My congregation has some of the most beautiful pray-ers who pray the most beautiful prayers. This past Sunday, the person who offered the prayers of the people said something that drew a nod from my head and a sigh from my lips. My friend, the pianist, was so taken by it that she had to grab a pen mid-prayer and scribble the line on the bottom of her lead sheet for Be Thou My Vision. The line was this:
“It is difficult for us to ask for so little.”
He was praying along the lines of the Lord’s Prayer – the part where Jesus taught us to ask our Father in heaven for our daily bread. Just our daily bread. When it seems like there is so much more that we want and need, it is difficult for us to ask God for so little.
As I reflected on Reformed Journal’s fundraising week, this prayer-line came to my mind.
While it is true that it is difficult for us to ask for so little from God, I find that it is difficult to ask for anything at all from one another. Perhaps it is just difficult for me. Or for some of us – for those of us who pride ourselves in our self-sufficiency – for those of us who do everything we can not to put anyone out. For those of us who desperately want to do hard things all by ourselves, it is difficult to ask another for anything at all.
But we can’t do it by ourselves. In order for Reformed Journal to keep publishing blogs and essays and poetry and podcasts, we need you as readers to commit financial gifts to Reformed Journal (monthly gifts are especially helpful). Would you consider becoming a contributor to this work?
Sometimes it’s difficult for us to ask for so little. Sometimes it’s difficult for us to ask for anything at all. But God created us to ask. And God created us to give. The Reformed Journal community is a beautiful interdependent virtual gathering place of askers and givers, who together serve a God who asks and gives in surprising and dependable ways.
Riches I heed not, nor vain empty praise.
Thou mine inheritance now and always
Thou and thou only, first in my heart.
High King of heaven, my treasure thou art.
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