Any serious, daily practice of prayer will give you some taste of the following experience: You sit in prayer; on the surface, nothing is happening. Yet, as the noise of your next thought falls away, as you allow the silence to deepen around and within you, you discover that you are on the trackless waters on which Jesus bid Peter to walk—in order to be united with him. It is a path along which there is no light except the one that burns in your heart. You set out to find the One who calls you out of nothingness to union with himself. You set out knowing that you must find God, yet the first step leaves you lost. Inner wisdom tells you that to reach One whom you do not know, you must go by a way you do not know.
Prayer never touches us as long as it remains on the surface of our lives—as long as it is nothing but one more of the many things we must do. It is only when prayer becomes the one thing necessary that real prayer takes place. Prayer begins to take on its full dimensions only when we start to intuit that the subtle “nothingness” of prayer is everything. Prayer begins when we go to our sacred place.
Let me reiterate what I have said previously: Prayer is not about our effort as much as it is about God’s response. Many of us approach prayer as a task to be accomplished. We tend to measure the effectiveness of our prayers based on our own efforts. We come to the prayer moment with tensions and an expectation of quick results. A small, green apple cannot ripen in one night by tightening all its muscles, squinting its eyes, and tightening its jaw. No matter how hard it tries, it will not awaken the next morning, miraculously large, red, ripe, and juicy beside its small, green counterparts. Like the birth of a baby or the opening of a rose, the birth of the self takes place in
God’s time. We must wait for God; we must be
sensitive to his Spirit, and we must trust in his hidden action within us.
Several years ago, I decided to go on a two-day private retreat. I was looking forward to having some uninterrupted time with God, during which I could read, reflect, write in my journal, and pray. On the first day, I entered the small chapel and after reading some Scriptures, I started to pray. I was praying very
hard because I wanted God to say something directly to me. I was telling the Lord everything I could possibly think of when I clearly heard God’s voice saying, “Slow down. You are talking too much. I have something to say to you. Stop talking; sit quietly, listen, and wait.” I obeyed—and then I heard what God was speaking to me.
Take time to sit, wait, and listen.