Praying In The Field Towards Evening

Author:

Fr. David Madsen, Rector – St. Barnabas Episcopal Church, Borrego Springs

A few days ago, as I was reading passages from Genesis, and I paused on the following verse concerning Isaac: “And Isaac went forth to pray in the field towards evening, and he lifted his eyes and saw, and behold, camels were approaching”. (Gen 24:63)When I read a passage like this I always try to picture it in its original context and then to attempt to apply a nugget of truth into the present tense.

How does this theme or inspired word become a living reality in my life today?

In the narrative context Isaac is waiting to see whether Abrahams’s servant Eliezer returns from Abraham’s “old country” from among his relatives with a bride in tow for Isaac. It’s a wonderful romantic story, and it turns out well for Isaac and his new “bride to be”, Rebecca. This “walking out in the evening to pray” can be looked at from several different perspectives. The phrase “to pray” can also be interpreted from Hebrew “to meditate”.
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There are different traditions of this type of praying or meditating in Hebrew thought. It’s possible that Isaac had a custom of bowing down in the evening dusk to pray. It’s also possible that he prayed vocally, or perhaps turned his mind and heart to God in contemplative “prayer of the quiet”. Or perhaps he used multiple styles of prayer in his evening prayer practice. 

What my take-away when I read this passage about Isaacs’s prayer practice is this: 
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•  Our walks in the field (or the special place we find to spend time in prayer, and at a time that best suits our schedule) are common and ordinary times and settings that take on an extraordinary meaning when we combine our desires with God’s desires.
•  The “thin line” that separates our world from God’s world becomes blurred and our world gets caught up in God, “the gift of contemplative prayer”, or as Genesis puts it, “praying in the field towards evening”.
•  God blesses the ordinary things in our lives and uses them for our benefit as a reminder that the Spirit is with us always, even in the rituals of spiritual practice that not many of us are experts in.

I will close this short article with a quote from John Wesley concerning “our walks in the field”: "Our walks in the field are then truly pleasant, when in them we apply ourselves to meditation and prayer we there have a free and open prospect of the heavens above us, and the earth around us, and the hosts and riches of both, by the view of which we should be led to the contemplation of the Maker and Owner of all." (John Wesley)