Valentine's Day and read up on Adrienne von Speyr by clicking on her name.
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