Listening to the Voice Within

 Most of us think of prayer as saying something to God, and of course, that is probably the starting point when we come to pray.  But in his introduction to prayer, Thomas Merton speaks of meditation:  In mental prayer, we enter a realm of which we are no longer the masters....we seek to enter more deeply into the life of God....One who begs an alms must adopt a different attitude from one who demands what is due to him by his own right...

The desires and sorrows of our hearts in prayer rise to the heavenly Father as the desires and sorrows of His Son, 

by virtue of the Holy Spirit who teaches us to pray and who, though we do not always know how to pray....prays in us and cries out to the Father in us.

In the Book of Deuteronomy, Moses tells the people that the Word of God is not so far off that someone has to go up to the heavens to find it.  Rather, he says, it is (already) in your hearts and minds; you have only to carry it out.

So a good part of prayer is not so much saying what is on our minds, but rather attempting to listen to what the Spirit is saying inside us.  It takes some discipline to be still, not to be always talking, but rather listening.  We can think of it as a two-way radio.  If I'm talking, I'm not listening.  If I want to listen, I have to turn off the talking switch.

I recently read about someone who needed direction from the Lord.  So whenever she had time, she would sit before the tabernacle and just wait on the Lord.  She did not pour out her heart, multiply her prayers, etc. ---- she just sat and waited.  That would probably be hard for most of us, but here's the way I like to think about it:

As a teacher, I appreciated those students who were in class when I arrived, materials ready and minds open to listen, to receive direction.  They were "waiting upon" me, not full of their own ideas, but open to receive what I would say.  Now I know that the Holy Spirit is given to me to pray in me the will of God.  So if I can come to class, so to speak, prepared to listen to what the Spirit is saying within me, that would be waiting upon the Lord.  

It may feel a bit strange at first since we are so used to doing all the talking, but if we can only be still long enough, I think we would be surprised and delighted at what the Spirit is saying within us.