Quieting My Heart: Searching for the Gold

This practice we call prayer

is really quite illusive …

we long to be faithful in prayer,

and we often struggle with prayer.

The short, desperate prayers come easy;

asking for things, for help,

but the prayer for others, 

the real travailing in prayer - 

for things of eternal significance;

well, why is it often so hard?

Could it be that the most important

actually can become the hardest;

for the gold is often hidden,

kept for those who search the longest

and with the greatest effort.

And so taking time to pray,

to faithfully intercede

on the behalf of others -

maybe it is of deeper significance

than we even realize.

For in travailing in prayer

we enter into the very center

of God's heart -

and in entering,

we become one with Him,

with His plan and purpose

for all to come to know Him. 

And maybe if we neglect

this most high calling -

“What will suffer is the 

life of God in him,

which is nourished

not by food,

but by prayer.”

(Oswald Chambers

in “If You Will Ask”)

Lord, will you teach me,

will you teach us,

to pray?

Lead us to the gold,

the place where 

we are nourished

by You.

(Photo: our crabapple tree)