Basil’s Prayer for Growing Up in Christ
By Peter David Gross
President, The Christian Adulthood Initiative
Basil of Caesarea lived in the fourth century. He was known for his theology (especially his strong defense of the personhood and divinity of the Holy Spirit), for his integrity, simplicity, leadership, and for his care for the poor. He gave us this prayer:
Steer the ship of my life, good Lord, to your quiet harbour, where I can be safe from the storms of sin and conflict.
Show me the course I should take.
Renew in me the gift of discernment, so that I can always see the right direction in which I should go.
And give me the strength and the courage to choose the right course, even when the sea is rough and the waves are high, knowing that through enduring hardship and danger in your name we shall find comfort and peace.
Isn’t it a beautiful prayer? And it isn’t only beautiful, it also contains a lot of wisdom for us to reflect on. Consider these insights from Basil.
1. Basil’s prayer teaches us that life is a rough, stormy sea.
Basil depicts each person’s life as an uncertain voyage through dangerous water, with no obvious way to reach land safely. Life doesn’t always feel like this, but when we consider in how many ways people try to gain peace and happiness, and remember how often people miss the mark (even after trying their best!), we can’t help but think that Basil might be right. Life really is a dangerous, uncertain voyage.
Sometimes we do feel it. Life takes us by storm, and we are unable to see where the drifting tides and the roaring winds will take us. This is especially true as we begin to find our footing as adults. There is no set formula for taking control of your adult identity; it looks different for each person. So, the journey usually feels chaotic. It’s often filled with conflict, and surrounded by tempting lies:
That adulthood is mostly about gaining privileges or pleasures
That you aren’t good or or smart or skilled enough to grow up
That it’s all about money or sex or power
That people who love you are the enemies of your adulthood
That you can escape from thinking, working, creating, or pain
That you’re all alone
And so many more. How can we find our way through the chaos and confusion into peace, stability, and the joy of maturity? Where is the quiet harbor of our life, and how can we reach it?
2. Basil’s prayer teaches us that God is the king of the safe, peaceful harbor, and he can guide us into it.
By our own lights, no human can know for sure how to have a life that ends in maturity, peace, and safety. But God knows what human peace looks like, and he knows how to get there.He is our peace. Every human can find absolute security and peace by being fully known, loved, liberated, and enjoyed by God.
Right now, we often feel forgotten and misunderstood. When we arrive in God’s harbor, we will see how fully known we have always been.
Right now, we often feel unworthy of love, or we feel like we lack the love we need. When we arrive in God’s harbor, we will see the lavish, never-ending, private, perfect love of God.
Right now, we often feel trapped, like we can’t fully be ourselves. When we arrive in God’s harbor, we will find the power to be exactly who we were always meant to be, free from every impediment.
Right now, we often feel like we’re a burden or a bother. When we arrive in God’s harbor, we’ll be unable to escape his silly, friendly, proud pleasure in us, just the way we are.
If only we could get to God! Then everything would be alright.
Basil recognizes that he is so attacked, confused, and numbed by sin and conflict that he’ll never get into God’s harbor, unless God himself guides his life. He can’t steer his life into God’s harbor safely, in this state. He’d just crash or land somewhere wrong.
Instead of giving up on his maturity, peace, and safety, he asks God to steer his life. He believes that God loves him enough to become both the destination and route of his life. Like Basil, we can call out to God and ask him to be our guide into safety.
3. Basil’s prayer teaches us that God guides us without replacing us.
Some guides try to control the people they’re leading, but in Basil’s prayer, God’s not like that. God will steer Basil’s life while Basil’s hands stay on the wheel. That’s why Basil asks for two things: that God would steer the ship of his life, and also that God would show Basil the way that he should go. He knows that God will want to steer his life together with him.
That’s a beautiful picture of the kind of king our God is. He isn’t a tyrant. He’s full of justice and mercy, intent on liberating his people and giving them peace.
Like Basil, we can ask God to guide us from within us, because if we believe in him, he lives in us to set us free. As youth enter adulthood, this makes things simpler: they can seek God’s help and then just do their best, trusting that he will be their faithful pilot.
4. Basil’s prayer teaches us that God doesn’t just guide us, he also gives us strength to follow his guidance.
This journey through life is not an easy one. Even if we knew the way we should go with complete clarity, we wouldn’t have strength on our own to stay on course. Once again, Basil’s prayer helps us see that God is a good, loving guide.
He doesn’t make life easier. Jesus never promised an easy road. On the contrary, he often calls us to the very things that make us feel the most insecure, vulnerable, and dependent on him. But he’s always ready to provide the strength we need: not our strength, but his strength.
During an overwhelming time when it feels like each decision youth make could have life-altering consequences, God offers you his own wisdom, and his own strength to pursue it.
He calls us to not only accept His salvation, but also to remember the ultimate end of every Christian’s story: Christ Himself receiving us with open arms saying, “Well done, good and faithful servant”. With our eyes fixed on that hope and our hearts comforted by his Spirit, we can trust him to give us the strength and courage we need.
5. Basil’s prayer teaches us that God even transforms our danger and uncertainty into comfort and peace.
Finally, let’s consider the closing thought in Basil’s prayer: “through enduring hardship and danger in [God’s] name we shall find comfort and peace.”
Basil understands that God isn’t just interested in taking us out of the chaos and confusion and danger of life. He’s so creative and kind that he wants to enter the chaos and confusion and turn it into comfort and peace too. He’s a redeemer, not a destroyer. He’ll even take the hardest parts of our lives, and through his grace make them beautiful too. He wants to make everything beautiful for the children of his love, and he has the power to do it.
When we need hope and strength, we can pray with Basil
In times of transformation, as we move into Christian adulthood, let’s join Basil to reflect on and revel in the power of God’s infinite grace. God is working in us, in his time, to bring us into the fullest version of ourselves, in perfect community with him.
What fears or anxieties would change in your life if you really believed that God was there, working in you to create the image of himself that he created you to be?
What anxieties could you begin to let go as you run toward the refuge that God provides?
With Basil, perhaps we can gain God’s fuller peace.
