A hard prayer. One of those prayers you hope to pray only once every few years max. Ideally never again, although you know that’s a non-reality this side of the Resurrection. But it’s a matter of life and death—literally—so you pray it anyways. Over and over again. Rolling it over and over again in your mind like a burning coal. Mumbling it under your breath like a curse word. Begging God for a blessing that you wish to that same God that you never had to ask for in the first place.

God heard and responded.

I cannot, of course, empirically prove that he answered, or that events occurred the way they did because I spoke some words over and over again into the ether. But I don’t care. I know what I saw with my eyes, heard with my ears, and felt with my hands. I know what I begged for. I know what happened and when. And I felt grace break into the world.

Rhythm is baked into the essence of the universe. There is a fundamental back and forth, ebb and flow, steady and rather predictable repetition that keeps everything alive and ticking.

Nature is sustained by a yearly rhythm. We call the shifts “seasons.” After Winter comes Spring—every time. Which is followed by Summer, and then Fall, and then Winter again—every time. Depending on your geography, these shifts may be more or less pronounced to your senses, but nature doesn’t miss them. Never. Nature thrives on seasons. Each season is a unique window of opportunity for each plant or animal to do something crucial to their survival and the continuation of their species.

One you asked for; the other you did not.

One comes as an answered prayer; the other comes as retribution.

One is a pull; the other is a push.

One is freedom; the other is captivity.

One looks like a win; the other looks like a loss.

One feels pregnant with possibilty; the other feels clouded by questions.

One draws you towards the future; the other keeps you stuck in the past.

Lord Jesus Christ,

there are so many things that I see

in this world that my opinion calls

wrong, askew, and amiss;

broken, frail, and weak;

boring, bland, and kitschy;

half-baked, under-prepared, and out-dated.

We worshipped Jesus. We read the scriptures. We prayed. There was laughter and hugs and coffee. God’s presence was present. We lingered there together. It was diverse and beautiful and genunine. My soul breathed slowly and deeply.

Maintaining this rhythm with God’s children felt good and right. Real bodies in a real room in real time. It reset my inner compass towards the divine. I was reminded of the bigness of God and the precious smallness of my life that is held in his love.

“No” to a really good thing that may not be the best thing.

“No” to an unhealthy and harmful thing.

“No” to being pressured into doing something you do not want to do.

“No” to silent suffering and false peace.

“No” to hallucinations about the past, the present, or the future.

Doing everything in less time is a poor goal.

There was a guy who used to drive his daugther to school in a golf cart. It probably took that dad a quarter of the time that it took me to walk my son. Both of our kids got to school on time, but I got four times the conversation. And way more than four times the exercise.

Sure, some things are best done as quickly as possible. But not as many things as we might assume.

In the hands of the Gardener who wants to get his hands dirty in the garden of your life.

To till the earth. To remove stones and debris. To mend the soil with compost. To plant seeds. To shape furrows for water. To root out weeds.

It’s no coincidence that the Bible itself begins and ends with a Garden. The story of Scripture runs from first blooms of Eden to the orchard of New Jerusalem—with no shortage of deserts in between.

It is yielding to Jesus. It is learning to follow his lead. It is learning to rest in the reality that if I am to “improve” at all, it is going to be his work in me rather than my work for him. Spiritual transformation is much more about what God is forming in me than in what I am doing. I was helpless to help myself; Christ came to do for me what I could not do for myself.

That, in a nutshell, is one way of preaching the gospel. After the initial ego-sting wears off, it really is good news.

The gospel, according to certain tellings, can sound and look a lot like self-improvement. And to a self-help obsessed culture, (fueled by an industry that is worth about $13 billion dollars annually), it is no surprise when we are drawn to it. It is no surprise that so many of our “discipleship programs” are really just “self-help programs” couched in New Testament language, cherry-picking verses or stories that give a Christian seal-of-approval to self-help ideas.

My earliest understanding of prayer was that in prayer I was to ask something of God: “Heal my headache. Help my friend. Cause us to succeed. Provide for this need.” The evidence that this “worked” was “answered prayer”—whatever I had asked for actually happened in some way.

Then, I came to understand prayer as more of a conversation, in which I could ask questions and listen to God’s response: “What should I do in this situation? Which option should I choose? Who should I share your love with? How should I spend my free time today? What is your calling on my life?” The evidence that this “worked” was a sense of purpose and direction, greater confidence in what I was to do.

In more recent years I am understanding prayer as a space in which I can be with God. “__________________.” Silence. Not many words at all, if any. The evidence that this “works” is… well… hmm…

To be honest, it’s so deeply and intimately beautiful that I find it hard to describe in a single sentence.

I’ve heard it said that the most loving thing we can do for another person is to give them the gift of our presence. Our undivided attention. To simply be with them. Not working on a project, not solving a problem, not dreaming about the future, not engaging in anything tangible or productive—just being.

So it is that we are invited to love God: by bringing our whole self to be present to him.

After all, (as I have also heard it said), he created human beings in his own image, not human doings.