"Know Thyself" via Prayer
~ by Staci Sadler
God has always beseeched us to pray, so as not to be deceived. Socrates advised us to "Know (Ourselves)." Interestingly, we cannot follow one of these admonitions without heeding the other. This is so simply because "knowing ourselves" is the only way to avoid deception. And, on the flip side, prayer is the only way we can ever truly come to "know" ourselves.
God does not want us to be deceived about who we really are. If we are not prayerful, we will be deceived. If we are prayerful, who we really are will be revealed to us in layers and, because what is revealed comes from the heart, we cannot be deceived because the heart cannot lie.
Why would the All-Knowing One ask us to form words for that which he already knows? He asks us to speak our hearts to Him often. Always, even. But why?
One reason God asks us to pray is so that we can know ourselves as He knows us. He wants us to see the truth. God is intricately involved in every detail of our lives. He knows the thoughts and intents of our hearts. But we don't! We don't really know ourselves at all. We are deceived in our minds. We are puffed up in our imaginings. We sabotage ourselves. We hide. We lie. We shortchange ourselves. Who we are seems to be an unknowable blur to us.
Prayer changes all of that. With prayer, deceit can be washed away. Lies cannot abide where there is prayer. In prayer, our eternal intentions are revealed to us; our truths are affirmed to us.
Coming to "Know Thyself," by way of the heart in prayer, is very different than using the mind to define yourself. The latter is a critique of the Ego, limited and constricting, taunting, and ultimately false. It is what you might suspect or think, but cannot ever "know" with certainty. The former is an unveiling, a revelation of eternal beauty, inherently honest-as the heart is incapable of deceit.
By forming words into prayers structure is given to an otherwise unknowable heart. Prayer is the daily, sometimes hourly untangling of the cloudy, the dormant, the newly budding "stuff" that is churning within us, pleading for birth, awaiting permission to exist and grow. By putting what's in our hearts into words, a masterpiece begins to take shape. From each heartfelt prayer, the true self emerges.
With prayer, we begin to see the truth that is us. We begin to accept and love ourselves. We begin to know God by feeling his acceptance and love of us. This is one of prayer's great promises.
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