questions, day 4

Come to Stillness: Take a few minutes to allow your mind and heart to be still before God.

Opening Prayer:
O God, our Father, Creator of all that is, give us the courage to wrestle with the questions you ask us rather than jumping to some immediate answer—thereby cutting off any possibility of real growth or struggle. Help us stay in the question long enough to hear what it is you have for us there. In the name of Jesus. Amen. (JLB)

Psalm for the Week: Psalm 13

Scripture for the Day: John 13:1-15

Reading for Reflection:

“Why do you weep when you pray?” Moshe asked me, as though he had known me a long time.

     “I don’t know why,” I answered, greatly disturbed.

      The question had never entered my head.  I wept because—because of something inside me that felt the need for tears.  That was all I knew.

     “Why do you pray?” he asked me, after a moment.

     Why did I pray?  A strange question.  Why did I live?  Why did I breathe?

     “I don’t know why,” I said, even more disturbed and ill at ease.  “I don’t know why.”

     After that day I saw him often.  He explained to me with great insistence that every question possessed a power that did not lie in the answer.

     “Man raises himself toward God by the questions he asks Him,” he was fond of repeating.  “That is the true dialogue.  Man questions God and God answers.  But we don’t understand His answers.  We can’t understand them.  Because they come from the depths of the soul, and they stay there until death.  You will find the true answers Eliezer, only within yourself!”

     “And why do you pray, Moshe?” I asked him.

     “I pray to the God within me that He will give me the strength to ask Him the right questions.” (Night by Ellie Wiesel)

Reflection and Listening: silent and written

Prayer: for the church, for others, for myself

Song for the Week: How Firm a Foundation

How firm a foundation, ye saints of the Lord,
Is laid for your faith in His excellent word!
What more can He say than to you He hath said—
To you who for refuge to Jesus have fled?

Fear not, I am with thee, oh, be not dismayed,
For I am thy God, and will still give thee aid;
I’ll strengthen thee, help thee, and cause thee to stand,
Upheld by My gracious, omnipotent hand.

When through the deep waters I call thee to go,
The rivers of sorrow shall not overflow;
For I will be with thee thy trouble to bless,
And sanctify to thee thy deepest distress.

When through fiery trials thy pathway shall lie,
My grace, all-sufficient, shall be thy supply;
The flame shall not harm thee; I only design
Thy dross to consume and thy gold to refine.

The soul that on Jesus doth lean for repose,
I will not, I will not, desert to his foes;
That soul, though all hell should endeavor to shake,
I’ll never, no never, no never forsake.

Closing Prayer:
It seems to me Lord
that we search
much too desperately
for answers
when a good question
holds as much grace
as an answer.

(Seasons of the Heart by Macrina Wiederkehr)