ANSWER - Exodus 3:13-14

But Moses said to God, "If I come to the Israelites and say to them, "The God of your ancestors has sent me to you," and they ask me "What is his name?" what shall I say to them? God said to Moses, "I am who I am." - Exodus 3:13-14

An answer to everything: what to call God, but also, to questions being asked, how to pray constantly, rejoice always and be grateful for all that we are given.

Here again is the challenge, from 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18: "Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances."  

To this, and to everything, God says "I am."

This, I believe, is how we learn to rejoice always, by letting God be the open ended story, the rest of the sentence and the unspoken truth of "I am."

This is also how we learn to pray constantly, by staying in the presence, the present tense of God, the timeless and always "I am."

And this is how we learn to thank God at every turn, appreciating that he is not only present with us and finishing every sentence but that he is life itself, the being verb, the simple and profound creator of everything: "I am."

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How about this: Every thought is a prayer to God, and every prayer has an answer within it.  God is with us all the time, and when we remember this and believe this, his spirit responds in us and directs us. God directs us as long as we acknowledge his presence (Proverbs 3:6), but when we forget this, where are our thoughts, our prayers?  Even then, God is still with us, waiting for us to call on him again.

Every thought is a prayer, how about that?  But every day —isn’t it a shame? —we spend so much time being thoughtless.  And still God is with us, waiting for us to come to our senses, to think, to pray.

Prayer is more than thinking, though, just as God is more than an abstract thought.  The proof is not, and cannot be, my own, but it is this: our thoughts do not sustain themselves.  One private thought cannot sustain another, yet there is an answer, always, like the voice that came to Moses from within a burning bush and said “I am.”  God is an answer to our prayers, not another thought, but "I am,” the answer.

But what about the so-called great thinkers of the world, those who say they do not pray because “there is no God”?  God is still the answer, waiting for the question to be asked, the prayer to be prayed, the thought to occur (There are thoughts that have not yet occurred, even to the greatest thinkers).  Every thought is a prayer, I said.

So what about the thought that God does not exist (and who has never cried, “Where are you, God?”)?  Isn’t this simply thinking without direction, aimless pondering, pointless meditation? Thoughtlessness, really.  And still God waits with an answer.  Is there a God?  Yes, Yahweh say, I am.

--- Journal archives, 1990 

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In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths. - Proverbs 3:6.

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Dear God, I pray that I may always hear your answer and know your name.  Help me, Lord, to know your presence at every turn and let that knowledge lead me to your straighter paths of constant joy, ceaseless prayer and boundless thanksgiving.