Prayer to the God of Love
Heavenly Father, great and boundless is the expanse of your kingdom. You support the constellations and the pillars of a widening universe; you bear up the weight of a weary world; and you direct the tiniest footstep on the pathways of earth. The grains of sand along the ocean’s shore do not approach in number the sum of all the responsibilities that are yours. In spite of your boundless power and limitless sovereignty, you give heed to us lowly human beings. You bend down to listen to each one so attentively and so daringly that, amidst all the cacophony and confusion of the daily clamor, each person is assured that you are giving all concern to him alone.
Not only do you pay attention to the one who commands and leads; not only do you listen to the voice of him who prays in intercession for loved ones as if he had a special conduit to your favor. No! You pay attention also to the one who is the most miserable, the most abandoned, the most solitary — whether he moves among the multitude or plods along the trackless desert. And if others have forgotten him and cast him out of their caring, if in the crowd he has lost all identity, if he has ceased, really, to be a human being and has become no more than a number on a list, you know him, oh God. You have not forgotten him. Wherever he is, lost in the desert or just as lost and unnoticed in the crowd; whatever state he is in, whether it be in agonizing pain, or in bondage to terrible and terrifying thoughts, abandoned, so cut off from communication that in the prolonged silence he has forgotten his native tongue — nevertheless you, oh God, have not forgotten him, and you hear and comprehend his speechless cry! You know at once how to find the road that leads to him, and rapid as sound and prompt as light you speed to his side.
You loved us first, oh God. Alas, we speak of it as if you loved us first one time only, historically speaking, when in very truth, without ceasing, you love us first all the time. When I awaken in the morning and my soul turns at once toward you, you are first. You have already turned toward me. If I rise at dawn and in the very first second of my awakening my soul turns to you in prayer, you have beat me to it. You have already turned in love toward me. Thus, we speak ingratitude if, unthankful and unaware, we speak of you as having loved us first only one time.
Soren Kierkkegaard, from The Mystique of Prayer and Pray-er
Soren Kierkkegaard (1813-1855) was a Danish philosopher, theologian, and religious author. He is named by many as the first existentialist philosopher. Kierkkegaard’s writings covered many subjects including the demise of Christendom, morality, psychology, and the philosophy of religion. Above all, he focuses on the life of faith for each individual. His influence has been greatly felt by numerous theologians in the past two centuries.