By Hal Green
Pondering Prayer
There is no greater gift in prayer than the touch of God. It is both indescribable and undeniable; you know at once that it is God, and that it is strangely familiar. When God touches you, it is from the inside. No one but God can do that. It is always a touch of immeasurable love. Though not a physical touch, it still affects you physically. And also psychically. Like the hymn “He Touched Me” says, “God’s touch will heal you and make you whole. Truly, God loves you in your totality, even if you do not.”
The wondrous touch of God will bring forth the fruit of the Spirit, which Paul says includes: “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control” (Galatians 5:22). These all come together in varying degrees, depending on your readiness to accept, embrace, and live through these fruits.
God prefers to touch you softly, tenderly, like a mother to her child or lovers their beloved. God apparently desires that you become sensitive to God’s gentle touch, without fear; and that you trust God’s touch completely, trust that God will never hurt or reject you. God knows as no one else where and when and how you need to be touched, even if you did not realize it until God’s actual touch. Then your heart may exclaim “Thank You! That is just what I needed.”
Here is my attempt to describe, if not God’s touch, at least its effects on me:
“You have touched me, more gently than the breeze can caress the tenderest new buds in the forests of the dawning day.
You have touched me, with more love than a mother can feel as she glides her fingers across her newborn’s feeling skin.
You have touched me, with more understanding of my frame than lovers can attain in the hungering unions of the night.
When You touched me, You birthed the lover in me, living now for Your touch, Your nearness, Your breath upon me.
When You touched me, You silenced forever the critic, the cynic in me, silenced the little mind building boxcars instead of sitting in them with doors open, beholding the moving scenes of a creation greater than logic can imagine, let alone encompass.”
I suggest you begin a meditative prayer with these words: “Lord touch me in whatever way You chose, in whatever way I am ready to receive. Help me to trust Your touch completely, and to remain open to Your love long enough to be gratefully satisfied with Your way with me. Amen.” Call it the ultimate “trust fall” into God. You could even imagine such a fall backwards, into the waiting arms of ultimate love.
(Hal Green, Ph.D., is author of Pray This Way to Connect with God. You can contact him at drhalgreen@gmail.com.)
