Prayer

Lord your Spirit is present. When we stop. When we cease our minds for a few moments. When we cease our activity. Cease the things we feel compelled to do. Cease our hunger to know, figure out, grasp. Turn from the things we seek to satisfy ourselves. When we end the many words spoken.

When we just stop, we catch a taste of the quenching present presence of your Spirit.

It’s hard to stop and be still sometimes. Even our prayers become a matter of success where we desire to see results. We have expectations for success as we do in so much of our work, hobbies, and daily play. Yet, your Spirit is about intimacy, passion, connection, love. Things that cannot be measured. It is these that our souls are truly thirsty for.

Teach us to wait…to be still...to be quiet.

It is your Spirit that is like a stream to a valley. A stream that brings depth of color to the grasses. A stream that strengthens and grows tall the trees. A stream that provides life for the animals in the valley. A stream that provides character to the landscape. A stream that provides direction and satisfaction for the person lost and thirsty traveler. And so with your Spirit, providing all we need though we often seek it in other, distant and parched lands.

All we have to do is stop our mind, heart, and body wanderings. You are there. You’re the stream that flows and runs after us whether we go up, down, this way or that.

Teach us to move beyond ourselves, to see, feel, taste and know of your present presence through your Spirit.