By Girasol.

Sometimes Scripture consoles us; at other times it shakes us up and pulls us out of our comfort zone. Sometimes the words on the page easily pass through our own lips as a prayer to the Most High; at other times we can barely bring ourselves to read the words, let alone allow them to penetrate our hearts.

One recent morning during my personal prayer I sat with the first reading from Mass, the third chapter of the first book of Samuel. It is the story of young Samuel hearing the Lord call three times during the night, without yet knowing who it is. He believes it to be Eli, his mentor, calling him and promptly replies, “Here I am. You called me.” Eli tells Samuel to return to sleep, but after the second instance, the wise man understands the truth and counsels his apprentice to respond to the voice of God, saying, “Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening.”

I finish my perusal of the first reading and glance at the Responsorial Psalm paired with it. It echos the active response to God’s call with the words, “Here I am, Lord; I come to do your will.”

Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening…Here I am, Lord; I come to do your will. Try as I might to make these words my own in this moment, I am finding it near impossible. I do want to hear God’s voice and do His will, but my previous attempts seem to have failed. I’ve spent some time being sluggish toward fully embracing His plans. Now I want to get back on track, but I’m dealing with the consequences of my wanderings. I don’t feel worthy of uttering these words, much less capable of bringing them to fulfilment in my life.

I scan the page to see if I can latch onto another phrase to carry with me through the day. I continue reading the verses of the Psalm… “To do your will, O my God, is my delight.” I sigh. Beautiful words, but I’m not quite there yet. Delighting in God’s will doesn’t seem to be my current state of mind. I’m working on getting there, but “delight” doesn’t seem to describe anything within me right now.

“Here I am…” I stop there. Here I am. Yes, I can say that much. I can be here. I can show up. I might not be able to do much more at this point. I can’t pray as I ought. I can’t lay down my life in joyful surrender (just yet). But I can come to prayer and say “Here I am, Lord.” That is, after all, where Samuel began. His “here I am” turned into a willing “speak Lord, your servant is listening.” And we can surely imagine him going on to say, “to do Your will is my delight.”

I’ll get there too. But right now, I start by making that small act of being present, and allowing Him to mold my faint heart into one that finds delights in doing His will once again.