Skip to main content

A Timeless Prayer

 


A Timeless Prayer.

My Lord God I have no idea where I am going   I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end.  Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so.  But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you.   And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing.  I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire.  And I know that if I do this you will lead me by the right road, though I may know nothing about it.   Therefore will I trust you always though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death.   I will not fear for you are with me, and you will never leave me to face my perils alone.    Thomas Merton,(1915-1968)

Thomas Merton, as some of you will know, was a Trappist monk whose writings on the spiritual life were very influential in the middle years of the twentieth century especially but still have a resonance. This prayer seems as relevant for us today as it did when it was first written. I will briefly comment on the direction of the prayer but hope to come back to it at some point over the summer.

My Lord God I have no idea where I am going   I do not see the road ahead of me.                                                                                                                                                    I cannot know for certain where it will end. 

Merton starts by acknowledging how uncertain life is.  As someone who lived in the same monastery for many years he was not talking about geographical travel, but that sense of the unfolding nature of our lives, how we change as people and how circumstances can surprise us. He is also humble enough to let go of attempting to control his life in the face of this uncertainty and that includes his own spiritual formation and discipleship.

Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so. 

He is also honest enough to confess that he is still discovering much about himself, that his inner drives and motivations for example can remain a mystery.   This means that as a Christian he may get things wrong and that it is possible he does not know what God’s will is.   Such childlike humility is at the centre of what it means to be a follower of Jesus.

And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing.  I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire.  And I know that if I do this you will lead me by the right road, though I may know nothing about it.  

God looks on us like a loving parent whose small children bring paintings, crafts, mud pies etc which are done out of love but with minimal skill.  It really is the thought that counts and so long as we sincerely desire to get it right, Merton encourages us that God will guide us.  He reminds us that there are right roads and choices and those are better than their alternatives, but that God will help us in the making of these.   Often though we are not aware of how we are fulfilling God’s will, and how he may be using us to bless others, and I think that is quite wonderful.

Therefore will I trust you always though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death.   I will not fear for you are with me, and you will never leave me to face my perils alone.   

With echoes of Psalm 23 Merton reminds us that we will indeed face perils and even the shadow of death and will feel lost at times.   Such things are part of what it means to live a full human life.  Rather than running from them we are encouraged to live into them knowing that we are not alone.

As we emerge into whatever lives ahead for our planet, our country, our city, our church, our family this summer let’s keep the words of this prayer close to our hearts.


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

A Solstice Nudge

  A Solstice Nudge At 3.47am this morning the solstice took place and the earth started its' long journey back towards summer (in the northern hemisphere at least!).   I always feel my heart lighten a little when this happens. It’s all about the direction of travel as I have so often said to people struggling with circumstances or a seeming lack of progress.    And the fact that I know we are heading towards warmth and light makes all the difference in the dark and the cold.   It reminds me that my current situation, however stalled it may feel, will one day pass. Such a change though rarely takes place in a dramatic and obvious ‘before and after’ kind of way.   Rather it feels like a nudge.   You would have to be looking very closely to notice that little tilt of the earth that starts the process.   I’ve just been looking at my weather app and over the next few days the sunset time moves by a minute each day: today:15.44;   23 rd : 15.45; 24 th :15:46 and 25 th 15:47.    (yes
Post a Comment
Read more

Curiosity in Lent

  Lent starts on Wednesday and I've decided this year to cultivate  curiosity. I'm not sure where this will lead me but it came off the back of a school assembly I led yesterday for 200 17 year olds.  I was referencing Jesus' famous saying ' you will know the truth and the truth will set you free'. ( John 8:32). Amidst all the revising for exams and the importance of learning facts and answers I was hoping to inspire them with the sense of wonder they had as children and the curiosity that led them to ask questions.   Good questions sometimes are even more important than good answers. After a day today walking with Ina in the Trossachs and hanging out in our van afterwards reading and chatting and snoozing  I  felt the challenge of my own words the previous morning.    Lent is so often seen as a period of contraction, a narrowing of appetites, restricting of habits, scrutiny of motivations etc.  It is hard to get excited about Lent the way we may feel during Advent
Post a Comment
Read more

A deep breath and a covenant prayer.

  It’s 9pm on the 31 st of December and rarely have I felt so uncertain about the coming year.    There seem way more instability than usual in our national and international systems and given the record of early 2020 and 2021 all bets are off that there’s not something else coming down the track.   Or perhaps October 7 th was that and it just came early.   Or maybe it is the metastatic fall out from that day which will dominate early 2024.    Tonight I’m at the top of a big wave,   hovering there waiting, feeling rarely more alive just as the pre-reptilian bit of my brain flashes all the danger signals.   A deep   breath. And yet I am reminded of the prayer I led my church in this morning, written in the mid eighteenth century by John Wesley and since become an integral part of the Methodist Community’s life. I am no longer my own but yours. 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 asid
Post a Comment
Read more