Welcome to Responding with Prayer,
An opportunity to respond to the complex everyday experiences that lift us up and bring us down.
My name is Jess and I have struggled with attending to prayer,
And I hope this little offering brings you closer to your Creator.
Today's meditation is on waiting.
To begin,
Let's just take five big breaths together.
Deep breathing has been studied and found to change how we engage stress in situations.
It is good for slowing down,
Preparing for prayer,
But it's also good practice for all kinds of situations we find ourselves in.
So let's just feel ourselves breathe for one whole minute.
So so That was literally 60 seconds.
If your mind went to other places just now,
Or happens throughout this time,
It's okay.
It's natural,
And you're still here.
So let's move on.
Take a moment to identify one person or situation you are grateful for as you do this today.
Take a moment and out loud or in your head,
Express gratitude towards God.
Spiritual waiting is not like wasting time in line at the DMV.
Historic Christian spiritual teachers have taught us that waiting is an active space.
As we wait,
The Spirit is preparing us for what is next.
Waiting can be supremely frustrating in a society of instant gratification,
But waiting is an educational space.
Often we learn much more about the thing that we are waiting on.
So if you're able,
Put your arms out and turn your palms up in a posture of release to the Creator.
Our bodies are an important part of prayer.
The Christian scriptures tell us of a very practical spiritual opportunity.
Cast your cares towards the divine.
So imagine you wrote the things you are waiting on,
And how waiting makes you feel on the palm of your hands as an act of submission.
What words would be there?
God,
We place into your hands these things on our hands,
And we give you the waiting and its impact on our lives.
A lot of meditation teaches the necessary ability to release.
Let's also focus on what healthy things we are putting into that space of release.
If we are releasing the cares of waiting,
What are we needing to take on?
As you close your hands,
What accompanying things do you need as you deal with waiting?
How about patience?
Vision?
How about attending to God?
An unhealthy relationship with waiting keeps us from our purpose because it breeds impatience and focuses us on forced timelines,
Our need for answers,
Or our desire for control.
However,
In prayer,
We slow down and make commitments to our core foundations.
Spend a minute expressing to God how waiting is preparing you and what freedom you want to live in.
God,
We accept the freedom that comes with submission to you.
We often fight against the very abundant life you have for us,
So we accept the grace of contentment,
Mystery,
Active faith,
And the role of hope in our lives.
We don't know what you have in store for us.
Taking this time today did not change what you're waiting on.
It may have changed your orientation towards it.
You may need to take some greater steps to address these in your life,
But the great spiritual writers in the Christian tradition often maintained that prayer's greatest gift is not that it suddenly changes our situation,
But that it often changes us.
Amen.
So so so so so so so so
