A Thought

“Yes, if you call out for insight and raise your voice for understanding, if you seek it like silver and search for it as for hidden treasures, then you will understand the fear of the Lord and find the knowledge of God.” Proverbs 2:3-5

Often in our prayers we lose our voice and cannot find the words to express the many things and persons on our minds.  Indeed Jesus taught us how to pray with The Lord’s Prayer, teaching that “your Father already knows what you need”.   So if there is only confusion in our hearts as we take in all the brokenness of this world and cannot find the words for our prayers, we have a prayer at the ready that is more than obligatory, more than petition, and more than confession; it is praise and an acknowledgment that we lack the capacity to speak to all the pain in the world.  It is a plea for help!

More than merely reciting this prayer, however, there should be reflection on all that is revealed within the prayer itself.  More than anything else, we need peace of mind and heart and spirit.  We need assurance that in spite of the chaos that surrounds us, there is order beneath it all.  In a word, we need wisdom rather than favors.  And this we need because as much as we might wish to pray away all the heartache in the world and leave it at that, we may discover what The Lord means for us to do in His behalf.  “Your will be done” cannot mean only that we wish The Lord would change the hearts of others.  If we truly seek His will “on earth as in heaven”, we must be open to the reality that The Lord calls upon His own to deal with the chaos, the disorder, the pain, the loneliness, the starvation, and the weeping. 

Maybe first we should “call out for insight and raise [our] voices for understanding” and find out that what we truly “seek, we will find”.  Not personal favors.  Wisdom.  Insight.  And finally, peace of mind and heart and soul – because I think at this time, this is what we probably need most.

The Lord is great, is He not?

Michael