Lulu Cooks and Tells: Knowing the plan

1. PRAYER

Heavenly Father, I come to You seeking Your direction. My heart feels full of questions, and the path ahead looks unclear.

Lord, quiet my fears and calm my anxious thoughts. Help me to surrender my own timeline and my own desires to Your goodness.

Give me wisdom to recognize Your voice. Remove the blind spots and heavy burdens that cloud my vision.

Grant me peace for the next step. If a door must close, give me the grace to accept it. If a door must open, light the way before me.

Deepen my trust, knowing Your plans are to prosper me, give me hope, and give me a future.

In Jesus' name, Amen. [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7]

2. MEDITATION

https://youtu.be/H_uc-uQ3Nkc?si=qVwl5-MoJt0k_zzG

3. SONG

https://youtu.be/g1UJBaAK1MA?si=t9cV27iBmR7Sqksw

4. NARRATIVE

According to Franciscan priest Richard Rohr, we do not get to know God's plan in advance. He teaches that demanding certainty and needing to know where we are going stops true faith, comparing our insistence on control to blindly fumbling through a dark room instead of trusting the process. [1, 2, 3]

The Illusion of Control

The Dark Room: Rohr describes human planning like walking in a pitch-dark room, terrified of tripping, while wanting a fully illuminated pathway.

Faith vs. Certitude: We demand absolute answers and a clear map, but God asks us to let go of our need for control and simply trust.

Releasing the Ego: Needing to steer every outcome relies on human cleverness and status rather than true spiritual surrender. [1]

Embracing Unknowing

Making Friends with Mystery: Spiritual maturity means accepting "not-knowing" rather than forcing black-and-white answers onto complex realities. [1, 2, 3]

Hindsight Providence: We rarely see God's movement while we are in the middle of a struggle; it is only looking back that we recognize how we were led. [1]

Action Before Understanding: Growth requires taking small, humble steps in the dark before the full path ever becomes clear. [1]

If you'd like, we can explore:

Specific quotes or books by Richard Rohr on surrender and the second half of life
How contemplative practice helps manage anxiety about the future

A Tuning Fork
Friday, June 30, 2017

Contemplative prayer is like striking a tuning fork. All you can really do in the spiritual life is resonate to the true pitch, to receive the always-present message. Once you are tuned, you will receive, and it has nothing to do with worthiness or the group you belong to, but only inner resonance, a capacity for mutuality (see Matthew 7:7-11), which implies a basic humility. We must begin with the knowledge that the Sender is absolutely and always present and broadcasting; the only change is with the receiver station, you and me.

Prayer is connecting with God/Ultimate Reality. It is not an attempt to change God’s mind about us or about events. Such arrogance is what unbelievers make fun of—and often rightly so. Prayer is primarily about changing our own mind so that things like infinity, mystery, and forgiveness can resound within us. The small mind cannot see great things because the two are on different frequencies or channels. We must match our resonance to Love’s. Like knows like.

Without contemplation, the best you can do is to know by comparison, calculation, and from the limited viewpoint of “you.” Prayer knows reality in a totally different way. Instead of presenting a guarded self to the moment, prayer stops defending or promoting its ideas and feelings, and waits for, expects, and receives guidance from Another. It offers itself naked to the now, so that our inner and aroused lover can meet the Lover. Such prayer takes major surgery of heart, mind, and inner sight. Prayer is about changing you, not about changing God.

Most simply put, prayer is something that happens to you (Romans 8:26-27), much more than anything you privately do.It is an allowing of the Big Self more than an assertion of the small self. Eventually you will find yourself preferring to say, “Prayer happened, and I was there” more than “I prayed today.” All you know is that you are being led, guided, loved, used, and prayed through. You are no longer in the driver’s seat. Following this guidance you will know what is yours to do.

God stops being an object of attention like any other object in the world, and becomes at some level your own “I Am.” You start knowing through, with, and in Somebody Else. And then your little “I Am” becomes “We Are.” Afterward you know instinctively that your life is not about you, but you are about Life. “I live now not I, but Another Life lives in me,” to paraphrase Paul’s poetic words (Galatians 2:20).

This does not mean you are morally or psychologically perfect. Not at all. But you will now have the freedom to recognize your failings and to grow and love better because of them. That is the major and important difference!

Gateway to Silence:
Be still and still moving.

Reference:
Adapted from Richard Rohr, The Naked Now: Learning to See as the Mystics See (The Crossroad Publishing Company: 2009), 101-104.

5. MEDITATION

https://youtu.be/Mr2LnZOkxRs?si=Rss4pjD69Asr-6Yn

6. SHARING

7. PRAYER AND INTENTIONS

When shadows of doubt cross my heart…

With a heart full of gratitude and humility, I approach You tonight.

As Your Word in Jeremiah 29:11 assures us, “For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope.”

Just as You spoke these words to Jeremiah, I believe in Your beautiful plans for my life. Lord, in times of confusion and doubt, I seek Your guidance.

Help me to trust Your timing and embrace the path You’ve laid out for me.

As I face challenges, let me draw strength from You, knowing Your love surrounds me.

Thank You for being a God who listens to my prayers.

Deepen my faith, allowing me to anchor myself in Your promises, for Your faithfulness knows no bounds.

As I journey through life, may I radiate Your love and light to those around me, reflecting Your grace in all I do.

I offer up this prayer,

Amen.

Originally published at http://4foldlove.wordpress.com on August 19, 2023.