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| Pottery by Gary Wilson |
One result of a habitual praying life is that
God removes unrighteous anger from my heart. God takes the chip off my
shoulder. He softens the edge. He forms His heart of compassion in me for my
enemies. He frees me from the prison cell of hatred, and releases me to love in
ways I have never done before.
For me this is not a theory but an empirical,
existential reality. My wife Linda has seen the results. I am a better husband
as Christ is more deeply formed in me. I get changed. Much of this happens as I
am praying.
In praying I become clay on a potter's wheel. I
am not the shaping agent of my own transformation, God is. Many times I can feel
Him shaping me.
This is praying as an act of resistance to the
common, unholy structures of the world which demand conformation to their will.
To pray is to protest against the hate-filled standards of our culture. In
solitary praying I am protesting against the world which wants to shape my
heart into its forms of destruction, hatred, manipulation, competition,
suspicion, defensiveness, and war.
In praying I give witness to God whose love is
all-healing and all-embracing. I protest against the world by declaring “Hands
off me!”
