Confession 4

April 28, 2009

No one is better than Nouwen on personal reflection.

Wendy Wilson Greer compiled and edited some of the writings of Henri Nouwen in a 1999 book called: The Only Necessary Thing. This book is twice blessed since it features many of Nouwen’s prayer writings, and the thoughtful, organizing skills of Greer. In the first section called Desire she quotes the following from “Prayer and the Jealous God by Nouwen” in The New Oxford Review 52, No. 5 (June 1985): 7-12.

God’s Desire for Us

I am deeply convinced that the necessity to pray, and to pray unceasingly, is not so much based on our desire for God as on God’s desire for us. It is God’s passionate pursuit of us that calls us to prayer. Prayer comes from God’s initiative not ours. It might sound shocking, but it is biblical to say: God wants us more that we want God! The English spiritual writer Anthony Bloom (Metropolitan Anthony of Sourozh) says it better than I when he writes:

We complain htat God does not make himself present to us for the few minutes we reserve for him, but that about the twnety-three and a half hours during which God may be knocking at our door and we answer, “I am busy. I am sorry.” Or when we do not answer at all because we do not even hear the knock at htedoor of our heart, of our mind, of our conscience, of our life. So there is a situation in which we have no right to comoplain of the absence of God, because we are a great deal more absent that he ever is.

Nouwen continues:

So, who is more in need of our prayer: We or God? God is. Who wants to be heard most: We or God? God does. And who “suffers” more from our lack of prayer: We or God? I say it in awe but without fear: God does. As long as we continue to reduce prayer to occasional piety we keep running away form the mystery of God’s jealous love, the love in which we are created, redeemed, and made holy.

My confession: Dear God, I confess that I don’t desire you as much as you desire me. Hear my confession and help me desire you more.

Posted by georges boujakly | Filed Under Confession, Spiritual Formation 

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