As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love. John 15:9
“We are called to pray not because we feel like praying or because it gives us great insights, but simply because we want to be obedient, to listen to the voice that calls us beloved. The word listen in Latin is audire. If we listen with full attention in which we are totally geared to listen, it’s called ob-audire, and that’s where the word obedience comes from.
Jesus is the obedient one. That means He is total ear, totally open to the love of God. And if we are closed, we are surdus. That is the Latin word for deaf. The more “deaf” we get, the more absurdus we become, and an absurd life is precisely a life in which we no longer listen and are constantly distracted by all sorts of voices and lose touch with the truth that we are the beloved.
And as soon as we start to become spiritually deaf to the voice that calls us the beloved, we are going to look someplace else to make us the beloved. And that’s when we get into trouble. We are going to look for love, affirmation, or praise where we cannot find them and get hooked in all sorts of ways, whether it is alcohol, drugs, relationships, success in work, how people talk about us, or desire to have control over things. Prayer brings love alive among us.”
Henri Nouwen in A Spirituality of Living (Henri Nouwen Legacy Trust, 2011) 27-28.
For those who desire to serve as conduits of God’s generosity to a lost and hurting world, Nouwen reminds us today, echoing the prayer of Jesus, that we remain in the Father’s love.
We do this by prayer and listening. This propels us to obedience. Obedience causes us to participate in what God wants to happen. Failure to do so results in an absurd life that expends time and money on stuff that won’t satisfy.
In this light, Nouwen blesses us today with the reminder to pray and soak in the reality that we are the beloved. Listen and obey to abandon absurdity and position yourself for a life of generosity.
Early tomorrow I fly to Washington, D.C. to do a weeklong workshop on Governance, Administration, and Partnership for a Chilean delegation of Christian workers at Black Rock Retreat. I’d appreciate your prayers for a fruitful week.