LEARNING TO SEE

Morning prayer (and any prayer for that matter) that is contemplative is a desire to see. What we see is God’s business or else we begin to create what we think we have ‘seen’ or want to see. It requires an almost extreme patience and discipline to wait and see what we are to see. When we don’t wait, and the longer we wait, there is more temptation to assume we have seen something.

We can start to create answers, assume solutions, and formulate our time in prayer. What we hear will be our own voice and not the voice of the Lord and what we see is what we want to see. It is not failure in prayer to not see and hear, it is failure when we delude ourselves. The success of prayer is to show up to pray.

The revelation of God and His ways is our seeing. Seeing is revelation and revelation is seeing. Knowledge and reason are not revelation and they can even be detrimental to seeing because they are comfortable and in our control. What God says and shows us may not be associated with normal familiarity, and though it may not be common to our reason it will be common to our humanity. Nothing is seen that is ‘so spiritual’ that it is not for the human level and in the earth realm. When we are told that things are ‘so heavenly’ and ‘so spiritual’ and ‘so deep’ that we cannot handle them, just know that that is a crock and coming from a religiously deluded person. What God gives is for here, and for now. As long as we are here what we see is for here. Jesus said, “His kingdom is not of this world, not of this realm” (John 18:36), but what we see of the heavenly realm is for participation in the earthly realm.

“But blessed are your eyes, for they see, and your ears, for they hear.” Jesus