Praying With Our Desires | Teresa Blythe

Spiritual leaders often ask us what we most desire in life, because our deepest, truest desires are one way in which God calls us to walk this path.

The “Prayer of Desire” is one of my favorite practices because it allows us to express our desires openly, unashamedly, and emotionally before God by using all of our senses to create in our imagination a scene depicting what you want and then praying. in and Through That desire.

David’s Prayer

I first learned of this type of prayer The Isaiah effect A book by Greg Braden. He calls it “David’s Prayer,” named after a Native American friend who introduced him to the idea of ​​taking your deepest desires and placing them around you and offering them up to the Creator. In David’s Prayer, David is in the drought-stricken desert southwest and is going to, in his words, “pray for rain.”[i] I don’t pray for Not to ask for rain, but to enter into a way of prayer where, out of gratitude for all of creation, we feel, touch, taste, smell, and see what the land seems to need most: rain. Having done that, David commits the outcome to the Creator. Braden, a student of quantum physics, argues that aligning ourselves with our most fervent desires in gratitude and feeling deeply what it would be like to have that desire come true is an action that creates change in the world. With this prayer, we can “pray for peace.”

Celtic version

The Celtic version of this custom is by Tanis Helliwell. Putting your soul into your workyou do pretty much the same thing.[ii] And again, leave the outcome up to God, but Helliwell adds an important step: he asks God how he can help him make this wish come true, and then he waits for the opportunity to do just that.

exercise

• First, take a moment to calm your mind and say a prayer of gratitude for all that has been, is, and will be.

• Express your deepest heart’s desire before God, and then pause for a moment to see if that desire remains the same or if you would like to express it in a different way.

• Visualize your desire. Feel it. Touch it. Taste it. Smell it. Make it real in your imagination. Stay there and see how the scene depicting your desire develops and changes. Continue this procedure for a few minutes.

• Let go of a specific outcome. Pray that God’s desires will be met with yours, or that He will change your desires as needed. Notice if something changes as a result of that request.

• Ask God how you can help him make this desire come true. Be silent and allow Him to speak to you through your imagination.

• Finally, I thank God for this request and the opportunity to pray through it. I thank God for being with me in this prayer.

• Immediately after the prayer, take a moment to reflect on the time you prayed with your desire. What surprised you? What moved you? What inspired you? What unsettled you? How did you feel God’s presence during this prayer? Did anything change about your desire while you were praying?

• In the days following this prayer, be aware that God may be giving you opportunities to accomplish your desires, and when they do, act prayerfully and remember to thank God for the opportunity and the eyes to see it.

Let go and let God

We tend to get caught up in our desires and become overly self-centered. This prayer helps us let go of our desires by surrendering them to God. Say this prayer when you have a desire that persists and feels important. Use this prayer to visualize and promote peace in the world.

If you liked this prayer and are looking for more ways to pray, you might like my book: 50 Ways to Pray Published by Abingdon Press, you can try out this prayer and 49 others.

[i] This wonderful story is The Isaiah Effect (Three Rivers Press, 2000) pp. 160-173.

[ii] Putting your soul into your workTanis Helliwell (Adams Media, 1999) pp. 299-300.