þ
Do you find yourself feeling spiritually empty
or confused?
þ
Do you ever wonder if or worry that you’re “not
doing it right” when you’re seeking to connect with a higher power?
þ
Do you find it difficult to find the words or to
articulate your feelings in prayer?
THE ART OF PRAYER
In 1886, Russian writer Leo
Tolstoy penned the short story of the “Three Hermits,” a parable about the
power of faith. The story follows the voyage of a bishop sailing through smooth
waters to the Solovetsk Monastery in the company of other pilgrims; along the
way, their ship comes across a little unnamed island where three unnamed
hermits live “for the salvation of their souls,” as explained to the bishop by
a resident fisherman. Upon the bishop’s request and after quite a bit of fuss,
the captain is convinced to stall the ship and the bishop is rowed to the
island and to meet the hermits.
Upon arriving on the island
and meeting the three old men, the bishop promptly offers them his benediction
and an offer to mentor them. When the bishop asks the hermits about their
method of prayer, the hermits reply with apparently the simplest prayer that
the bishop has ever heard: “Three are ye, three are we, have mercy upon us!”
For the bishop, this very
simple mantra does not suffice. “You have evidently heard something about the
Holy Trinity,” he tells them, “but you do not pray aright … That is not the way
to pray; but listen to me, and I will teach you.” And he begins to teach them
the customary Lord’s Prayer as found in the Scriptures. The hermits doggedly
repeat the prayer after him, trying their very best to memorize it despite
their age and feebleness.
At day’s end, the bishop sets
out towards the ship again, blessing the hermits and bidding them to pray as
he’d taught them. As the boat approaches the ship, he can hear the voices of
the hermits, carried over the water, as they determinedly repeat the Lord’s
Prayer over and over in order to remember it. Near dawn the very next day,
hours after the ship sets sail once more, the bishop—sitting on the deck and
unable to sleep—witnesses a miraculous sight: “the three hermits running upon
the water, all gleaming white, their grey beards shining, and approaching the
ship.” The pilgrims wake; they, too, are unable to believe their eyes.
The three hermits, running on
the water “as though it were dry land,” call out to the bishop that they have
come to him because they forgot all the words to the Lord’s Prayer and wished
for him to teach them again.
The bishop, humbled, crosses
himself and bows before the hermits with genuine humility, realizing and
admitting to them that “your own prayer will reach the Lord, men of God. It is
not for me to teach you. Pray for us sinners.” The ship sails off and leaves
the three hermits in peace to return—still gliding over the waves—to their
island and their pious lifestyle.
“True prayer is measured by weight, not by length. A single groan
before God may have more fullness of prayer in it than a fine oration of great
length.” –C. H. Spurgeon
NOW
When the bishop first met the
hermits, he attempted to teach them to pray “the right way”, spending hours
with the hermits and trying to make them memorize the unfamiliar words.
Instead, the encounter taught him an
enormous lesson: that the formality or the form of prayer matters far less than
the authenticity and whole-heartedness of a prayer, whatever it may be and in
whatever form. Far better an illiterate man’s genuine, heartfelt prayer than a
“cultured” man’s formal yet pretentious, judgmental, or absentminded prayer.
®
Notice… The bishop’s first encounter with the
hermits is indicative of the manner in which he initially approached prayer and
how he judged the ways in which other people connected with God. It was only
after he saw the miracle of the three humble hermits walking across water—an
echo of the Biblical miracle of Jesus walking on water—that he realized how
much more pious and heartfelt their own illiterate or seemingly foolish prayers
were. He noticed that he had been set in his ideas and had lacked the
flexibility and humility to accept different—and, very likely, better—ways of
praying.
®
Opportunities… Once the
bishop realized that the hermits’ simple yet faithful prayer was obviously
blessed and “right” in the eyes of God, he had the opportunity to change his
own mentality and approach.
®
Within... The
greatest lesson the bishop would ever give would be the one he accepted and
taught himself through witnessing the humbling power of the hermits. He
realized that he was wrong to have judged the hermits for their different
methods. This inner realization unleashed within humility and the graciousness
to admit that he was wrong, and that he was neither worthy nor needed to teach
the hermits; that they, instead, had been his teachers. This was clearly a
journey that would forever change him.
“In prayer it is better to have a heart without words than words
without a heart.” –John Bunyan
Featured Image Copyright: mrs.kohanova / BigStockPhoto.com