“We cannot make Him visible to us, but we can make ourselves visible to Him. So we open our thoughts to Him—feeble our tongues, but sensitive our hearts. We see more than we can say. Mindfulness of God rises slowly, a thought at a time.” (Abraham Heschel, “Man’s Quest for God”)

“…we do not know how to pray as we ought, but that very Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words.” (Romans 8:26)

One of the purposes of prayer, as I see it, is to make ourselves known to G-d. What we forget is G-d already knows us intimately, and knows our needs and concerns — sometimes before we can put them into words. But, prayer allows us to wrap ourselves in gratitude and to give our concerns to G-d — for our burdens can overwhelm and drown us in fear.

Paul is clearly aware of the difficulty prayer presents for us all. Jesus also spoke to his disciples about the difficulty of prayer — for that is why he gave them a simple “format”. (See October 11 devotion) But I like Paul’s suggestion that even our sighs “speak” the words that are swallowed by our hearts. We all want our prayers to be wonderful phrases, timed in beat to the thoughts and fears pounding in our brains. But instead of a choreographed dance of words and phrases, out prayers become winding strands of thoughts. So in the midst of tranquility and awe, we sink into agitation and disappointment.

Again, G-d knows our thoughts and our needs, well before we place them into the synapses of our brains. So why do we allow the thoughts of our minds to block our attention to G-d like our palms can block the glare of the sun?

If we accomplish nothing else, in the act of prayer we make ourselves visible to G-d. And even if it is for just a moment, our Prayers take our minds away from our own self-interest, and enables us to focus our minds on the holy presence of our G-d: creator, redeemer and sanctifier.

Pastor Dave