Where can I go to escape Your Spirit? Where can I flee from Your presence? If I go up to heaven, You are there; if I make my bed in Sheol, You are there. Psalm 139:7-8
My words…
Prayer of adoration
Reading C. S. Lewis is like walking through a dense forest where compelling questions hang off the trees like vines and brush across my mind. I emerge with answers to questions I never thought to ask – and then more questions. His words are not scripture, but they lead me to meditate on scripture for hours. I was uplifted to read his description of how his pleasures lead to adoration of You: “This heavenly fruit is instantly redolent of the orchard where it grew. This sweet air whispers of the country from whence it blows. It is a message. We know we are being touched by a finger of that right hand at which there are pleasures for evermore. Gratitude exclaims, very properly, ‘How good of God to give me this.’ Adoration says, ‘What must be the quality of that Being whose far-off and momentary coruscations are like this!’ One’s mind runs back up the sunbeam to the sun.” While eating my lunch at an outdoor table of a restaurant yesterday, a small brown-feathered bird fluttered at my feet, waiting, I presumed, for a hand-out. Other patrons were dropping orts for other birds, and this one patiently waited his turn. Gazing on this little creature, I set down my fork and thought of You. His feathers lay against his body perfectly in order, in both shape and color. His tiny talons were in exact proportion to his body. His head (bless him) never stopped moving, darting in every direction except backward. I dropped a small piece of lettuce onto the ground beside him. He didn’t move. He looked at me as if to say, “Lettuce? Really?” I think what he really wanted was junk food. I didn’t blame him. It’s what I wanted, as well. To some, this would seem to be a miniscule pleasure, hardly one to take into account. But not for me. It was a heart-to-overflowing pleasure because the little creature was silently screaming, “God says hello! And keep eating that salad!” Lewis understood this. Far more deeply than I. You are the true source of my pleasure. Forgive me that my adoration is never commensurate.
Prayer of gratitude
To be grateful for the pleasures I experience through what I sense around me is to be grateful to You for who You are. It’s through Your goodness and attention they are there in the first place. You speak to me through them. I never hear Your voice in my ear, but it calls to my spirit – very clearly. A cool breeze on a warm evening – there You are. The laughter of my children – that’s You, too. Lewis said, “…not everyone can find God in a plain slice of bread and butter.” But I can. And I am filled with joy and thankfulness every time! This is an unconventional prayer, I know. (I blame Clive.) But I am nonetheless genuine as I plunge through my heart and mind for words that seem to come so easily to Lewis: “These pure and spontaneous pleasures are ‘patches of Godlight’ in the woods of our experience.” I wish I would have said that.
