Toward: the small word that changes prayer

Proverbs begins its instruction with betaḥ el-YHWH: trust in, or direct trust toward, YHWH. The preposition el can express direction, including mental direction. It is ordinary Hebrew grammar, and its spiritual usefulness does not depend on discovering a secret code inside it. [1, 2]

A small grammatical relation opens a large question: toward whom is my trust moving?

Much of what we call prayer circles around ourselves. We examine the quality of our attention, the authenticity of our belief, the beauty of our language. Eventually the whole exercise can become a mirror. We are busy contemplating ourselves as people who pray.

Toward interrupts that circle.

It introduces address. The movement has a recipient whose reality is not created by our skill in describing Him. The words God, Creator, Father, and Source can name the One addressed without claiming to contain His essence. They serve the relationship when they direct it.

Direction in this sense is neither a compass bearing nor a visible beam leaving the forehead. It is the orientation of trust, intention, and allegiance. Someone can direct a promise toward an absent person without imagining that person’s face. Likewise, prayer need not begin by constructing a picture of its recipient.

There is a difference between not having an image and not having an address. An image supplies a form. An address establishes to whom an act is offered. The Godward Way releases the demand for the former while retaining the latter.

Consider an apology. Its meaning includes its recipient. The words might be identical in rehearsal and in an actual conversation, yet their relational character differs. In the conversation, the speaker offers himself to someone who can never be reduced to the speaker’s account of them. Prayer likewise has an addressed character that exceeds the words used.

This analogy concerns the structure of address. It does not imply that God is simply another human interlocutor.

It also explains why Godward should not harden into a definition of God. Direction belongs to our act of prayer. God remains the One toward whom it is directed. Calling God a direction is useful only while it protects that movement from being captured by an image.

If even the word direction becomes a thing you stare at inwardly, offer that too. There is no final diagram to guard.

Practice: notice the difference between saying a sentence inwardly and offering it. Use a brief, ordinary sentence of prayer. Let its recipient matter more than its sound. When the sentence ends, allow the address to continue without forcing the words to continue with it.