"The best style of prayer is that which cannot be called anything else but a cry." - Charles Spurgeon

Lord, there's something missing in me.

Back in the garden, when things went wrong, the real punishment was not banishment from the garden, needing to work for life, or pain in childbirth. The truly painful consequence was that no longer would Adam and Eve walk with you side by side. And hell... hell's real torment is not flame or worm, though they are terrible. The greatest horror of hell is that there is not connection with you there. The separation on Earth is one thing, but it will be infinite in gehenna.

And yet, Lord... all of this points to the understanding that to be with you is the greatest joy, the true life of any human being. But in me... the fire all too often isn't there. I keep trying to throw other things into that emptiness, and they seem to fill it for a little while. All these things call out for me, and I all too often let them distract. And all the time, my real purpose, that which would make me complete, that gets put aside, even ignored sometimes.

Jeremiah said that your words were like a fire in his belly; he could not hold them in. My fire so often seems to be out. There is no flame within.

I want to want, Lord. I want to want you. Not music about you. Not fulfillment of "duties" or tasks that are supposed to make me religious or even spiritual. I want to desire prayer to be a life, not an activity.

I remember when you first really revealed yourself to me... There really was a flame then. I wanted to know what you said in your word, and I delved into it with eagerness. I wanted to do the things that would make me right in your eyes. ... I miss that feeling, Lord.

I hear sometimes that we can't go back to that feeling. It's like love in a marriage. It's a fire at first, passionate and with fury, but as time goes by, it levels out and becomes more comfortable and less passionate. Maybe that's true, God. Maybe it is, but if you were my wife, you would have divorced me a while ago, I think. Less passion, I think I can understand, but all too often I am more important than you in my eyes. I don't talk to you; I don't seek you; I don't want to know you. That's not a "comfortable love", God. That's dispassion. And I don't want that.

I want to want, Jahweh. I want to want. Show me how. If I can't create it, then create it in me. If it must be of me, then please show me, tell me, let me somehow know what I must do.

"What must I do to be saved?" asked the jailer.
I ask, "What must I do to desire?"

I want to want, Father. I want to want.

- Matthew R Green 06/25/01