Trying to reach a balance in prayer

11/19/2007

Joel Akin

 When Jesus prayed he did so by getting to a place where he could be alone. Alone was how he preferred it. We might infer from his last prayer that he wanted Peter and others to pray with him. Yet that was a source of courage and hope from friends.

 What do you do when you have no one to turn to? Where do you go but to the Lord? I find it difficult to pray at times and I find it even more difficult to reach. For in the last hour of prayer I stretch and reach and pray and ask "Did I do it right?"

In a way its like the scripture where you set your hand to the plow and you don't look back. Yet what do you do if somehow you get cross eyed? Where do you turn if you point the plow to the wrong side? What if you assume you have to bend the plow down the middle and reach for the other corner? After all no one taught me how to plow. Only what if what you did is the very reason people ask "What have you done?" For if you had a friend in God what isn't possible?

 I went to the other side and finished the course I was set. Only in the process I stepped on other peoples work. It wasn't in theft it was in writing over. Script has a way of showing this by calling it palimpsest. It is the meaning of taking paper, scraping off the old and reusing it. And in the process you take original and reuse it. Many books were from scrap of old things. Some old papyrus has been shown to have old writing on it. It was the best way of recycling. And it is the papyrus idea in full.

Now I am seeking a balance in life but what do you do when you can't find a way to hear? If I sought God and came to fullness of prayer I got inspired. I came through often with a story. Some were good and some seemed slow or off. And off isn't spiritual so much as just not as inspiring. Some nights I pray and then I talk or commune with my heart.

 Psalms 4:4 Stand in awe, and sin not: commune with your own heart upon your bed, and be still. Selah.

Psalms 77:6 I call to remembrance my song in the night: I commune with mine own heart: and my spirit made diligent search.

Who among us can say we know in full what David endured? If he had sin he could not speak of it to others. There would be no one to talk to. He would listen and endure. He would fight with his thought and listen with his heart. His heart would be the price of a son named Solomon. For Solomon would have been the child of Wisdom. And Wisdom is part of the story of communing with your heart.

God put wisdom in me at birth. I had it in full. Mainly because I had an unusual child nature. I was quiet and sometimes so quiet people wondered if I spoke. It wasn't just shyness it was observance. I observed and people were often annoyed by it. This annoyance came in the form of bullies who marched me around. They paraded me into the wall and into lockers but to my knowledge never really locking me up so much as pushing and shoving and hitting but never hard. Mostly.

Yet if I could I would ask those who search for an answer to trust. God didn't fail. He knew I would cry and mourn for help. He knew I would search for an answer. Yet like Jonah he had to get back in right balance. For if he was off balance then the soul would be as well. So lets imagine he floundered and God sent a sole fish. A sole fish is one which is sideways. It floats down to the bottom of the sea and it is one of the few which is wise in that when it is on the surface it appears to float like a dead fish.

 So if there was a fish which was wise it was the sole. For if you see a sideways floating fish it is either sick or dead. Only the sole is the only known fish to grow up to sizes in dozens of feet. And it is only in the sea where the sole is found.

 Now today there are few giant sole but in old days there were more. The giant fish didn't have to be a whale to be soled out. Soled out could be a way of spilling the beans or the nodule of life called Jonah. Jo and Nah are one way of seeing what God asked of a man. To go to Nineveh. Nineveh is like a heart for the heart has 9 parts. One is the heart, two is the soul, three is the la, four is the li, five is the sea, six is the sole, seven is the lee, eight is the truth and 9 is the hope.

 Now 9 is the hope is meant to signify that it is part of the sea. And that is five. Together they add up to 14 but who can count in the la of the sea? Few of us.

Now the point of life is to see. And I see with hope. Only at times I pray and do not get a reply. When that happens then I need to pray for wisdom. If wisdom is missing from the picture it could be me. Or it could be that I missed the boat. If Jonah had missed the boat he would have gone on to another one which might have made it. But the point is he didn't. He fell to sin and sin took him into the deep. And so as a man who fell but not of his own fault I see what I did as why or wise. And if why had an s at the end then it was why's and wise is the form of life where we ask nothing but questions. For if God wants to answer but cannot He would raise up those questions at the end. He would say "It is well" an that would be the word I would give. It is well.