Resting Prayer

We rest better with a trusted other, than all alone. Alone, our mind easily wanders to the troubling areas of our life. And before we know it, our inner worrier kicks in, like an intensifying generator with seemingly endless fuel. Yet when we rest with a trusted other, it becomes easier to find peace in the moment, to let go of concerns, and to come fully into the present unencumbered by the harassing “what if’s” and “could be’s” of lonely, all alone life.

Right after creating the cosmos, God rested. Calling everything God made “good,” God entered the first Sabbath (Genesis 2:1-3), making it holy. God subsequently commanded humanity to do likewise: work six days a week and then rest on the seventh. God may still be in a Sabbath mode, at least until God creates “a new heaven and a new earth” (Revelation 21:1-2).

Resting sounds simple and attainable. The problem is, most of us do not know how to rest. We bring our work home, and home issues to our work place. We need to learn how to let go and let be, to simply rest – and not just when we fall asleep, but also when we are awake.

One thing that works for me I call “Resting Prayer,” where I ask nothing of God, and God asks nothing of me. We simply rest together, silently letting love flow freely between us. And the amazing thing is, this also works well while praying with your dog at your feet, or your cat curled on your lap. I wrote this a meditation to God while my dog, Wally, rested at my feet:

I rest upon You,
as You rest in me.
We repose together,
in wordless wonder,
sharing in Your Sabbath gift,
albeit in different ways as different beings,
You as God and me as human.
No work is done;
love simply unmasks
its silent presence between us.

I offer You these words of thanksgiving,
as my shepherd dog rests at my feet,
curled between and snuggling them.
He lightly sleeps as I intently pray;
yet we are at rest together, different beings
united in hushed peace,
one wordlessly comforting the other.

Somehow our being together,
You and I, Beloved,
as well as my dog and I,
my well-loved Wally,
makes possible this rest.
It turns out I cannot truly rest alone,
but only with You;
and strangely, sometimes also with my dog,
a real instigator of Sabbath moments.