Sometimes there are things I am called to do, loving things that require me to open my heart to another, and I just can’t bring myself to do them. Perhaps it is out of hostility towards the other or fear of getting hurt myself, but for whatever reason, I can feel my heart being hardened. If I were to be honest in my response to the call, I’d simply say, “Nope, can’t go there.”

But I know I can’t say that to God and just drop the idea. I’m being called to act out of love for a reason and my own fears and hang ups about doing so are not bigger than the call (nor the One who calls.) So I sit for a while with the hardened heart and I find myself sadly comfortable with it. “That’s not good is it, Lord?” I ask hesitantly. I could pray for my heart to be opened, for the love and grace of God to break those walls that “protect” me from being hurt, but I can’t even bring myself to pray for that; I don’t really desire for those walls to come down.

So I have to take it back another step until I can pray for that which I truly do seek. Can I pray for the desire to have the desire to open my heart? To be honest, I don’t even really want that, fearing it will eventually lead to actually opening up at some point.

So what can I pray for in a situation where I want to stay in my own little safe world and have absolutely no desire to do the risky, loving thing? Maybe sometimes you have to even ask what to pray for.

So I did. And I finally hit upon what I truly could seek with all my heart: I pray for my will to be one with God’s will and to honestly discern that will. Not that I get my way or God conforms to me, but that I experience within me the will and desires God has for me. Not that I desire something, but that I come to know God’s desires, to see the situation through God’s eyes, to be motivated to act by the Spirit rather than of my own volition.

And I laugh at myself having to have tried to figure out what to pray for—after all these years of education sometimes you miss the basics. I pray quite simply and with all my heart, “Thy will be done.”

Photo: “prayer wall” by Ratterell from Flickr (Used under Creative Commons license)

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