God,

Tonight as I sit watching Lord of the Rings surrounded by fond friends, I can’t seem to find rest.

I’m not behind with any work and indeed I have been reading for my classes. I quite enjoy it, to be honest. I enjoy my studies – I remember what the writer and theologian Alistair McGrath said when I heard him speak at at Greenbelt: “Christianity is both spiritually fulfilling and intellectually nourishing.” I think he’s right. Theology – the study of God – truly is intellectually nourishing.

Yet this night I can’t find rest. It makes no sense.

I’m not in debt, not behind with my studies and am surrounded by good people.

God what could be wrong?

You must be sick of my complaints. All that you are is goodness, and I would be so ungrateful as to whinge incessantly against you!

And yet, you were a man. And you wept, and cried out to the sky. Certain death before you, your tears fell upon the ground on the hillside. Your voice echoed against the hills. Calling out the clouds, no voice returned to you.

Is it presumptuous of me, to claim this? That the Maker of all things knows my heart?

Does this offend you, God?

I fear I can do nothing except offend you. The predominant activity of my mind is to think upon things which offend you. My heart strives for it’s own independence. Satisfying the flesh takes your place.

There it is. The reason I can find no true rest.

Not being united with you in mind, heart and body grieves me to the bones. And from that, each moment seems ill-placed, somehow wrong, something is missing.

Interactions with my friends are sullied by this… ill-fitting feeling in the seat of my being.

God, can you be merciful to me? Again I deafen your ears with the half-hearted desperation I whip up when I feel this way. Certainly this was not the prayer of my heart earlier today, the heart burying itself from you whilst my mind found every way of satisfying the desires of the flesh.

Pathetic. Half-hearted wants and whims do not please you. I know I get what I deserve, and so I sit, disconnected from my neighbour and sitting far from you.

Glory be to the Father
And to the Son
And to the Holy Spirit
As it was in the beginning, is now
And forever shall be
World without end

Amen

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