Mark Yaconelli - Wonder, Fear, and Longing: A Book of Prayers

T his is a prayer booka book to seduce, cajole, trick, and playfully entice your heart into expressing the prayer you long to pray. More than a book to be read, this is a book to be tried. It is a book of stories, poems, Bible verses, wise sayings, imaginings, silent meditations, and creative exercises that seek to expose the way in which God is living within you and the world. Like the Christian life itself, it is a book that should be approached with curiosity, an open heart, and great expectation. This book invites you to uncover your prayer within the various moods and attitudes we human beings often find ourselves in: love, longing, fear, suffering, compassion, rest, reflection, passion, wonder, and gratitude. It is a book to be flipped through, a book that should be easily set aside whenever you feel the urge to turn toward Gods silent love. For the hope of this book isnt to teach you new ideas about prayer, the hope of this book is that you will pray.

All prayer rises from the heart of our experience. We are human beings, and human beings are a creative concoction of emotions, attitudes, memories, fantasies, desires, physical aches, and thoughtful reflection. Hurting, we cry, Mercy. Awed, we whisper, Thank you. Yearning, we plead, Show me the way. The prayers of the Biblethe psalms, the prophets, the prayers of David and Sarah and Mary and Paul and so many othersare a messy human mixture of humbling gratitude, trembling awe, heartfelt compassion, desperate need, violent hatred, erotic desire, and dreamy hope. Just like the people in the Scriptures, we too are invited to offer God all that lives within our tangled hearts and minds. Every time we pray were invited to expose the truth of who we are. Prayer makes us more realand it is through prayer that we learn the shocking truth: It is our real selves (not our spiritual selves) whom God loves and desires most deeply.

It is one of the tragedies of religion that prayer has been made into a chore, a discipline, an obligationsomething devout people are supposed to do. Great harm has been done to many of us trained to believe prayer is a thing that needs study and practice, a discipline with stages and levels, special words and formulas. But right and wrong, correct and incorrect, are not categories for prayer. Too many churches and pastors give the impression that real prayer requires special training. These misguided teachings make prayer feel formal and awkward, like reading a speech to someone youre madly in love with.

Prayer isnt a performance. Prayer isnt a ladder to God. There are no essential steps in prayer because there is nowhere to go in prayer. There is nothing you need to accomplish in prayer. Prayer is simply remembering you already have all you need. The surprise of prayerand this surprise never gets oldis that God is already waiting, listening, and cradling the deepest depths of who you are. Prayer is recalling that God really is that loving companion who is closer to you than your own breathing, nearer than your own heartbeat, already holding with compassion all the parts within you that you find too difficult to acknowledge. No prayer can ever bring God any closer. Already, without any effort on your part, God patiently dwells within the tender recesses of your own heart.

In prayer, we enter into the relationship we already have with God. In prayer, we give attention to the intimate, sacred communication that is ongoing within us. Prayer is not something we make up; it is something we discover, something we allow, something we yield to. Only through prayer do we come to know our own goodness and the love that God has for us, Brother Rogers counsels. Through prayer we become aware, receptive, and responsive to Gods love in the midst of all things, all people, and all experiences.

Imagine you are sitting next to someone who is deeply in love with you. Imagine this person gazes on you with wonder and delight. Imagine this person is safe, gentle, and comfortable to be with. Imagine you can trust this person with your whole self.

What is it you would say to such a person?

Would you speak your secret hopes and fantasies?

Would you expose your deepest hurt and shame?

Would you ask for help?

Would you listen, or talk, or just sit quietly enjoying the warmth of your loved ones gaze?