Praying with Eddie Askew

January 11, 2009

Thank you for all you do for me, Lord.
And for all you do
for this restless world I live in.
For the life you create and sustain.
For your love which holds and feeds me,
and gives me strength.
For your activity underlying the universe,
gradually, patiently, working our your purposes
- in spite of all I do to help!

And thank you for what you are,
not just for what you do.
Thank you
for being the strong ground in which I sow my life,
the sure goodness in which all good is rooted,
and the love from which all love is harvested.

Lord, there’s a time for work
and there’s a time for waiting,
a time to let your love soak in.
Sinking into the hot dry earth of my being.
Cool, refreshing, renewing.

The trouble lies with me, Lord.
The easy way I convince myself
that if I’m not moving
everything stops.
The way I substitute action for devotion,
and hide from your view behind a dustcloud of doing.
Doing, always doing,
in a restless fever of activity,
fingers plucking at the bedsheets of being
yet never straightening them out.

But don’t I have to share your love,
share it with others?
And isn’t the only way
- you see, I’m not giving in easily, Lord -
to do something?
Then another question hits me
- you punch low, sometimes, Lord.
If I don’t have time for you,
no time to be,
no time for just you and me in the quietness,
if I don’t open myself to your love
unhurried, uncluttered,
then what do I have to share?

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