Reflection on the Evening Prayer

Lord, you have examined me, you know me:
you know when I sit down and when I rise.
From far away you know my thoughts:
you know every step I take,
when I walk, when I lie down:
you have seen all that I do.
Before a word even reaches my lips,
you know, Lord, all that I will say.

That the Lord knows us… that he knows our thoughts and our steps; each word we plan to say before we even speak it. How often it is in our lives that we forget these things. How often we live as if our lives were somehow hidden.

Often we take our sense of privacy and spiritualize it. God can only see, we say, that which we allow him to see… but such runs contrary to the words of faith.

Even in our hiding God has his ways of revealing to us who we are in his sight. In his own gentle way, and in his time, he beckons to us and with cords unseen he tugs on our hearts, and he invites us to confess that which we thought to be most secret.

Before you O Lord all things are in plain sight. There is nothing that escapes your gaze.

In faith we call upon the Lord most high, "See me; know me—there is nothing that I demand you not see. See me as I am for only in this way can you heal me."

As I prayed the Psalm as part of my evening prayer earlier tonight, the words seemed to seep into my heart in such a way that brought peace and rest to my soul. While I haven't said it, I have, at times, lived out the words "Let the shadows cover me and let there be no light around me."

It is the beauty and the greatness of God that we know when we find the spiritual resolve to say "let the night fall if it so wills—let darkness come if must be, for even there God will see me." His love vanquishes fear perfectly. Nothing in life is so daunting or such a hardship as to take away God's constant knowledge of us.

Sin, and I have no need to deny it, is when we say to ourselves "darkness has fallen and once again I am here alone and unseen, unknown…"

It is part of the rhythm of life and spirituality that we find ourselves at a distance. Perhaps we may even experience a dark night, a seeming absence or eclipse of light. Yet in it all—no matter how distant we feel we have been—God lets us know that we never were even so much as slightly away from his sight. "I saw you," he says to us, "and I still love you."

Christian spirituality demands that we live our lives in the knowledge that nothing is hidden from the sight of God. All things are touched by his presence so that even in death we find that One has been there ahead of us and the odor of his sweet presence is not at all that far away—not far away at all.

Allowing God to see us is the spirituality of meeting God on every plane. It is knowing that God knows us in our imperfect ways of living, and knowing that even these do not cause him to look aside.

Finally, it occurs to me that if God always beholds me, what then is there that prevents me from always beholding him?

Comments

[JustMe]

Amen. This was worth waiting 2 weeks for.

Just beautiful. Your sense of peace and rest in Him crossed the vast expanse between Texas and here without the slightest detour. A very personal, poetic musing, DDW.. thank you for unfurling it into words for others.

[Deacon DW]

Thanks Just Me - Two weeks was too long!

[JustMe]

It certainly was.

[Gabrielle]

Yes, I was filled with peace as I read this too. Knowing that there is a rhythm in the spiritual life is, I think, half the battle. Then we know that the dark times, the dry times, the veiled times, are for a purpose.

[Steve Bogner]

I love the question you closed with - if God is always gazing at us, what prevents us from gazing back? Good material for an internal examen of sorts.

[JustMe]

Indeed, it sounds like a Jesuit musing.. Where would we be without Jesuits, Texan Deacons, and so many loving layfolks putting a more Personally loving face on God?

And that is a good question to mull over. What prevents us from gazing back?

[Gabrielle]

I think it is the false self, and also not giving ample time to contemplative prayer, which many people have described as a simple, loving gaze.