September 26, 2024
Dear siblings in Christ,
Last Sunday my sermon focused on submission to God, and the wisdom and peace that result when we do that. According to the writer of the book of James, submission to God means doing the things God asks us to do.
Submission – surrendering our will, authority, and autonomy to God – is also a practice we can incorporate into our prayer life.
The prayers we offer to God usually involve asking God for something. We intercede for someone we care about. We ask God for something we need or for forgiveness. These are good prayers. And God, like any loving parent, receives those requests and sometimes even says yes to them. But there can also be a shadow side to these kinds of prayers. When our prayers are exclusively ones that ask God for specific things, God can become for us a kind of spiritual vending machine. And, just like when your chips or candy bar gets stuck in a literal vending machine, we can become frustrated when our prayers don’t “work”.
A different kind of prayer you might experiment with involves letting go of all those wants and requests, surrendering ourselves and those we love to God, without any specific direction to God about how God should act. You may be familiar with “The Welcoming Prayer” written by Thomas Keating:
Welcome, welcome, welcome.
I welcome everything that comes to me today, because I know it's for my healing.
I welcome all thoughts, feelings, emotions, persons, situations, and conditions.
I let go of my desire for power and control.
I let go of my desire for affection, esteem, approval, and pleasure.
I let go of my desire for survival and security.
I let go of my desire to change any situation, condition, person or myself.
I open to the love and presence of God and God's action within. Amen.
Well, THAT’s a different approach.
When we welcome “what is” in our life, it doesn’t mean that we don’t want or need something to change. It certainly doesn’t mean that we stay in dangerous or abusive situations. It means that we accept our current reality and invite God into it. Instead of fighting the things and people around us, Thomas Keating says that we can consider welcoming them and welcoming God’s transformative presence through them, as we consent to God’s action in all areas of our lives.
To fight against our reality, grasping at specific outcomes, is one way we try to be in control. Trying to control things we cannot is a path of pain we have each walked. But when we can let go and meet God in our reality as it is, we experience a surprising liberation in God’s loving, healing presence.
May all of us know the wisdom and peace that are born from this kind of surrender.
With love and in faith,
Jenny+
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