What do you want Me to do for you?
- Mar 15, 2018
- 6 min read
This morning I had the gift of being able to spend a few minutes in prayer in the Chapel where I spent so many hours on Eight Day. I sat in the colored light under one of the funky, modern stained glass windows and remembered sitting in exactly the same spot on the first full day of retreat and asking Jesus what He wanted for these next eight days.
My spiritual director had earlier that day encouraged me to practice listening for Jesus's voice in prayer more regularly as opposed to my usual default of praying with Scripture, asking Him things, and trusting that the answer would come in His time and way. So when my question was immediately followed by a string of incoherent images, I wrote them down. The most prominent among them was sunlight. My initial reaction was 'what? no, that's weird and cheesy.' But as I thought about it more throughout the day, it began to grow on me, and it eventually became the most prominent and unifying theme of the entire retreat. (Much more on that later)
The question I asked of Christ was beautifully turned around when I prayed with Mark 10:46-52 (the story of Bartimaeus, a blind beggar whose sight is restored) later that day. It's a beautiful story and a powerhouse to pray with. At the prompting of my spiritual director, I paid particular attention to the question that Jesus asks of Bartimaeus "what do you want me to do for you?" and took it to be Him asking me what I wanted Him to do for me on retreat. I told him what I desired and what I needed help with at length, in detail, and with raw bluntness. My natural tendency is to skim over the tough things especially when it comes to what I am struggling with. This was one of several moments early in retreat where I chose to act against that tendency, to be brutally honest and real in prayer and/or with my director. I think that without these moments of painful (and, frankly, terrifying) realness, my heart would not have been in a place to receive the mercy, the healing and the beauty that God was longing to shower me with.
That night our conference was on St. Ignatius's First Principle and Foundation on which his whole spirituality rests.
God created human beings to praise, reverence, and serve God, and by doing this, to save their souls.
God created all other things on the face of the earth to help fulfill this purpose.
From this it follows that we are to use the things of this world only to the extent that they help us to this end, and we ought to rid ourselves of the things of this world to the extent that they get in the way of this end.
For this it is necessary to make ourselves indifferent to all created things as much as we are able, so that we do not necessarily want health rather than sickness, riches rather than poverty, honor rather than dishonor, a long rather than a short life, and so in all the rest, so that we ultimately desire and choose only what is most conducive for us to the end for which God created us.
My gut reaction whenever someone starts talking about holy detachment is to be a.) very afraid and b.) very discouraged. But a little reflection always reminds me of what a beautiful, freeing, and desirable thing it is. C.S. Lewis says "If you love Him, more than you love them, you will love them more than you do now." The First Principle and Foundation and the call to Holy Detachment are simply a reminder of what we are made for (God) and a call to order every other love in its proper place below that love that we are made for. And the more that we are realigned in every detail toward our proper goal, the happier and the more ourselves we will become.
Jesus, I offer You my loneliness - please come and fill me, nothing else can. I surrender to you all that I have tried to fill it with instead. I choose You, even though I don't know how.
Of all the prayer of this day that I was reflecting on - this is the one that has been sticking with me the most - especially "Jesus, I offer You my loneliness." At this point in retreat, not only was I struggling with detachment, I was also dealing with a recent rejection and heartache which had brought to the surface much older wounds of rejection and habits of insecurity. So not only was I lonely in the solitude of a silent retreat and dealing with the fear of what detachment means, I was also still very much caught in the identity lie of "I am fundamentally unlovable."
It was in this context that I went to pray my last Holy Hour of the day and my Spiritual Director had assigned me to pray with Isaiah 43:1-4. Now, I had prayed with Isaiah 43 multiple times before this day and it is full of lines that are (literally) custom made to address insecurity and feelings of unloveableness. Perhaps most notably, it ends with "because you are precious in My eyes and honored and I love you." Pretty spot on for what I needed, right? Well, that's what I thought. The thing is, I had prayed with this many times, and usually, my lie of "I am unlovable" was too firmly planted in me, for me to be able to fully believe the truth that the Lord is speaking in this passage.
So I sat down to pray with this passage. I read it a couple times, waiting for a word or phrase to stick out to me so that I could meditate more deeply on what the Lord was trying to tell me (a method of prayer called Lectio Divina). Truthfully, what I was waiting for was for one of these dynamite lines to hit me over the head and fix all my problems.
Instead what was hitting me, over and over again, was a tiny, little, (apparently) throw-away line right at the beginning, before the Lord even starts talking - "He who created you, oh Jacob". I was annoyed. I knew what I needed (I thought) and kept trying to focus on the other lines, but that one just kept sticking out. Finally I submitted and paid attention. As soon as I did, I found myself meditating on the simple fact that I was created and it was profound and beautiful.
If I truly believe in an All-Powerful, All-Loving God who has created all things and doesn't make mistakes - then the fact that I was created has some pretty mind-blowing ramifications on my self-worth, as well as on my sometimes paralyzing scrupulosity (a habit of seeing your own weakness to the extreme that you stop paying attention to God's merciful love).
I was created I was worth creating I was made for Him I was made for love Everything else is to get me there
Cleanliness is not prerequisite to love Love is prerequisite to cleanliness
the law kills and the spirit gives life Valjean or Javert Have mercy on me Lord, a sinner Have mercy that I have forgotten Your Love
I am made for love - what does that even mean? it is high and wide and full of color
Sunlight through my bedroom window
and sunlight piercing the darkest of storm clouds
I invite you to spend some time in prayer with either Mark 10:46-52 or Isaiah 43:1-4. Choose one, ask God to be with you and to direct your prayer. Read the passage several times and listen for a word or phrase to stick out to you. Ask God why it's important. Talk to Him about it. Take your time, speak, but also listen. Trust that He is with you even if you don't feel or hear much. The only wasted prayer time is one you don't show up to. He loves you and is longing to spend time with you.
Thanks for joining me - I'll see you tomorrow!
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