Speak, O Lord

There is a beautiful prayer set to music that begins this way,
“Speak, O Lord, as we come to You
To receive the food of Your Holy Word.
Take Your truth, plant it deep in us;
Shape and fashion us in Your likeness,

I imagine this as the assuredly answered, waking prayer of my every day.

It is impossible to describe the utter bleakness and barrenness, darkness and despair from which I first uttered such a prayer at age 19. Certain I was hell-bound and in desperate need of God, I begged relentlessly, sleeplessly for a word from him, though I had no idea how he would speak until I remembered my Gideon’s Bible. And He spoke.

Now I live the antithesis of that deprivation. Now God is never silent. He never stops speaking his word to me.

Psalm 1:1-2
Oh, the joys of those who... delight in the law of the LORD, meditating on it day and night.

Psalm 19:1-2 The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands. Day after day they pour forth speech; night after night they display knowledge.

Psalm 139:7 Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence?
8 If I go up to the heavens, you are there; if I make my bed in the depths, you are there. 9 If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea,
10 even there your hand will guide me, your right hand will hold me fast.

Psalm 119:105 Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light for my path.

For those who choose to listen, who have been chosen to hear, God never stops talking.