God is my Father, and He loves His Son.
Prayer is a form of dialogue. We bring ourselves to a state of openness and willingness that we want to share. We hide nothing; we are as rigorously honest as we know how to be. We are not perfect at prayer, but we have faith we can be perfected in prayer.
We make the prayer and then – as befits any dialogue – we make a space in which the other is allowed to speak. We do not rush them. We do not dictate the content of their response. We wait. In faith and hope we wait. The space we make to listen is as important as anything we say.
In part, this faith and hope are together a form of gratitude. If we are really in dialogue with God, then can we not simply be grateful for the very fact of God’s presence? The One is here! If we are not in touch with gratitude, can we get in touch with it? The one to whom we pray is neither foreign nor distant.
It is like how sometimes when I talk with Chrisoula or the kids, I am just so glad that they are there. They can talk or not talk, go deep or not deep at all. It is the relationship upon which the dialogue rests that matters. It is that for which I am most grateful.
Prayer is like that. Prayer in A Course in Miracles is like that.
Lesson 224 emphasizes the space of waiting. We are tired and the world in which we find ourselves is weary, too; we want to see how – we want to live now – as God would have us live and see. Yet if we knew what that meant, we would not need the prayer.
Therefore, in the quiet space that follows our supplication, our work is to be present. We don’t know what God intends to reveal and we want to be careful that we don’t pretend that we do know. If we are serious about salvation, then we have to recognize – in a whole-hearted and open-minded way – that we are not in charge of salvation.
God is the Actor and the Author. That’s what this lesson makes clear. And I am adding, thank Christ He is. Let us be grateful He is. We know what happens when we are in charge, or when we forget who is in charge. We know enough about chaos and confusion to let it go. Let’s not stunt like we’re experts on peace and joy. Let us become humble.
In humility, we are available to the one who is an expert on peace and joy because peace and joy are aspects of the one’s very being. Let us accept our heritage as children of a loving God, a merciful God, and a just God, and let us create as God creates.
That creation begins when we open ourselves in humility to the grace that is present in every moment – the grace of stillness, quiet and availability. When we live this way, the world and the self upon which that world depends, falls away. We need it less and less.
Our model here is Helen Schucman who, when Bill Thetford said there has to be a better way than all this conflict and strife, responded, I will help you find it. She was available; she heard her brother in distress and she responded. I am here. I will help.
Let us give ourselves to God today in that same spirit. I am here. What would have me do? I don’t know the answer, but I am ready to hear it. And, critically, I am grateful for the prayerful dialogue in which that answer is given.
