Week Four: Desire and Divine Will

In The Revelations of Divine Love, Julian of Norwich describes our desires and the divine will as these relate to prayer. God gives us what he wills us to have, and then he makes us yearn for it.

I’m pretty blown away by the idea that in prayer, we ask for what God already plans to give us. It’s hard to wrap my mind around that concept! Here’s what Julian says:

Christ told me from whom our prayers come when He said, “I am the Ground.” And we see how they come to life in the centers of our being when He said, “It is my will first that you have whatever it is, and then I make you yearn for it.” The second thing God wants us to understand about prayer is how we should carry it out. The answer to this is that we choose with all our mental powers to align our desires with the Divine Will; this is what He meant when He said, “Then I make you yearn for it.”

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No one sincerely asks for grace and mercy without already having been given grace and mercy.

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[T]he greatest acts of God have already been accomplished (just as the Church teaches), and as we meditate on this, we pray for the action that is already being accomplished: that God directs us while we live on Earth, so that God is enriched by our lives, and that we be brought to Divine Joy in Heaven. And then God will have accomplished everything.

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Our Protector wants us to pray for everything, whether in general or in particular, that God has laid out to happen. As far as I can see, the thanks, joy, delight, and worth that God grants us in return is beyond our ability to comprehend!

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Julian of Norwich (1342 – c. 1416) was an English visionary, mystic, anchoress, and writer. Read about her here.

I’ve been enjoying the Divine Revelations in a modern translation entitled All Shall Be Well.

For reflection: