?I?m having difficulty seeing connections, knowing where you are leading, sensing your heart, capturing your perspective. Please help me see through your lens, Lord.?
These words from my journal, especially the last sentence, reflect a common prayer for me in recent years. I long to see, if even in small measure, from God?s perspective and through his lens the world and its people and activities. I want to see where God is moving and working as well as my place within it all.
Looking back, I see two prayer practices that shaped this soul plea.
I discovered one in my first months of participation in The Journey, The Leadership Institute?s two-year leadership and spiritual formation training process. Richard Peace had joined us as a guest speaker, and as a part of what he shared he introduced us to Ignatian Spirituality. He offered just enough to stir my curiosity, and I became interested particularly in the Ignatian Prayer of Examen, an evening prayer looking back on our day.
One of the opening prayers for the Examen includes asking God for discernment, and one writer, Aschenbrenner, put it this way:
?The Examen is not simply a matter of the natural power of our memory and analysis going back over a part of the day. It is a matter of Spirit-guided insight into our life and courageously responsive sensitivity to God?s call in our heart . . . That the Spirit may help us to see ourselves a bit more as God sees us!?
Please help me see through your lens, Lord.
?Those eight words hold much behind them. I am asking for Spirit-guided insight. I am pleading for God?s movement in the events around me and his call on my heart. I am asking to see a bit more as God sees.
To see myself as he sees me and where I have listened and responded to him or where I have resisted.
To see the pain and messiness of the world with his compassion so I might better love as he would.
To see and let fall away anything that is false or inauthentic in order to join him with less hindered courageous responsiveness.
And more. That simple prayer is often nuanced by the circumstances and events I am living in that moment I pray it.
?A second prayer that helped to form those eight words came during my second year of The Journey, when the leaders began to teach us a prayer process we could use as we prepared for an activity or meeting in our leadership, ministry, or community spaces.
The process begins with discernment, with one of the steps inviting a discovery of what is on God?s heart for the people or the event for which we are planning. It asks the question: What outcomes does God desire?
Please help me see through your lens, Lord.
?This process taught by the TLI leaders has become integral to how I move into and through activities, even those that don?t seem particularly ?spiritual.? I?ve come to see?through God?s lens, I think?each space, each activity and interaction, no matter how ordinary, as sacred and full of his presence.
I want to know his heart for the people I will be with in the scheduled events or as I simply live the day. Seeing a little more of what he sees opens up an awareness of the participation of the Spirit within these peopled spaces. I wouldn?t want anything less though I know there is still much I miss or don?t see.
Please Lord, help me see through your lens.
