George Herbert on Prayer (7)

Teach me your way, O LORD, that I may walk in your truth; unite my heart to fear your name forever. Psalm 86.11

Prayer the church’s banquet, angel’s age,
   God’s breath in man returning to his birth,
   The soul in paraphrase, heart in pilgrimage,
The Christian plummet sounding heav’n and earth
Engine against th’ Almighty, sinner’s tow’r,
   Reversed thunder, Christ-side-piercing spear,
  The six-days world transposing in an hour,
A kind of tune, which all things hear and fear;
Softness, and peace, and joy, and love, and bliss,
   Exalted manna, gladness of the best,
   Heaven in ordinary, man well drest,
The milky way, the bird of Paradise,
   Church-bells beyond the stars heard, the soul’s blood,
   The land of spices; something understood.
                                                             - George Herbert

Prayer, George Herbert suggests, is “straight talk” with God – the “Christian plummet.”

A “plummet”, or “plumb line”, is that bit of weighted string hanging from a surveyor’s instrument to measure the vertical. Prayer, George Herbert suggested, is like a plumb line: It strains toward the very center of things, both in heaven and earth.

Isn’t this what we hope for in prayer? That our cries and pleadings will land right smack on the Father’s lap, hand-delivered by the Son and heaven-interpreted by the Spirit? And don’t we want those prayers to come straight from the depths of our own being? Which of in prayer doesn’t say things to God, from the deepest recesses of our souls, that we would be most reluctant to repeat to another person?

But we need our prayers to be like this. We need them to rise from the very core of our being, the focal point of our “gravity”, if you will, and to soar to the very heights and heart of God. Nothing else can accomplish this, which we need so much in order to remain rightly oriented in our walk of faith.

But Herbert may have intended another meaning of “plummet.” In his day, according to OED, “plummet” also described the weight attached to a bobber of a fishing pole which pulled the line down enough to suspend the bait before any unwary fish. Did Herbert mean to suggest that prayer is a kind of “bait”? That in our prayers we’re trying to get God to “bite” on the meager fare we offer Him in prayer, so that we can land the big prize of His blessings, right into our boat?

And there is more: “Plummet” also refers to “A criterion of rectitude or truth.” Prayer is, literally, nothing, if it’s not honest and true. False prayers, like the Pharisee trumpeting his righteousness in the temple, are no prayers at all. Prayers emerging from the muck of unconfessed sin go nowhere with God (Ps. 66:18). Prayer that begins with silence, reflection, and confession, then praise and thanks to God for all His goodness, launches out in truth – from the depths of our condition and need and unto the heights of God’s grandeur and largesse – creating a “line of truth” along which we can place our requests confidently before the Lord. 

We can be absolutely honest to God in our prayers, because He knows us anyway, and He loves us nevertheless.