{"id":10592,"date":"2015-01-07T17:46:07","date_gmt":"2015-01-07T17:46:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/iamsignificant.ca\/?p=10592"},"modified":"2019-08-23T13:38:31","modified_gmt":"2019-08-23T13:38:31","slug":"blind-faith-mertons-prayer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/iamsignificant.ca\/home\/significant-sustenance\/blind-faith-mertons-prayer\/","title":{"rendered":"Blind Faith – Merton’s Prayer"},"content":{"rendered":"

The following is a prayer by\u00a0Thomas Merton found in his book entitled Thoughts in Solitude<\/span><\/a><\/u>. \u00a0Thomas Merton was an influential 20th-century Catholic author, popular spiritual writer, poet, author and social activist. \u00a0A Trappist monk of the Abbey of Our Lady of Gethsemani, in Kentucky,\u00a0Merton was a prolific writer penning over 60 books and many essays. Born in January of 1915, he died at age 53, when he was electrocuted stepping out of his bath.<\/p>\n

This particular prayer has become important to me<\/strong>. \u00a0I find that as I mature in my faith, and that maturity dispels the dualism and black and white of a childish faith – I find myself less certain – kind of a blind faith.\u00a0 The more I mature and learn the more I realize how much I really don’t know.<\/p>\n

Some may question whether this is maturity, but I am discovering the more I learn, the bigger God becomes, the more mysterious He becomes. \u00a0The reality that even my best thoughts about God cannot begin to contain or adequately describe the mystery that is God. \u00a0This\u00a0can be disconcerting and unsettling for those of us who equate certainty with faith. \u00a0Truth be told the kind of certainty many clamours for, is not faith at all. I am finding my faith shift from what I know about God (and the correctness of those thoughts) to trusting\u00a0that God is God regardless of whether I understand Him. \u00a0It is a shift from faith in what I\u00a0know about God to faith, to use a metaphor, in the person of God Him\/Herself.<\/p>\n

So here we have, by many accounts, the prayer of a spiritual powerhouse and his confession that he too isn’t sure of where he is going. He is confessing his own uncertainty. \u00a0That even though he desires and thinks he is following Gods will for his life, he confesses that he’s not entirely sure. \u00a0This is not anti-faith at all. \u00a0Merton is expressing that he is doing his best to follow the leading of God\u00a0and accepts that he\u00a0might be mistaken. \u00a0He expresses his sincere desire to\u00a0please God,\u00a0even if he makes a mistake. \u00a0 In faith, he trusts that God is honored by his honest effort to please Him. \u00a0Having faith that this is enough for God to get him where he is supposed to be and that through it all, right turns or wrong, God is with him always.<\/p>\n

You see, this puts our faith back in the hands of God and not in our ability to understand, or perform. This frees us from all sorts of religious obligation. \u00a0This speaks to me of a genuine faith in the love of God and God’s work in us rather than our ability to “get it right.” \u00a0 I think authentic Christianity is not about what we can do for God and has everything to do with what God does for us. \u00a0 Faith is not the commercial exchange of a commodity of faith for a commodity of blessing. \u00a0Rather it is the simple acceptance of this gift of God. \u00a0Genuine acceptance will manifest the kinds of fruit in our life we are seeking.<\/p>\n

Some seasons of life, we will see a little more clearly than others. \u00a0Sometimes we can’t discern our hand in front of our face, and it is in a very real way blind faith. \u00a0It is in these seasons that I find Merton’s words especially comforting.<\/p>\n

\n

\u201cMy Lord God, I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end. Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think that I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so. But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you. And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing. I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire. And I know that if I do this you will lead me by the right road though I may know nothing about it. Therefore will I trust you always though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death. I will not fear, for you are ever with me, and you will never leave me to face my perils alone.\u201d<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

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