Saturday, November 23, 2013

Prayer Helps Correct Myopia (PrayerLife)

Snow falling on the pine trees in my backyard

Late at night before I go to sleep, if the skies are clear, I step outside and look up. When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place...Consider the word "consider." It's a pondering, meditative, dwelling, slow-cooking word. When I attend... 

... I regain perspective. 

Prayer includes considering and beholding the handiwork of God. Praying takes us to the summit of the mountain, from where we gain a vantage point on all that lies below. Philip Yancey writes:

"Like a flash of lightning, prayer exposes for a nanosecond what I would prefer to ignore: my own true state of fragile dependence. The undone tasks accumulating at home, my family and every other relation, temptations, health, plans for the future — all these I bring into that larger reality, God’s sphere, where I find them curiously upended. 
Yancey, Prayer, Kindle Locations 321-325

Praying keeps a person sane.

"Prayer helps correct myopia, calling to mind a perspective I daily forget." (Ib.)

Who am I that You are mindful of me...