This devotion caught my attention. I found it very challenging. Levison's use of the text confronts us with our proclivity to want and expect things to be nice and easy. I underlined most of what he wrote on page 32, but I found this quotation strikes too close for comfort: "I pray too casually to grasp the urgency of oppression and unvarnished poverty, where hope is bare-boned and despair tyrannical. I pray too superficially to confront the reality of the dark night of the soul."
An observation that I have made before is that I find that our prayers are always concerned with safety. When I travel to Africa where things are much less safe, I don't hear nearly as many prayers for safety. I am not against asking God for protection, but I think that we need to balance that request for courage, about which I hear very little in prayers that we normally pray.
Of all the prayers so far, this prayer I found by far the most convicting, especially the first stanza:
Holy Spirit
I dangle my toes in a pool of piety
Not much risk there
It's still light, joyful, tranquil...
Wow. I wonder how many of us if we were totally honest with ourselves would find this true in our own lives? And do we have the desire for God and the courage to pray the second stanza?
Take me deeper into the dark
desert nights
desolate days
despair
The purpose of course, is to go to the far side of this "Where I'll collapse into the goodness of God."
I am reminded of John Wesley's prayer:
I am no longer my own, but yours.
I put myself wholly into your hands.
Put me to what you will, rank me with whom you will.
Put me to doing,put me to suffering
Let me be employed for you, or laid aside for you
Exalted for you or trodden under foot for you.
Let me be full, let me be empty
Let me have all things, let me have nothing.
I freely and heartily resign all to your pleasure and disposal
And now, glorious and blessed Father, Son, and Holy Spirit
I am yours and you are mine. So be it.
And the covenant now made on earth,
Let it be ratified in heaven. Amen.
An observation that I have made before is that I find that our prayers are always concerned with safety. When I travel to Africa where things are much less safe, I don't hear nearly as many prayers for safety. I am not against asking God for protection, but I think that we need to balance that request for courage, about which I hear very little in prayers that we normally pray.
Of all the prayers so far, this prayer I found by far the most convicting, especially the first stanza:
Holy Spirit
I dangle my toes in a pool of piety
Not much risk there
It's still light, joyful, tranquil...
Wow. I wonder how many of us if we were totally honest with ourselves would find this true in our own lives? And do we have the desire for God and the courage to pray the second stanza?
Take me deeper into the dark
desert nights
desolate days
despair
The purpose of course, is to go to the far side of this "Where I'll collapse into the goodness of God."
I am reminded of John Wesley's prayer:
I am no longer my own, but yours.
I put myself wholly into your hands.
Put me to what you will, rank me with whom you will.
Put me to doing,put me to suffering
Let me be employed for you, or laid aside for you
Exalted for you or trodden under foot for you.
Let me be full, let me be empty
Let me have all things, let me have nothing.
I freely and heartily resign all to your pleasure and disposal
And now, glorious and blessed Father, Son, and Holy Spirit
I am yours and you are mine. So be it.
And the covenant now made on earth,
Let it be ratified in heaven. Amen.
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