Trying to balance on a tightrope of dental floss, juggling crystal balls, while a Bichon Frisé is biting at your heels is the best way I can describe what it feels like when you just can’t pray….whether from exhaustion, distraction, distress, oppression, deep hurt, finding it difficult to think, much less pray. Charles Spurgeon cautions… “for it would be dangerous to remain in so unhealthy a condition.” Yes Mr. Spurgeon I concur! Yet…what does one do when in such a dreadful state? Then I found this, humbled by these men, I am moved (relieved, grateful, secured).
…taken from PrayerGear...Pastor Richard Wurmbrand endured 14 years of torture by the former Soviet Communist regime, three of which were in confinement in a cell thirty feet below ground. He writes, "In solitary confinement, we could not pray
as before. We were unimaginably hungry; we had been drugged until we acted like idiots. We were as weak as skeletons. The Lord's Prayer was much too long for us-- we could not concentrate enough to say it. My only prayer repeated again and
again was, 'Jesus, I love You.' " (Tortured for Christ, 1998.)
Wurmbrand, speaking to an assembly, described even greater depths of inability. Wurmbrand explained how he no longer could worship in prayer, being beyond words. He
thought to himself something like, "If I could just stand up, Lord, would that be acceptable worship?" But Wurmbrand couldn't stand. What followed was, "If I could then just raise my arm in your name, would that be enough?" With the
little strength he had left, he struggled to raise his open hand into the darkness of his cell. He couldn't quite get it above his head. But he knew it was acceptable. That was his prayer, more profound and articulate than any I have ever offered.
Romans 8:26-27, “In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express. And he who searched our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints in accordance with God’s will.”
Carlo Carretto, who joined the Order of the Little Brothers of Jesus during a prominent career as a Catholic activist, retreated into the desert of North Africa. Although a very different place than Wurmbrand's desert in the Communist gulag, Carretto observed a similar progression of prayer: "Every word of
consolation seems like a lie. One believes one has been abandoned by God. In this deeply painful state, prayer becomes true and strong even though it may be as dry as dust.
"The soul speaks to its God out of its poverty and pain;
still more out of its impotence and abjection. Words become even fewer and barer. One is reduced to silence, but this is a step forward in prayer! It is limitless, whereas every word has a limit. And spiritual greed? Oh, that's always there! It hides under the ashes, but it is less violent, more prudent.
"God now again intervenes with his consolation, since it would be impossible to live in that state of abandonment. He returns to encourage the soul with the touch of his gentleness. The soul accepts that touch with gratitude. But it has become so timid through the blows it has received that it dare not ask anything
more...Left to myself, with my own strength, I have felt the painful reality that without God's help we cannot say even 'Abba, Father.'
"Deep down the soul has understood that it must let itself be carried, that it must abandon itself to its Savior, that alone it can do nothing, that God can do everything. And if it remains still and motionless, as though bound in the faithfulness of
God, it will quickly realize that things have changed, and that its progress, though still painful, is in the right direction.
"It is the direction of love! This realization will come like light after darkness, the midday sun after the dawn. What matters is to let God get on with it." (Letters from the Desert, 2002.)
Words do not come easy sometimes or just simply aren’t enough. John says, "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of men. The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth."
Abba, thank you that your Word is in me. “Let the Word become flesh in us, flesh of a man who accepts the kiss of Judas and calls him friend, even when he comes at the head of an armed gang to arrest you.” (With God in Solitary Confinement). Oh..., God, please go ahead and get on with it.
