Human beings have needs. From simple physiological needs like air and food and water to safety and belonging and self-esteem and fulfilment. Some of these are expressed as instincts and some lead to desires. We have needs – but human beings are also fallen. And our sinful human nature can sometimes use our needs and instincts and desires to take our focus away from God. We can be tempted to use all our time and all our energy in satisfying our needs and instincts and desires, leaving us no time or energy to serve God and other people. We need to learn to say “no” to self and “yes” to God.
Francis of Assisi was a monk – the founder of the order of monks known as the Franciscans. We think of Francis primarily as a preacher and somebody who took care of the poor but in fact he devoted 75 percent of his time and energy to prayer and only 25 percent to preaching and other good works. The reason Francis was able to make such a significant mark on the whole world in a such small amount of time each week was that his prayer life transformed him to be more like Christ. “Biblical holiness means godliness. And true godliness is always rooted in God-centredness. Be holy: Why? “Because I the Lord am holy.” Today many churches have inverted the true spiritual values. We rate skills over sanctity, dynamism over deep devotion, programmes over prayer. So often we forget the words of the 19th Century Scottish preacher Robert Murray McCheyne who said, “It is not great talents God blesses, so much as great likeness to Jesus.” We do not take time to be holy. Saint Francis did!
Even though Francis didn’t write it, this prayer known as the prayer of St Francis has become perhaps the best known example of a “formation prayer”. The very act of praying these words will transform us as people as we as invite God to make us more like Jesus. It can be used as a meditation to help us to reflect on our own lives and our own experiences, and then ask God to form the character of Christ in us.
O divine Master,
grant that I may not so much seek
to be consoled as to console;
to be understood as to understand;
to be loved as to love.
God’s Kingdom turns the world upside down. Or rather, the Kingdom of God turns this “wrong way up world” back the right way up again. It challenges our priorities. “Seek first God’s Kingdom and HIS righteousness and all these things will be added to you.”
O divine Master
grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console;
We all want people to console us. When we have problems and burdens we long to unload them on to other people and for them to look after us. God’s plan for us is different. God’s plan is that we should cast all our cares on HIM, that HE should bear our burdens.
Matt 11:28-30 “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give
you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”
God’s plan is that, when Christ has taken our burdens, then we can bear other people’s burdens and so fulfil the law of Christ. We can then console others. Instead of looking for other people to look after us all the time, we can then look for other people we can console and comfort and support and strengthen.
1 Corinthians 1:3-6 Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God. For just as the sufferings of Christ flow over into our lives, so also through Christ our comfort overflows. If we are distressed, it is for your comfort and salvation; if we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which produces in you patient endurance of the same sufferings we suffer.
God wants to comfort us. God the Holy Spirit, the Comforter, the Counsellor, the Helper, lives inside us to comfort and console us. And when the Holy Spirit the Comforter gives us consolation, God then expects us to offer consolation to others who are in need.
As we become more like Christ we will not be so preoccupied with our own needs and our own sufferings – and think more about caring for the needs and sufferings of other people. This is how we can bring God’s peace, his shalom, his healing and wholeness to a troubled world.
Another prayer which Saint Francis of Assisi (C. 1181–1226) definitely did write says this.
“O God, Creator of mankind, I do not aspire to comprehend you or your creation, nor to understand pain or suffering. I aspire only to relieve the pain and suffering of others, and I trust in doing so I may understand more clearly your nature, that you are the Father of all mankind, and that the hairs of my head are numbered.”
Grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console;
-> silence for meditation
O divine Master
grant that I may not so much seek to be understood as to understand;
We all want other people to understand us – we want them to agree that we are right all the time. We want them to be sympathetic to us and take our circumstances into account before they judge us or criticise us. There is another well-known prayer of formation which begins like this.
Jesus, meek and humble of heart, hear me. Deliver me, Jesus,
from the desire of being loved, from the desire of being extolled
from the desire of being honoured, from the desire of being praised
from the desire of being preferred to others, from the desire of being consulted, from the desire of being approved
Instead of wanting to be important – instead of wanting other people to understand us, we should work hard at understanding other people, at putting ourselves in their shoes. We should guard against judging others and criticising others – and seek to understand them instead.
Wherever in the world we find disagreement or conflict or hostility or confusion, it is usually based on a misunderstanding or a breakdown of communication. The path to true peace and reconciliation is frequently through understanding and bridge building and effective communication.
So instead of expecting the other person to understand me – I must learn to understand his or her point of view and his or her concerns. It is only when we understand another person’s needs and hurts that we can really begin to help them.
TWO obvious things I want to say about understanding other people:-
1. Understanding people demands listening to people:
James 1:19 ¶ My dear brothers, take note of this: Everyone should be quick to listen, but slow to speak and slow to become angry,
Stephen Covey said “Most people do not listen with the intent to understand; they listen with the intent to reply.” Too often people listen in order to respond, when instead we should be listening in order to understand.
2. Listening to people takes TIME!
I have spoken a lot about making space in our busy lives and spending time with God in prayer. I want to say the same thing about making space and spending time with other people. The Christian psychiatrist Paul Tournier wrote, “Christians today are too busy. Nobody doubts their sincerity, but everybody doubts their love.” We need to take all time it needs to understand other people. Their hopes and aspirations and fears and anxieties. Instead of expecting people to understand us all the time, we should ask God to help us work hard at understanding other people.
Grant that I may not so much seek to be understood as to understand;
-> silence for meditation
O divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek to be loved as to love.
We all want other people to love us. We all need other people to love us – to like us, to respect us, to care about us.
The miracle of the gospel of grace is that God DOES love us. God loves us so much that He forgives our sins and gives us eternal life and the happy certainty of heaven and victory over temptation and so many other blessings as His Holy Spirit lives inside us.
GOD LOVES US. And God’s intention is that we will feel so safe and secure in His love that we will not need other people to love us so much. As we receive God’s love we will be set free to love other people as much as God has loved us. If we are only loving people because they love us back, that is not God’s kind of love.
John 13:34 ‘A new command I give you: love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. 35 By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.’
We need to learn to love other people with the kind of love that Jesus demonstrated for us on the cross. We need to let go of our need to be loved so that we can truly love other people. That is how we can become channels of God’s peace to them, as God shows His love to them THROUGH us.
And we need to remember that loving with God’s kind of love is not about feelings but about actions! It is about following the Servant King and learning to serve other people.
Mark 10:42 Jesus called them together and said, “You know that those who are regarded as rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their high officials exercise authority over them. Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be slave of all. For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”
The prayer of Ignatius of Loyola:
Lord give us the grace to serve you as you deserve:
To give and not to count the cost;
To toil and not to seek for rest;
To fight and not to heed the wounds;
To labour and not to ask for any reward
Except that of knowing that we are doing your will.
grant that I may not so much seek to be loved as to love.
-> silence for meditation
O divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console;
to be understood as to understand; to be loved as to love.
