SadhanaOriental meditation and christian prayer
Other ways of praying
【11】Praying by contemplating our personal history – 2 (Negative experience)
We had various moments of trials in our personal history. We had both minor and major difficulties.
We had numerous minor difficulties— Let’s reflect on each of them.
There was an occasion when I had to stay in bed because of a health problem.
There was an occasion when people gave me words that hurt me.
There was an occasion when I had to complete a painstaking task.
I overcame these difficulties with the spirit of not giving up. And I became more patient. I became more humble. I can now see my surroundings more deeply from broader perspectives. I can feel that God helped me improve parts that I cannot see through my efforts to develop myself. Whenever I overcame these difficulties, I was deepened and enriched. God’s plan is to make me go through difficulties and foster me. I can see that God is our true “Father.”
Now, let’s look at our big difficulties.
Some of us may not want to reflect on the biggest difficulty we went through. Let us look at one of the major difficulties that we can reflect on. We said to God, “Do you ask so much from me?” “This much?” “You are asking too much.” We were depressed and desperate. But we were still able to call God. We called God more desperately and deeply than we normally do.
And God saved us from the major difficulty.
It was good to call God desperately!
When we look back on the experience, we can see it better than we did then. We can see ourselves better. I was in a big pain largely because I had a problem with my perception. “I expected too much from myself.” “I wanted more than I need in my life.” “My wish was distorted.” “I didn’t think of God often.”
I can see now that I was able to grow in a certain way because of the difficulty; that I would not have been able to grow without that difficulty; that I can move forward more steadily; that I can now grasp the actual situation more accurately than before; that I was able to develop myself because of humbleness; and that, above all, I can now cherish God more than I did before. I can see now that “every branch that bears fruit he prunes so that it bears more fruit (John 15.2).”
We cannot completely understand the reasons and meanings of why we have to go through difficulties in our life. But when we look back, we can see that God released us from the shackles that we put on ourselves because of our blindness, and we become very thankful to God. Without that pain we went through, we would have wasted too much time on our way to God. By undergoing difficulties, we are certainly able to cherish God more now.
Let’s look directly at difficulties we had in our past life without fear. And have a dialogue with God about the progress we made towards God in that drama. And thank God.