Orthodox priest, professor, and author, Alexander Schmemann, has a wonderful book called “For the Life of the World.”  I would encourage anyone to read it, especially any Western Christian who is less familiar with the Eastern half of the family of Christianity.

There is so much to share from this book, but today, I wanted to share just two insights from him that I have really held onto regarding prayer.

The first one is prayer as giving the world back to God.  Schmemman writes about how as human beings our first calling is to be priests who worship by accepting and blessing all that God has given us and offer the world back to God in gratitude.  It is our primary vocation.

As we live out this life of worshipful prayer, of priestly offering-making, it cultivates in us a heart of joy, gratitude and wonder.  It helps us hold the world and all that is in it and goes on in it with just the right grip – loving it for all that it is and all that it can be.  Living the practice of giving the world back to God also keeps the world from holding onto us too tightly.  It helps us walk light through the world without the anxiety that we were never meant to bear.  It frees us to engage and cultivate what is good and beautiful without grasping for a stranglehold on outcomes.  It frees us to place the world where it belongs, in God’s hands.  It cultivates God’s never giving up love and compassion in us while at the same time freeing us from the terrible burden of taking ourselves too seriously.  Somehow, giving the world back to God, grows that seed of faith deep in our soul that says, “All will be well.”

Try nurturing this prayerful practice of giving the world back to God today as you work, learn, grieve, and give thanks.

The second insight into prayer is prayer as bringing the future into the present. This has everything to do with the Christian belief in the coming Kingdom of God, the Dream of God, the healing of the world, where all things will end with God making all things new, wiping every tear from our eyes, and making all the sad things come untrue.  It has to do with how Christians believe things will be in the future and praying that reality into the present.

It doesn’t mean that somehow God will make it so that the bad, sad, and ugly things never happened, but that God will transform them into victory. Prayer as bringing the future into the present is inviting resurrection into a situation believing that new life is how things are meant to be and will be.  It is seeing what will and can be and believing it into the present.  It is praying with Jesus, “thy Kingdom come” into every moment and situation.  It is the kind of praying that insists on hope and beautiful believing, no matter how dark the situation.

May you experience the Dream of God breaking into your life and heart today.