Prayer - Stormy Skies

God,

The skies are your movies and our drive-in theaters. You show the drama of the sun's journey from east to west everday. At night, you display the romance of the silk-white glow of the moon and the dance of the stars. Some days, you blanket and surround the landscape with playful cottony-white clouds that give joy and laughter to those that stop to view. Other days, the skies increase and become one with the ground below. These are your foreign films days where the skies speak a language of mystery, depth of plot, and deep character development. A careful search is needed to see and grasp all that is being presented with its rapidly changing scenes on these days.

We sometimes avoid days of the thundery, wet and stormy skies. We would rather hide away and wait for lighter, easier and simpler shows. These are the skies of inconvience and interruption to what we have normally scheduled for ourselves. Yet, in stepping out, noticing and making the effort we are presented with a plot and story that is not quickly forgotten like any good foreign film.

The skies serve as metaphors for our lives.

We often live with good drama, laughter, romance, and joy. Mostly, the skies of our lives are clear and sunny with a just a few passing clouds. We enjoy most of our days. Only, too much of that, and we grow dry and barren in our hearts. Just in time, the dark, heavy and cloudy circumstances come. We quickly look for shelter by running away. We want a quick fix to keep ourselves dry and comfortable. We miss out. Like the nourishment, growth and cleansing that comes to the landscape from the passing storms, we miss the same for our souls when we do not face and step into storms of our lives.

You desire the best for us and for what we will become. Sometimes, that might mean blowing winds of physical problems, dark grey clouds of doubt, blinding rain of loneliness. Teach us to weather these storms, learn from them, and find you in them. Through them, may we become changed, more in tune with love

In every natural storm, there is light. It is light somewhere, distant and hidden, that allows us to see the texture, shape and color of the clouds, observe the shiney hue of the rain drops. It is you that similary allows us to see, understand, and receive the metaphorical storms of our lives.

So, let us face, turn, and experience the howling. You won't leave us alone, and you will be our shelter through them, the Tender of our dark skies. You will bring us to a place of renewal, light, and calm. There will be an increase of glory and beauty to our souls.

Everyday, skies are beautiful. Also, our lives. Beautifully forming, days both clear and cloudy. All thanks be to you.

Hunger Pains

Prayer based on July 28 entry...

Lord, as a people, we cry out to you. Some of us out of the depths of despair, some out of physical pain, some out of confusion, some of us in fear, some of us in loneliness, some of us in sorrow over our sins and the fruits they have produced, some of us in anger and frustration. Some of us cry out in the midst of joy and gladness.

We’re often told we can satisfy the hunger in us through what we do, how we live, what we wear, how good we are at something, the friends we have, the recognition we receive, the perceived value of our work or play, how we look, how together we can appear. So, we purchase them, open and swallow. Yet, they don’t satisfy our hunger. They’re all a bit like Twinkies tasting good up front but leaving us feeling worse later on. They don’t satisfy our true hunger for you.

We are all longing for something more, something different, something to change, something to mend, or something new. Really, this just confirms that we are meant for something greater. We are meant for something beyond the here and now of this earth. We are meant for you, your presence now and in all of eternity.

“You are our Lord, apart from you we have no good thing.” You alone fill us with pleasures and food that last for all time. You have given us our cup and that drink is you. May we set you always before us. May we be unified together in our cries to know you more. Increasingly, satisfy us with your love that the world’s foods may seem dim in our eyes.

When we eat to satisfy the cries of our stomachs, may it remind us of the cries within us to be filled by you. When we feel good from our accomplishments, may it remind us of our deeper cry to be satisfied through finding purpose in you. When things are going well, may they never fully satisfy. Instead, may we look to you for your Spirit to fill our deeper spiritual longings. When things are in shambles, may we not satisfy that breakup in our lives with the stuff of this world that only fades away.

Satisfy the cries of ____ with the food of your presence, love, healing.

All things look to you to give them their food at the proper time. This too is our cry.