So many times, we come to prayer looking for something in particular: healing, comfort, reconciliation, knowledge, insight, an answer, a miracle. All of these desires are good, for in any meaningful relationship we make known the desires of our heart in one way or another. Our relationship with God should be no different.

Yet, any mutually enriching relationship should be about more than what one person wants for themselves. In the deepest, most intimate relationships, a partner can heal wounds and call forth gifts and desires from another which have gone unrecognized or unacknowledged by the other. We all have those people in our lives that awaken things in us that have long slept, and we have certainly done the same for those we encounter. As this kind of deep revelation can happen in encounters between people, so it has the opportunity to happen even more intensely in our prayer – provided we allow God the space for an uninhibited encounter, free of the restrictions of what we expect God to do for us. This is why we are directed to undertake contemplative practice with no expectations: to allow God to bring forth that which we never expected to find – in Reality, in God… and in ourselves.