Adventures in Prayer: The Prayer of Rest

 How perfectly timed even the certain chapters of this book are!  It is Sunday afternoon, and I have just gotten home from church, eaten lunch, and put Dutch down for his nap.  I crept into our bedroom, settled into our bed leaning back against the headboard, and savored the silence.  Opening the book, I saw the title: The Prayer of Rest.  Sabbath Prayer—that is the topic of this chapter on this Sabbath day.  Jeff is still at church helping with some things, so I am alone (ok, my parents are here but they’re downstairs), and ready to enter in to this Sabbath Prayer.
 Foster describes this restful prayer as letting go “of the grasping and grabbling, all of the controlling, all of the manipulating dynamics of life” (93).  That is me!  Resting is so hard for me because it means letting go, completely.  It is “a way of tempering our gnawing need to always get ahead.”  And even when I do rest, if I have some sort of insight or impression from the Lord, I am always so antsy to write it down so that I don’t forget it, that before I know it I’m not resting anymore!  Foster describes this in his experience sitting over an outcropping looking at the ocean.  He kept thinking that he had to find a paper and pen to describe such an amazingly restful experience … instead of just experiencing it!  Perhaps that is the curse of the writer, always thinking of how to communicate the experience rather than just experiencing.
 At any rate, this prayer of rest is similar to the prayer of relinquishment, but involves more stillness.  It has been called “holy leisure” which refers to a sense of balance in life between activity and rest, work and play, sunshine and rain.  Balance is so lacking in our lives today, we either fall off the boat on one side or the other.  To be balanced is to be rested and centered, grounded in a proper understanding of who we are and who God is.  We understand our responsibility and duty and joy in godly service, but we also understand our place, our utter dependence on God and our responsibility to rest in His presence.  We are, as Foster says, gently cupped in his hand.
 Some practical suggestions Foster give are solitude retreats.  As a nursing mother, I don’t necessarily have the opportunity to take a solitude retreat, but I can do mini retreats, at night when Dutch is in bed, right now while Dutch is (not napping!  Squawking in his crib and singing songsJ.) supposedly napping.  These little moments of alone time give way for reflection, and allow me to be still. 
 Silence is another way to enter this Sabbath Prayer.  Silence does not necessarily mean not talking, but a silence “of our grasping, manipulative control of people and situations.  It means standing firm against our codependency drives to control everyone and fix everything.”  Oh how my mind is constantly running, dreaming up scenarios and ideas and things to do.  How difficult it is for me to cease altogether.  Right now, when there is something I want so badly, so deeply, it is an ache inside my heart, it if so hard to just sit, silently, quietly, in stillness, and rest in God, trusting Him and refusing to do things myself. 
 The end prayer of this chapter summarizes my prayer: “Savior, I am not good at resting in the hollow of Your hand.  Nothing in my experience has taught me this resting.  I have been taught how to take charge.  I have been taught how to be in control.  But how to rest?  No I have no models, no paradigms for resting.”  So I pray that today, this Sabbath, with a day looming ahead filled with 10 hours of straight classes tomorrow (!), with decisions and meetings this week and hopes and dreams buzzing like angry bees in my mind, I will lean back my head, and rest.  I will sit and watch the river and trust.  I will play with my son and be still.  I will laugh and curl up in the hollow of God’s hand.