Praying dumbfoundedly

You have said, "Seek my face." My heart says to you, "Your face, LORD, do I seek."  - Psalm 27 

 I think the necessity of nursing babies and folding laundry (two things that require- if you want to do it right- undivided attention) are holy prayer places.  When I had nursing babies I was required to stop, sit, be still and do nothing.  Oh I could attempt (and did many times) to do other things while feeding my babies, but I regret that I hurried through and attempted to multitask during such a sacred time.  When I did actually stop, sit, be still and do nothing but feed my baby I found I had a face to face opportunity with my LORD.  When I took advantage of it, I was more accomplished than any other time I tried to squeeze in a T.V. show or pick up around the house with one empty hand.

Laundry is my house of prayer now.  When the laundry comes out of the dryer there is really nothing else you can do (if you don't want a bunch of wrinkled clothes) but fold, hang-up and put away.  Today, folding laundry that still, small voice said, "Seek my face."  And my heart responded with longing. 

I believe things many people think are foolish.  I believe there is a God-Man, Savior of the World.  I believe He absorbed all the judgment of the Father God against sin and is therefore the only reason I can open my mouth, call out to the Living God and know I am accepted and heard... even desired.  I believe the God-Man died and carried to the grave all the sin-nature of the sons of Adam and their individual wrongs with Him.  I believe I died there... as a son of Adam.   I believe the God-Man did things in spiritual places I don't fully understand when He committed His Spirit into the Father's hands.  I believe the God-Man was resurrected with a new body as the New Man, and the quickening of the Spirit of the Living God in me is a deposit guaranteeing I am being, and will some day fully be, made a new man as a child of the New Man.

I believe these crazy things.  I can't explain them very well.  I know them, like a woman knows she's pregnant... the baby moves inside her.  I am intimate with them and they change the way I live, but they exceed my understanding.

Praying is, for me, one of the most beyond-understanding things about the relationship I have with God I hope in. 

I came across this quote the other day in Dumbfounded Praying by Harold Best:

Master, they say that when I seem
    To be in speech with you,
Since you make no replies, it’s all a dream
  – One talker aping two.
They are half right, but not as they
   Imagine; rather, I
Seek in myself the things I meant to say,
   And lo! the wells are dry.
Then, seeing me empty, you forsake
   The Listener’s role, and through
My dead lips breathe and into utterance wake
   The thoughts I never knew.
And thus you neither need reply
   Nor can; thus, while we seem
Two talking, thou art One forever, and I
   No dreamer, but thy dream.
                       – C.S. Lewis, 1964

 I opened my mouth while folding not-so-white white wash cloths today and out of my dead lips came the thoughts I never knew.  Deep calls to deep.  I poured out my lack of understanding.  I repeated and muttered and sighed and declared my need for help with my unbelief and I knew my wells were dry.  I hungered and thirsted.  I sought.  I waited.  I was so relieved.  I was assured that I could never loose Him, nor would He loose me.  I was instructed I should only look to His work.  If I begin to look at my own, I'll sink.  I was reminded I grow in the same grace that saved me.  I was assured.  I was comforted.  Courage was put in.  Doubt was poured out.  My head was lifted as I bowed it low.

Quieted,

Sheila