Throughout my life I have deeply believed that God personally knows me. I've believed that God knows and loves me intimately. I was taught from an early age the Lord knows the number of the hairs of my head. He created me, fashioned me, and he continually sustains me. My relationship with God is one where he is my best friend, the guy that protects me from the neighborhood bully.
Trusting can sometimes be the hardest lesson for us to learn. God wants us to trust him. Somehow we have to get it that God has in mind what is best for us. He's watching out for us. Our enemies will not prevail!
Recently I've seen a lot of prayers answered in my life. I waited, trusted, but I never forgot and I never ceased to believe that in God's sweet time--and I mean that reverently and sincerely--that his will would come to pass, and thus it has and it continues to come to pass, again and again.
Something I've been interested in communicating for a long time is idea of trust in faith. Scripture teaches us that God knows our needs before a word is ever on our lips. Faith trusts in the knowledge that God knows...God knows our struggles, our pain, our deepest longings and our hidden hurts.
I've taken a lifetime to come to a place where I simply say "Thy will be done," and then know, undoubtedly, that heaven sings a great praise--yes the hosts of angels sing--because faith is still alive and faith is still making the power of God present. All along what I wanted, what I needed, all the time what I sought so unsucessfully to satisfy before coming to God, was that which can only be filled by trust, by faith, by simply saying "Thy will be done" and as a result feeling the power of heaven--the winds of the Spirit blow through me.
Now, about the title for this piece. It's really about trusting, about love and mercy, about you and I, about everyone we know coming together and saying just a little prayer of thanks for the greatest love ever shared. Yes, it is mercy that God pours out. He fills us to overflowing with blessings unimaginable and inspires songs in our souls that human minds can scarcely imagine, much less that tongues can tell. God lifts us into the spiritual ecstacy of contemplation to tell us "don't worry about a thing...it's all going to be fine."
Today at three remember to say a little prayer, an Our Father or a Hail Mary or maybe one of your own. Do it out of the love and appreciation that comes from knowing Jesus as your friend and companion. Say it in thankgiving or say it in need--it matters little, just say it. Say it for a friend, for healing, for peace, for intervention, for a child, a parent, a spouse, reconciliation, intercession...O God come to our aid; Lord make haste to help us.
Like the fictional Job, sometimes there is disappointment after disappointment, pain upon pain, loss upon loss. Even friends may say how silly to keep trusting, yet Job found that the Lord not only restored everything but gave even more to the one who trusted in God fully. And like the woman who trusted God so much that she touched the tassle of Jesus' robe or tallit knowing it would heal that stubborn condition of hemorrhage, Jesus wants to know us, wants to heal us of shame as well as of illness, and wants to say, "Only trust in God..." Little did anyone understand back then that God so loved the world, His Son would not only atone, but would mingle His very Body and Blood with ours in the Eucharist. For love of us.
Jesus sees further down the road, and sometimes only in retrospect do we get some clue of what He has been fashioning and arranging all this time.. and we begin to see that we ourselves needed to be prepared to receive. When we begin to see all the dozens of little graces and miracles He has given us even while He was preparing and healing and fashioning, or while He was waiting for our greater contrition, we are astounded at how personal and loving is His care.
The Friday 3 o'clock hour is a powerful time. We know this deep in our souls, but especially since the official observance of the Divine Mercy. If we look up the intentions of the Novena, we see that He forgets no one. But even if we simply pray, "Help us," or "Thank You," in that time each day, we will have grown greatly nearer to Him.
Posted by: H | November 17, 2006 at 10:58 AM
deacon dan, your reflection reminded me as well of the solidarity of people all around the world saying the Divine Mercy Chaplet, or the short Divine Mercy prayer, at 3 o'clock every day.
Also, dd, your post has me reflecting on different types of prayer and how they arise - from what emotion, need, or perhaps attitude. The 3 o'clock prayer, often petitionary for individual or universal needs; trust and holy abandonment bringing forth the prayer of "Thy will be done"; gratitude often preceding contemplative prayer. He does know us thoroughly; He even gives us our prayer according to our needs.
Posted by: Gabrielle | November 17, 2006 at 11:42 PM
Amen. How true, Gabrielle.
Deacon Dan, why does it always seem like a couple of weeks, when you haven't posted for a couple of days?
Posted by: | November 20, 2006 at 12:07 PM
I guess I had better get after it! Otherwise next thing you know it'll be the year 2010!
Posted by: Deacon DW | November 20, 2006 at 10:13 PM