How egocentric is your prayer?

The Pharisee was having a good day.  .  Life was going well.  He had a ton of energy because he had been faithful to his exercise routine and diet.  The prayer meeting the night before was wonderful.  His wife and he had a great morning together.  The kids were doing well in Hebrew school.  He was on his way to work that morning, and as he passed by the temple, he knew he had to stop in and thank God for his life.  Like all the Pharisees, he tried to live fully in the awareness of God’s presence in everything.  And today…  it was just exploding out of him. 

As he enters the temple, he passes by Matthew, the tax collector, who only last week, had come by his house for the ‘semi-annual ‘reckoning’.  A brief scowl crosses his face and a minor surge of anger, but the days have been so good that by the time he gets to the front of the temple, it is gone.  And he begins to pray out loud, not because he is full of himself, but because he is full of the presence of God. 

And that is where he goes wrong.  The prayer that comes out of his mouth is all about him.  Notice the use of the word “I” – five times in this short little prayer.  Thank you God, that I am not, that I am not, that I can…  Somehow the prayer goes wrong because instead of connecting him to God, it only serves to connect him to himself. 
           
The tax collector gets it right.  Knowing his need for God, he doesn’t even try to make an excuse for his life.  He just prays from his heart – GOD, have mercy on me- because that is what I most need from you now.  No aggrandizement of self.  No look at me.  Just the plea: “God – please do what  you do best – love me into life..”

How egocentric is your prayer?  Around the time when I was ordained, there was a popular prayer by Thomas Merton that made the rounds.  I find it a good way to pray to keep me centered on God and not me.  It goes like this:

My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going. (Been there, seen that, done that.)  I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end. (still trying to figure it out) Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think that I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so. (I try, but how do I know.  Yet, here is the part that consoles me) But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you. And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing. I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire.  Ah, that is a prayer that is not about me.  It is all about doing what God wants…

And I know that if I do this you will lead me by the right road though I may know nothing about it. Therefore will I trust you always though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death. I will not fear, for you are ever with me, and you will never leave me to face my perils alone. Thomas Merton (Trappist Monk, 1915-1968)