God Meets Us Where We Are

“I spread out my hands to you; I thirst for you like a parched land” (Psalm 143:6).

When our church’s small group leader asked how we felt about doing an extended prayer experience together as recommended by the curriculum we were using, some of us were hesitant. Thankfully, enough trust had been built in the group that people had the courage to voice their misgivings. Someone shared about how extended prayer times felt impossible for how their brains worked—too easily distracted. Others said long periods of prayer somehow left them feeling more distracted, distant from God, and guilty. Someone shared that they would probably find it peaceful but very likely fall asleep!

Ultimately, we all still wanted to try the prayer experience together. But our small group leader took our experiences and fears into consideration and gave us several options for how to pray based on our needs. We could refer to provided prompts if they were helpful to begin a conversation of praying freely to God. We could simply sit quietly and experience His love. We could listen to music or journal as a kind of prayer. Or we could pray using the ancient discipline of lectio divina (Latin for divine reading)—an approach to prayer in which Scripture leads the way. In lectio divina, a small passage of Scripture is read and reread slowly, listening to what words or insights the Spirit is impressing on your heart, prayerfully letting the truth of Scripture soak into your heart and speak into your life.

“And it’s okay if the mountains don’t part in a life-changing revelation of God during this experience,” she offered, wisely taking off the pressure. God was already with us; this was simply an opportunity to try new and fresh ways of lifting our hearts up to him.

While the heavens didn’t necessarily part for any of us during our time of prayer together, it seemed as if each of us was surprised by just how meaningful the experience was and by how quickly the time flew. Some shared how lectio divina helped their prayer time feel more focused or helped them slow down and experience Scripture in a new way.

I also prayed using lectio divina, and left the experience moved with my encounter with Psalm 143, which somehow voiced the exact cry of my heart in this season of my life. And I left with new motivation to continue practicing lectio divina, since I too have found it to be the approach to prayer that works best with how I’m wired. It engages my mind and heart in a way that keeps me from being distracted by the silence or my restless thoughts.

And I was moved by how different prayer felt when the experience and struggle was shared with others in community. No matter how our individual experience went that day, the fact that we were with others as we prayed was a powerful reminder that we were on a faith journey together, and we were experiencing God through each other’s journeys.

In a way, all the fears and misgivings some of us had about prayer might have had their roots in vague rules we’d somehow got into our minds about the “right way” to pray that left us feeling guilty and alienated from it.

The ideas we internalize or assume about what God wants from us can twist what’s meant to be life-giving and beautiful into a burden, heaping adding guilt on hearts already starved for a deeper experience of God. Instead of lifting up our hearts and lives to God as we are, we’re left thinking something about us disqualifies us from experiencing God because we can’t do it “right.”

As I was reminded that day, God is not threatened or frustrated by our unique needs and struggles. He doesn’t force us all into a cookie-cutter mold of how we must encounter him. Instead, he’s there with us in our unique needs and in our fears and misgivings. God is with us right where we are, as we are. We need only let go of the fear, and trust.

–Written by Monica La Rose. Used by permission from the author.