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Does anyone here share with me a certain habit for becoming flummoxed with the very enormity of God versus our own...littleness?

I frequently find myself laughing at my own prayer and wondering why I'm saying so many things to God that he already knows. He knows what I say before I say it. He knows what I need before I ask for it. He knows the next sin I will commit as I engage in any act of piety or charity.

I don't know why...I can't quite explain it, but sometimes I find this realization deflating. There is an apparent (and I say this with all due reverence) absurdity to it.

The enormity of God and the life of a man as it goes in this worldly world amidst Christ's divided Church of divided minds often makes me just stop and say, "Lord...I'm just a little thing that you've created, incapable of very much, and yet so much seems to be expected of me, to the point where if I can't manage it, everlasting hellfire awaits. I'm only little...and your Church, your world, eternity, and You...are all just too...big...for me to comprehend."

And I sort of throw down my arms and inform Him (as if He didn't know) that it's just too much and that He'll have to simply carry me because sometimes, it doesn't even seem clear in which direction to walk, much less possible to successfully negotiate all those obstacles along the way.

In all the universe I'm one speck of dust existing in one moment in time on a little dot lost in the swirl of one of a jillion galaxies...and so I hope you won't really expect too much of me or be so offended by any fall of mine considering what I am versus what You are.

Anyone else find himself at times disconcerted or bewildered by the expectations of us inspite of our...ridiculously little-ness versus God's overwhelming infinity? Again, I ask this with all due reverence and sincerity.

Nope. Think of a mom whose kids bring her tea and toast in bed on mother's day. The tea is cold and has too much milk in it. She knows very well that they've made a huge mess of the kitchen that she's going to have to clean up. She enjoys it anyway. Consider why.

RI:

Christ is in our midst!!

I think the answer to your dilemna is that we are, too often, convinced that it is "we" who are the "doers," rather than that the Good Lord continues to work in His creation in and through us.

We have a place where He has placed us and all He asks is that we do the things that we are gifted to do and capable of doing in the place where we are. We aren't called to solve the huge problems of the world or the universe. We are called to be His Presence where we are. Together with others, we can take on the bigger problems, but in all things we are called to understand our own smallness because it has a reason and a purpose.

We are made finite, limited, small, and broken. We are made this way so that we see our own limitations and reach out for the One Who created us--that we become humble enough to ask for help. It is said that Blessed Pope John XXIII used to finish his evening prayers by telling the Lord--in words similar to this--that the problems are great, the Church is great and beyond one man's capacity to govern, that it is "Your Church" and I'm going to bed with her in Your Hands.

We need to take that into account.

There is an answer to your prayer dilemna, too, and it comes from a prayer attributed to Metropolitan Philaret of Moscow and to the Optina Fathers in the 19th century in Russia.

The last phrase of the prayer says "Pray Thou Thyself in me." In other words, "let my prayer be nothing more and nothing less than You, Lord, praying in and through me by the Holy Spirit." Personal prayer is an extension of the whole of God's Church praying continuously to Him until He comes for us. Our goal is to be open to the Spirit's promptings in prayer. And, I have been taught, that in all petitions, one ought to add "if it be Your Will."

There is no "absurdity to it." It is the realization that I am who I am, God is Who He is, and we are not one and the same. Nor am I in charge, but He and His Plan are.

The beauty of it all is that He loves each and every "speck" that He has created. (Another sentence from the prayer I just quoted: "Thou lovest me more than I myself know how to love.") As for His "enormity" vs. our smallness--remember He came here as one of us in all things but sin. He probably had the flu; days when He didn't want to get out of bed and go to work with His foster father in the carpenter shop; didn't like kosher food; resisted being potty trained. None of this is a sin; it's human.

Go to St. Luke's Gospel to Chapter 12, verse 32 for the summary I have on my desk and look at every day. And be at peace.

Bob

I would just like to add, Interloper, that long, long, long before you or I felt that way, or expressed those thoughts, the Psalmist uttered the very same thoughts beautifully and poetically in Psalm 138 (139). It's a bit over-whelming, but it's worth a read and a re-read slowly and prayerfully every day.

Interloper,

The amazing thing is that God wants us to share our lives with Him. Think of it not as telling Him what He already already knows, but of sharing your day with your brother or your father. He passionately wants to be a part of your life, and that only happens when we invite Him in.

Fr. Deacon Ed