At the cusp of the close of the last year, I blogged about a single word from a single bible verse from a single part of a single daily reflection I’d been observing and following.
Today’s post, the first new post of this New Year, moves on from the hitherto to the what is next practically. In light of what God has already done, can we we pray. In light of how God meets us in prayer can we speak and act and rage, rage against the dying of the light.
At the charity/publishers I work for, we have a monthly prayer meeting rooted in the Anglican heritage of our institution. Each time we meet and pray, we read a psalm, a poem or thought, and close with a set prayer. There is much good in this approach, even as there is much yet to be said and asked and acted and lived. Just before Christmas, at one of the most packed occurrences of that monthly prayer meeting, we remembered Charles de Foucald, and we prayed his ‘Prayer of Abandonment’;
Father,
I abandon myself into your hands,
Do with me what you will
Whatever you may do,
I thank you.
I am ready for all,
I accept all.
Let only your will be done in me,
and in all your creatures,
I wish no more than this, O Lord.
Into your hands I commend my soul
I offer it to you,
With all the love of my heart,
For I love you,
And so need to give myself,
To surrender myself into your hands
Without reserve,
with boundless confidence,
For you are my Father
To abandon ones-self to God seems foolish. It is counter-cultural. It could be painful. It will be difficult. But such a leap of faith, into what we call darkness but God sees as reality, is very close to the heart of faith.
Consider some scriptures:
“For my father and my mother have forsaken me, but the LORD will take me up“
– Psalm 27:10
Even when all our friends and family forsake us, the Lord welcomes us with open arms, and from that welcome he raises us up, even in spite of and contradiction to our worldly status…
“And we know that God causes all things
to work together for good to those who
love God, to those who are called
according to His purpose“
– Romans 8:28
All things.
What if we dared to believe that with every fibre of our being? Every bit and part and fragment of ourselves, regardless of our experience, trusting in the promises of God? Here, then, is the radical challenge of abandonment, the part of this prayer so very difficult to pray…
Into your hands I commend my soul
I offer it to you,
With all the love of my heart,
For I love you,
And so need to give myself,
To surrender myself into your hands
Without reserve,
with boundless confidence,
For you are my Father
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