13th Sharing – Part 4             Background             Contents             14th Sharing – Part 2

ch. XLI

Our Lord showed two conditions in prayer:
rightfulness and trust.

Often our trust is not full,
we feel we are undeserving and so not heard;
we feel valueless,
as barren and dry after our prayer as before.

Our sense of our weakness
is a cause of our weakness.

Our Lord brought to mind:
‘I am the Ground of your prayer.
I want you to have your asking,
I make you want it,
I make you pray,
and you pray.
How could I not grant your prayer?’

It is impossible to pray for mercy and grace
and not have it.
All He makes us seek He has ordained
from without beginning.
‘Before when there was no before,
When there was not a when.’

Our prayer does not cause God’s goodness.
He shows this saying,
‘I am the ground of your prayer.’
He wants His lovers to know this.
The more we know it,
the more we pray.

Prayer is a true, gracious lating will of the soul;
united, fastened into our Lord’s will
by the sweet inner working of the Holy Spirit,
the first receiver of our prayer,
taking it in full thanks and joy,
setting it in the Treasure where it shall never perish,
before God in all His holiness,
continually received,
ever speeding our needs.

We receive our bliss with joy,
With His worshipful thanks.

Full glad and merry is our Lord in our prayer,
He looks for it, wants it,
in His grace making us like-minded
with Him, as in His image.
He wills this in pure delight,
Sahing,
‘Pray inwardly,
though you have no taste for it,
for it is profitable
though you feel nothing,
you see nothing,
even though you feel you cannot.

In dryness and barrenness,
sickness and weakness,
your prayer is so pleasing to me,
as is all your believing prayer in my sight.’

For the reward and endless thanks
He wants to give us,
He covets our continual prayer in His sight.
God accepts the goodwill,
the effort of his servant,
however we feel.

It pleases Him that we work
in our prayers and good living,
by His help and grace,
reasonably, and with discretion,
keeping our powers turned to Him,
until we have Him we seek
in fullness of joy,
in Jesus.
He showed that later,
in the fifteenth revelation,
‘You shall have Me to your praise and honour.’

Thanks belong to prayer.
Thanking is true inward knowing,
with great reverence and lovely dread,
(for in Julian’s time ‘dread’ had far more the meaning of awe than it has today)
turning us with all our might
to the work our good Lord stirs us to,
enjoying and thanking inwardly.

Sometimes it breaks out fully,
Saying, ‘Good Lord, I thank you!
May you be blessed!’
At others, driven by dryness,
Lack of feeling or temptation,
we cry aloud to our Lord,
for His passion and goodness.
Even in this state His word turns our soul,
Quickens the heart from dryness to life.

In all, give thanks.

13th Sharing – Part 4             Background             Contents             14th Sharing – Part 2