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I have often shared about different aspects of the spiritual practice of prayer over the past years, and many of you have shared your prayer practices as well.  But it is a limitless topic and I am drawn back to it now, planning to keep this focus at least until Lent begins in March. As always, I welcome your stories with and of prayer as well. I will be using the book Illuminiated Prayers by Marianne Williamson as a prompt for practices. I’m open to hearing about your prayer sources as well. In the first prayer in this book, she writes:

“Dear God, As I wake up this morning may Your spirit come upon me.”  (pg. 12)

It’s a longer prayer, but that one line is enough for us to pause and contemplate. It holds so much. “As I awake” implies that the first thought is of God, not the agenda for the day, the list, the demands, the worries, the problems. “May Your spirit come upon me.” To me, this is also an implied trust in God, to ask first for God’s spirit, not for other wants.

Just this. To awake with the awareness of God’s presence and gracious giving. I don’t know about you, but this spiritual practice  alone is enough to transform my day. “Not my will but thine be done.”

Try it. Not that we will be perfect at it, but that we will ask for this grace first thing upon awaking. Maybe you will change the words a little to fit you. But a brief prayer as you first wake up in the morning and notice if it slightly or greatly orients your day differently.  When I read it, it felt like a gentle blessing, soft and sure. Notice how it lands with you. 

Pastor Marcia Wakeland is a retired ELCA pastor, a spiritual director and a listening advocate. She is interested in the actual experience of having faith and how that is lived out. She can be reached at mwakeland@gmail.com for comments or more questions Her ongoing blog of living out spiritual practices is listeninglife.live