Listening and Praying During Lent

Jesus said the first most important commandment is to: “Love God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength.” (Mark 12:30) So how do we do that? How do we love God without having a tangible God “thing” to hold onto and squeeze and hug?

You might say we have each other to hug and take care of as God would want us to do. Or, we have Nature to go out and appreciate and praise God for her beauty. Or, we can share our resources with those in need. God smiles about all these ways of loving God.

Yet, I also imagine that our loving parent God would want us to love him/her by communicating. That is really all I want from my adult grown children. I LOVE it when they communicate how they are doing and what they care about and how their lives are going. As their mother, I feel blessed whenever they initiate or answer a call and talk. So I imagine God is very grateful for that as well and whenever we pray and tell God how we are doing and thank God for our blessings and lift up to God what we are concerned about in prayer, then God knows we love him. That is one great way to obey the first commandment from Jesus. Pray, pray, pray.

Listening for a word from God in prayer is another way to show your love of God. To accomplish the deep listening you must carve out time to be silent and truly listen. So – for the Lenten Season 2017, I suggest we all show God our love by praying unceasingly and by listening in prayer to the message God has for us these 40 days leading up to Easter. Remember:  “What a privilege to carry everything to God in prayer!” (from the hymn: What a Friend We Have in Jesus.)

I Happened to be Standing

by Mary Oliver

I don't know where prayers go, or what they do.
Do cats pray, while they sleep half-asleep in the sun?
Does the opossum pray as it crosses the street?
The sunflowers? The old black oak growing older every year?

I know I can walk through the world, along the shore or under the trees, with my mind filled with things of little importance, in full self-attendance. A condition I can't really call being alive

Is a prayer a gift, or a petition, or does it matter?

The sunflowers blaze, maybe that's their way.
Maybe the cats are sound asleep. Maybe not.

While I was thinking this I happened to be standing
just outside my door, with my notebook open, which is the way I begin every morning.
Then a wren in the privet began to sing.
He was positively drenched in enthusiasm,

I don't know why. And yet, why not.
I wouldn't persuade you from whatever you believe
or whatever you don't. That's your business.
But I thought, of the wren's singing, what could this be if it isn't a prayer?
So I just listened, my pen in the air.