What Should I Ask For?

15 July 2018

Ephesians 1:3-14; Mark 6:14-29

“The earth is The Lord’s and all that is in it, the world, and those who live in it.”  Psalm 24:1

Prayer is the single most challenging, and often the most difficult, of the many means of grace needed to keep us connected to The Lord and to one another.  And by “prayer”, I don’t mean the kind of thinking we often do while we’re preoccupied with something else that requires more of our attention – like driving.  

When I say “prayer”, I mean the kind of mind-, body-, and soul-encompassing effort by which we not only voice our concerns but devote unrestricted and unencumbered time to listen for what may more often be the “still, small voice” experienced by the prophet Elijah (1 Kings 19:11-13).  That is, the “Voice” which can be heard only when we ourselves are “stilled” and humbled – and, as Jesus taught, when the “door is closed” to the outside world (Matthew 6:6).

Absent that “Voice” and the stillness and humility required to hear, it can more often be that our prayers are “answered” only according to our own consciences and deepest desires.  That is, if there is something we really want, our minds can trick us into believing The Lord has granted our request when, in fact, The Lord may have had nothing to do with it.  We have only convinced ourselves.  And that conviction may have more to do with external voices (the dominant culture, friends, or family) than with an internal “Voice” of reason and Truth.

We are compelled to face up to the hard truth that our consciences only really begin to enter into the equation when we get caught up in the struggle between our minds and our souls which are not always on the same page.

King Herod had a struggle within himself, and his conscience played a significant role in this struggle between what external voices were telling him and what his internal voice knew.  People were wondering who this Jesus character was, and the guesses of Elijah or other “prophets of old” were pretty close to the mark in that Jesus, as “the Word which became flesh”, taught consistently from The Word since He Himself IS The Word.

Herod, on the other hand, seemed to reject these guesses perhaps because of a guilty conscience in knowing the Baptizer was dead only because he commanded it.  John was a thorn in Herod’s flesh because John spoke only the Truth, but Herod’s mind was more in tune with his own flesh – that is, his own desires.  Yet with all the unchecked power at Herod’s disposal, he would not likely have deliberately had John executed.  Thorn in the flesh or not, Herod seemed to know deep within himself who John really was. 

Yet it was an external voice which compelled him to act against his own conscience, and even that external voice (Herodias) was not sure what to ask for.  So that external voice of Herod went to yet another external voice for counsel.  And because of an intensely personal and internal desire for … what?  Peace of mind?  That voice overwhelmed Herod’s own conscience and demanded a personal desire to be fulfilled.

We’re talking about murder, of course, and I doubt many of us have such a dark side; but we cannot discount our Shepherd’s very words that a curse against another soul is just this side of murder.  In fact, outright murder would be more merciful than the thousand deaths the victims of our scorn, our ridicule, our slander, our gossip suffer – not by our hands but by our tongues.  We “murder” – or worse, torture – the soul of another who was also created in the Divine Image.

And even though our consciences should tell us otherwise, our minds demand more because the desire of our flesh, our being, is more determined to please itself, regardless of the Internal Voice.  We may know what we should be asking for, what we should be seeking, but the external voices which feed and satisfy the flesh of our inmost desires drive us to demand and to seek something else.  

It is written in the Proverbs (NRSV), “The human spirit is the lamp of The Lord, searching every inmost part” (20:27).  The Good News Translation renders this passage: “The Lord gave us mind and conscience; we cannot hide from ourselves”.

We must also not try to kid ourselves.  Our greatest struggle is always within ourselves, and that struggle is always between flesh and spirit.  We know what we want, but we only think we know what we truly need.  We can try to assuage a guilty conscience, but in the end the flesh will more likely win out because our personal desires overwhelm our spiritual senses.  And even though we may still feel guilty afterward, we appease the conscience by remembering a merciful God who is more likely – and willing - to bless than to curse.

And this happens, more often than not, when we create for ourselves a “personal” God who does our bidding rather than submit to the Lord and Shepherd of the Church who is more likely leading us in an entirely different direction.

This is why prayer is the most challenging and most difficult of the means of grace.  And because it is so difficult and so challenging, it is the most neglected.  We may convince ourselves we are praying while we’re doing something else, but the truth is we’re only thinking.  We’re distracted from the essence of what it means to pray – the willingness to listen even if it is not what we wish to hear.  And because we don’t fully commit ourselves to prayer, we allow our flesh to determine what it is we want.

But a full commitment to prayer can often mean something else is going to happen.  A full commitment to putting ourselves in a position not only to listen but to hear that “still, small voice” means what we will hear is not likely what we desire most – though it will be what we truly need.  It means we will not get our own way.  It means we will be asked to do more for The Lord and His Church than we have ever been willing to do before.  It may mean giving up more of ourselves than we are comfortable with.  It may mean not having our own desires met.

Most of us have an informed conscience.  Having been raised in the Church and hearing the sermons and the Bible lessons, a Christian ethic begins to take shape.  Only when we are fully engaged, however, will that Christian ethic take its truest form.  Herod had only a sense of a Jewish ethic – why else would he have any sort of “fear” of John? – but his desire to please and to protect his reputation overruled what he knew to be true and right.  And he went to his grave with the blood of a true prophet on his hands.

We cannot always trust our own conscience when the ethic is formed independent of the Internal Voice of reason and Truth, but we can always trust The Good Shepherd to show us The Way since He is Himself “The Way, The Truth, and The [only] Life” we must pursue.  And genuine, time-consuming, contemplative prayer (I am convinced) is the only way to get – and remain – so intimately connected. 

What must we always ask for in our prayers?  “Show me The Way”.  We are assured that when we earnestly “seek, we will find”.  And when we “find”, we will be filled.  Amen.