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A wise woman in her late seventies recently divulged to her secret for letting God lead. She struggled to become spiritually mature for a long time. Finally God reminded her that when she was a child she worried a lot about growing taller. It happened anyway. She says this taught her there is no need to pray with a hammer; a feather works much better. No spiritual discipline -prayer, meditation, fasting, or silence - is magic or hold special power in and of itself. It is the combination of openness to God's spirit, along with the discipline, along with a commitment to respond to God, that makes for spiritual growth and change. You can pray as hard as you want, but it is this openness that brings answers and acceptance eventually. A little child wishes and dreams aloud for things that pepper the consciousness: "I want, I want, I want." The wise parent, knowing these litanies of wants may be far from what he child needs, assesses the appropriateness of the wants and responds, "Hmm, sounds like your wanter needs fixing." Learning to pray, or learning the discipline of discernment, is, to a great extent, a matter of training our "wanter" to want the right thing. For many of us, such training doesn't come easily. But the great "pray-ers" urge us to do it regardless, and assure us that the work will be rewarded. The 16th century mystic Teresa of Avila writes, " At first...it is as if one were pulling water from a well to water a garden, bucket by bucket. Later it is as if there were a windlass to help you pull up the bucket. Later still you are able to water your garden by irrigation. And finally, it rains." So what does God lead us toward? Relationship, our worshipful response, and the opportunity to give us more that we might give again. |
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