In today's reading from Evelyn Underhill (1875-1941), she argues that at the heart of our prayer life should be adoration towards God. While prayer occurs as two movements (towards God and towards people), the "second will only be well done where the first has the central place." As such, adoration, and resultantly not intercession or petition, needs to be at the heart of the life of prayer. Underhill goes on to say the following: "It is only when our hearts are thus actually at rest in God, in peaceful and self-oblivious adoration, that we can hope to show God's attractiveness to others." When praying, her recommendation is that we spend half of our prayer time in this movement of adoration towards God.
Some questions to think about:
How much more impact would our prayers have if we spent more time getting to know God in this manner? How much better would we know God? How much better would we be prepared to deal with the hills and hiccups of life when our prayer life is bathed in adoration? Think on these things...
