“Be still, and know that I am God!” Psalm 46:10
This excerpt from “The Warning..” caught me this morning. St. Theresa of Avila spoke to C. Alan Ames about prayer.
“I asked St. Theresa, “when I see other people praying, they often have long faces and look miserable, as if they are forced to pray. Yet, this is really joyful, wonderful stuff. Don’t other people experience what I’m experiencing in prayer?” “Well, often they don’t” she answered, “because so often when they pray, they’re thinking of themselves. They’re focusing on their lives, their problems, their concerns. When you focus on self, God gets pushed aside. When God comes second, and self is first, your heart actually starts to close to God and stops His grace from filling you. However, when you focus on God in your prayers and look past yourself, past the world, that is when your soul opens and God pours His grace in a abundance deep inside you.” She said I should tell people that when they pray, the first thing they should do is turn to the Holy Spirit and say, “Lord, I can’t pray properly, I am weak: I’m human; I’m fragile. I’m easily distracted, taken into thoughts about myself and the world. But You, Lord, lead me past that. Help me to pray properly. Help me to focus on the Father, Son and You, Holy Spirit so that my soul may be opened, and I can receive the grace that is for everyone in prayer.”
This is praying in trust. Opening your mind, heart and soul to the teaching of the Holy Spirit to the setting aside of self. Letting go of my needs and fears and worries and desires. Letting God have it all and guide all – regardless of where that leads.
Another easy way to learn this depth of trust in prayer is to sit at the feet of the Immaculate Mother. She gets it. She knows the struggles we face when we pray. She will help us learn to surrender it all the God. Give the pray fully into her Immaculate hands that she may see it fulfilled according to God’s Divine Will.
Trusting to this level I’m the Holy Spirit through the Blessed Mother is a gift filled to super-abundance of grace.
Yes, this depth of trust in prayer means that when you’re terrified and restless, you give the moment to God fully. For me, it meant that when my daughter lay in an ICU on a ventilator, with doctors struggling to just get her stable, my prayer wasn’t for healing or for her. It was fully surrendered to God’s glory and Divine Will. Trusting that God knew what was going on, knew my heart and fears and that He had this event under control. That meant that I trusted our Lady’s love that my prayer would be applied to whomever needed God’s Grace most, Trusting God to the absolute point of surrender. “God, not my will but Yours be done. I love and praise you now and ever, no matter what.”
Take self out of prayer, take your loved ones out of prayer. Take your concerns and fears out of prayer. Give God your full faith and total, absolute trust. Know that He is God and you are not. Know that He got this.
Praise Him now, praise Him forever, praise Him in the sunlight! Praise Him in the darkness! Praise Him in the storm! Praise Him forever and always!
When you pray and in all aspects of your life, God must come first. Look to God and trust God in everything.
“Be still, and know that I am God!” Psalm 46:10
JESUS, I TRUST IN YOU! Period!