Open Yourself to God
To pray
means to open your hands before God. It means slowly relaxing the
tension that squeezes your hands together and accepting your existence
with an increasing readiness, not as a possession to defend, but as a
gift to receive. Above all, prayer is a way of life that allows you to
find stillness in the midst of the world where you open your hands to
God’s promises and find hope for yourself, your neighbor, and your
world. In prayer, you encounter God not only in the small voice and the
soft breeze, but also in the midst of the turmoil of the world, in the
distress and joy of your neighbor, and in the loneliness of your own
heart.
Prayer leads
you to see new paths and to hear new melodies in the air. Prayer is the
breath of your life that gives you freedom to go and to stay where you
wish, to find the many signs that point out the way to a new land.
Praying is not simply some necessary compartment in the daily schedule
of a Christian or a source of support in a time of need, nor is it
restricted to Sunday mornings or mealtimes. Praying is living. It is
eating and drinking, acting and resting, teaching and learning, playing
and working. Praying pervades every aspect of our lives. It is the
unceasing recognition that God is wherever we are, always inviting us to
come closer and to celebrate the divine gift of being alive.
In the end, a
life of prayer is a life with open hands—a life where we need not be
ashamed of our weaknesses but realize that it is more perfect for us to
be led by the Other than to try to hold everything in our own hands.
Henri Nouwen
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