Psalm 139

Last night I was preparing to say evening prayer in the Little Office of the Virgin Mary (Ya Scapular wearers!) when I received a pleasant surprise. The first two psalm readings of the Wednesday night evening prayer just happen to be Psalm 139, the best Psalm ever, and a personally favorite (and I'm pretty sure I read somewhere that it was Jesus's favorite too). I really do love this psalm and I always get excited when it shows up in evening prayer, its in the regular Christian Prayer but I can't recall the week or day of the top off my head, and I'm at work minus one prayer book so oh well. It starts off

"Oh Lord you have searched me
and you know me."

I couldn't have said it better myself (for obvious reasons, um I'm not God duh!). This one statement can make you realize a lot, especially in the context of prayer. You have searched me and you know me! In other words, God knows you better than yourself, he knows what will truly make you happy and what will bring you closer to him, and he's pretty anxious to let you know too, if you listen. But that is the hard thing to do, isn't it? I don't mean simply turning off your eyes and ears, its a bit tougher to turn down the distractions in your head. Memories of the day swirling around, worries of tomorrow, things you did or didn't get a chance to, random thoughts (those are annoying), distracting thoughts. It all clouds up what God is trying to say to you. I think this is one of the reasons God gave us the Our Father. Its easy to kneel down and belt out a spontaneous prayer to God, and there's nothing wrong with that. Its good to say a quick prayer during the day when your thankful for something or need some help, but when you really sit down for some serious thought and prayer to God, those spontaneous prayers never really let you get focused. God gave us a way to pray to him through the Our Father, for anyone who goes to Mass frequently those words are ingrained into your head. Its really quite amazing how much easier it is to focus on God when you say that prayer and really listen to it as you prayer, after that I don't think those spontaneous prayers are so spontaneous anymore.

Well, I guess that works for me, I can't guarantee it for you but it never hurts to try (now if I could only take my own advice!).