Essence of Prayer (Hiddenspring)

Jesus has become our Way, our Truth and our Life because he declined to have any way of his own, any truth or reality of his own, only the Father's.

When Jesus tells us that we must call God Abba, and live as his children, he is demanding of us this decentralization and `ek-stasy', this standing-out-of-self, in order to transfer our existence, our meaning, our importance, our weight, to the Father. It is a summons to the most radical self-denial.

Without realizing it, we can call `faith' that assent we give to our own manageable ideas of God. True faith takes us into the unknown. It calls for blind trust; it calls for profound humility and surrender.

To acknowledge that we have absolute need of the mediator, Jesus, means a practical acceptance of the fact that, to attain to God, we must die with Jesus: not of ourselves, or by ourselves, but `in him'. I must enter into his death. This death is a death to my self-centredness and self-possession. It is an ecstasy: a going right out of myself to be

Everything depends on our believing God is Love, utterly faithful, good and generous.

All that is most important about us happens at a level below consciousness. So real prayer, prayer in its very essence, escapes our direct consciousness.

for God to `touch' me, however lightly, means I suffer. I begin to shrivel up, to experience something of my sinfulness and total helplessness. I will come to realise with poignant intensity that I know nothing about God, that to me he has not yet revealed hisname. I had thought I was spiritual, contemplative even; and now I see that I am an empty

Put simply: we must strive to acquire an intellectual knowledge of him, of his attitudes, values and teaching. This intellectual knowledge is certainly not intimacy, certainly not a `knowing Jesus', but it is an indispensable ingredient for intimacy and real knowing.

On our side prayer is simply being there: open, exposed, inviting God to do all God wants. Prayer is not our activity, our getting in touch with God, our coming to grips with or making ourselves desirable to God. We can do none of these things, nor do we need to, for God is there ready to do everything for us, loving us unconditionally.