Weeping Over Scripture

When the seventh month came – the people of Israel being settled in their towns – all the people gathered together into the square before the Water Gate. They told the scribe Ezra to bring the book of the Law of Moses, which the Lord had given to Israel. Accordingly, the priest Ezra brought the law before the assembly, both men and women and all who could hear with understanding. This was on the first day of the seventh month. He read from it face the square before the Water Gate from early morning until midday, in the presence of the men and the women and those who could understand; and the ears of all the people were attentive to the book of the Law. The scribe Ezra stood on a wooden platform that had been made for the purpose… And Ezra opened the book in the sight of all the people, for he was standing above all the people; and when he opened it, all the people stood up. Then Ezra blessed the LORD, the great God, and all the people answered, “Amen, Amen,” lifting up their hands. Then they bowed their heads and worshiped the LORD with their faces to the ground. Also… the Levites helped the people to understand the law, while the people remained in their places. So they read from the book, from the law of God, with interpretation. They gave the sense, so that the people understood the reading.

And Nehemiah, who was the governor, and Ezra the priest and scribe, and the Levites who taught the people said to all the people, “This day is holy to the LORD your God; do not mourn or weep.” Fall the people wept when they heard the words of the law.

- Nehemiah 8:1-4a, 5-9

Generally speaking, I’m not a very emotional person. I don’ t typically where my emotions on my sleeve. With the exceptions of close friends who read my non-verbal communication well, most people won’t know if I’m angry or upset or depressed. For better or for worse, I generally prefer to deal with my emotions internally.

Consequently, it usually takes a lot for me to cry. I can think of very few times that I’ve wept. I couldn’t tell you the last time I cried while watching a movie. I can, however, tell you the last time I cried while reading a book.

It’s happened to me only once. I was in college, and was working on an independent study during my senior year focusing on theologically significant themes in various dramas. I was reading the play Mother Courage and Her Children by Bertolt Brecht. Towards the end of the play, which takes place during the Thirty Years War, Mother Courage’s mute daughter Kattrin is shot as she attempts to warn a nearby village of an impending attack by beating a large drum. The soldiers shoot her, but the town is saved. My description of the scene doesn’t give full justice to its beauty. I sat there with tears flowing down my face as I read this scene, and I realized that I was weeping in response to the gospel. Kattrin’s death was salvific for the nearby village.

What bothers me, though, is that I’ve never had an experience like this reading the actual story of Jesus in any of the gospel narratives, let alone in response to any portion of Scripture. In the passage above from Nehemiah, the people weep in response to hearing Ezra read the law and the Levites interpret it. Granted, the people are then told that weeping isn’t the correct response; they ought to be rejoicing. Nevertheless, the weeping is an indication that the law was cutting right into their hearts.

I can think of very few times when I’ve read Scripture and felt like weeping (or rejoicing, for that matter), and I’ve never actually wept. The same is true in most of my experiences hearing Scripture in corporate worship (a context closer to the one in Nehemiah). With some exceptions (most often in Charismatic congregations and non-White congregations), Christians rarely respond with any emotion to the reading of Scripture. In fact, there are times (and I speak firstly in reference to my own worship leadership and preaching) that our reading of Scripture feels only like a “transition” into the sermon.

Now, I realize that being concerned about emotional responses can be a slippery slope. Thinking about this too much can lead to manipulative attempts to elicit emotions for all the wrong reasons. But how do we create in our worship communities a culture of emotional openness? And what obstacles stand in the way of creating that culture?

Scripture: The “With-God” Book

The Bible is all about human life “with God.” It is about how God has made this “with-God” life possible and will bring it to pass. In fact, the name Immanuel, meaning in Hebrew “God is with us,” is the title given to the one and only redeemer, because it refers to God’s everlasting intent for human life – namely, that we should be in every aspect a dwelling place of God. Indeed, the unity of the Bible is discovered in the development of life “with God” as a reality on earth, centered in the person of Jesus…

- Introduction to The Renovare Spiritual Formation Bible

In my personal spiritual development, I’ve begun to think more about Scripture. I’ve noticed lately that more often than not my times of personal reading and studying of Scripture have been dry. Many times I’ll read a passage of Scripture, finish, and then realize that I have no idea what I just read. Other times when I am actually making an effort to be fully present to the text, I more often find the curiosities of my brain being stimulated, rather than the desires of my heart.

I find this excerpt from the Intro to the Renovare Spiritual Formation Bible to be really helpful, particularly because the emphasis on being “with God” challenges me to heighten my expectations when approaching Scripture. In my life, there are numerous people I would call “faith role-models” – people whom I look at  and think to myself, “God is with that person.” I admire and trust these people. I feel safe following them because I am confident that the path they are on is one toward God.

These people aren’t just friends whom I know personally, although I’m blessed to have many friends whom I count among these role-models. Within the communion of saints, there are men and women, living and dead, whom I’ve never met personally, and some who have lived long before I, who have had great influence on my faith. Brother Lawrence, Blessed Teresa of Calcutta, St. Augustine, and Dietrich Bonhoeffer are some of the first to come to mind. Again, the theme among all these individuals is a particular “with-God-ness.”

Regardless of how well I know the individually personally, whether friend or stranger, I’m excited to follow these people. I look forward to learning from them, as they challenge me to a greater faithfulness. It’s this same eagerness, likely even a greater eagerness, that I think I need to cultivate in approaching Scripture. Scripture is a book about and written by “with-God” people. In fact, the writers of Scripture are so closely “with-God” that anyone seeking to be closer to God will need to follow them. And, of course, at the heart of Scripture is Christ Himself, God-with-us.

A fruitful reading of Scripture, then, begins with one’s desire for being with God, and seeking to meet that desire in the communion of the saints. The desire to be with God is met in following the writers of Scripture, the prophets and the apostles, as they follow Christ.

Prayer: Reflections from Matt Bell

In the formation of my own prayer life, seeing others pray and learning from them has played an integral role. In recent years, I’ve been blessed by numerous saints whose prayers and insights have both inspired and challenged me. One of those individuals is my friend, Matt Bell. Matt and I became friends in seminary, and also became colleagues in ministry at Korean United Presbyterian Church. I and the Upper Room are also blessed to have Matt and his wife Alyssa as a part of our worshipping community. Matt is currently pursuing a PhD in Patristics from the University of Durham, and is also one of the instructors and founders of the Ancient Christian Faith Initiative. Below are seven questions that I posed to Matt in an email, followed by Matt’s response – he chose to weave the answers to the questions into a larger narrative. Thanks, Matt for your wisdom and witness.

1. When and how often do you pray?
2. What do your times of prayer look like? How are they structured? Do you pray in a particular physical posture?
3. Are there any particular prayers or Scriptures that you find yourself coming back to when you pray?
4. Do you remain consisten in your prayer practices or do you change things up from time to time?
5. How do you determine/discern who or what to pray for? How do you discern what specifically to ask for on behalf of those people/matters?
6. What do you ask for when you pray for yourself?
7. How long has it taken you to develop your current discipline of prayer?

I always feel a little cheeky answering questions about my prayer life as if it were something to be imitated or learned from.  Prayer and corporate worship are both struggles for me; I recall a cloud of difficulty, at times verging on pain, descending upon me around when I became a teenager.  The difficulty led me to different responses, sometimes to a weariness and unbelief that’s left me in stunned silence.  It may be that reflections on that would be most helpful to you and your readers, so I’ll post that as background to answering your numbered questions.  I’ll try to weave answers to the numbered ones in the larger narrative.

First of all, like most Christians, I was raised to expect God to answer prayer by speaking back, sometimes in words, in images, through signs, through other Christians in the Church…….Worship on Sunday mornings was especially passionate.  We tried to be emotionally open to the Holy Spirit, to have our hearts open.  Feelings were important, and outward response to God was important.  Worship of this kind was a sort of prayer, even the core discipline.  Since you ask about posture, upraised hands were our most common gesture.  We were told it represented sacrifice — that with one’s hand upraised, you were lifting stuff up to God.

At around age 13, maybe a little earlier, a couple changes happened.  First, I stopped “feeling” God in corporate worship, which experience I interpreted as divine displeasure.  Second, for whatever reason, I became extremely self-conscious about raising hands in worship.  It became difficult for me to do it.  My sister, Rebekah, became similarly affected about raising hands, but she articulated a different reason: it felt artificial.  She observed people raising hands to be visible to others, and was offended by the hypocrisy.  I can’t remember why I didn’t raise my hands — only that it was hard, and that God felt distant.  I remember around that time that I tried to start manipulating my emotions, to stir myself inwardly to passion towards God, all to no avail.  The effort simply increased my pain.  Around that time, the pastor even gave a word of knowledge that someone in worship was “working too hard”.  That was a very unhelpful word for me, because it simply led to frustration — I couldn’t stop working, or felt I couldn’t.  To work led to pain, to stop working felt like apathy.  Gradually, this experience grew until it covered everything, taking over my spiritual life bit by bit, like an advancing glacier.

Looking back at this time I sometimes find myself surprised, because although it felt like God was so absent, I now can see he was stunningly present.  It’s been that way a lot throughout the years — when I look at the present moment, all I see is confusion.  When I look at the past with gratitude, I see the Lord everywhere.  So it was with that time.  Three or four experiences related to the nature of prayer stand out very dramatically from that period.  The first happened as I was waking up, engaging in very mundane, early morning “get-ready-for-the-day” activity.  I was pitying myself over the lack of feelings of God’s presence as I got washed up, occasionally complaining to the Lord about it and asking why he was displeased with me.  The Spirit broke the silence and said, “Why do you need feelings from me?  Is it not enough goodness just to worship me, even without the feelings?”  The second was years later, when I was in college.  I was walking around the campus, struggling with prayer.  I was on the third floor of Corbett Center, the student union building at NMSU, standing nearby the payphones on one side of the building by the stairs.  I complained to God about the struggle, said that I could not pray, and he responded to the effect, “Your problem is not that you cannot pray, but that you will not.”  On another occasion he said, “You don’t believe.”  Through these experiences, I began to learn that prayer is not about feeling God respond, but acting in confidence that he is there and will respond.  A third experience occurred as I was trying to quiet myself to hear his voice on a particular request.  The Spirit interrupted and said, “I have no difficulty speaking to you.  I don’t need you to do that.”  Through experiences like this, I was slowly brought through to a place where I could again worship and pray not without difficulty, but in spite of not feeling things, not hearing things.

Perhaps because of the difficulty, though, I don’t really have set times of prayer or strict habits.  Having them might help; I’ve not set them, however.  I tend to try to pray throughout the day, to cultivate an awareness of God’s presence.  Since meeting Alyssa, who is more structured, I do now pray with her once a day about certain specific, “covenanted” requests — for the salvation of five people we have agreed to pray for daily, and for needs in our family.  We begin by going over our requests and debriefing about our day, then reading a psalm slowly, then alternating our requests.

I’ve found it very helpful to think of prayer as participation in the divine counsel.  I really believe this is the case.  Prayer is not just “me and God”.  Prayer is a priestly activity.  In addition to myself there are saints and angels, including some fallen powers, before the Throne.  The Lamb is on the throne and in the midst of the elders, and the Father is upon the throne.  The Lamb is the great high priest, and the saints and holy angels are lesser priests, and they all offer sacrifices of incense and intercession to the One on the Throne through the Lamb, who ever intercedes and whose intercessions will not be rejected.  It is a royal, as well as a liturgical, space.  The Lamb is the Son and Crown Prince, the One on the Throne is the Father and King.  The saints are adopted and beloved sons, royalty invited into the King’s secret councils.  The more one gets to know the Father and the Son and the Spirit, the more confidence one has in prayer, for your prayers cease to be the petitions of an individual.  They become participation in the governance of the kingdom, and the King is just and good and passionately interested in the wellbeing of the kingdom and everything that occurs within it.  Other councils are also being voiced before the throne, and not all of them intend well.  Some are subversive, hostile to the King and Crown Prince and the interests of the kingdom.  They persecute the saints and make war against the angels.  Thus, it is desperately important not simply that good “win”, but that the Victor appear good — that at the end of the day it be clear who is righteous and who is not.  Prayer and worship participate in this, too.  The saints ever keep in mind the reputation of the One on the throne and of the Lamb.  Their very identities are integrated with that of the King, for he is their father by adoption, the source of their own beatitude and ground of their rule in the kingdom.  They are jealous that he be honored, and pray with that in mind.  What they speak in the council they do so to honor the King and the Lamb and neutralize the enemies.  The more we get to know the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, the more we can speak effectively to this end.  We come to know the love of God and enter more deeply into his counsel and life.  The more we know the love of God, the more confident grow our prayers, where love is not always or just a feeling, but an act of the will that becomes the fabric of one’s very being and identity.

The above effects how I pray, or perhaps the above view grew out of our I prayed — it’s difficult to tell.  I try to pray daily and as often as I think of it.  Periodically, I try to engage what Dave Hansen calls “long, wondering prayer” — walking a few miles, letting my distracted mind simply be distracted before God, treating life as something lived in the Presence.  I do use gestures, especially when out amongst people.  If I sense I’m being hypocritical or worried for my own appearance, I withdraw; otherwise, I try to worship and pray outwardly in a way to direct the attentions of those around me to what is going on in the Spirit’s realm.  Hands upraised in blessing and words such as “Blessed be…” or “Let it be….” are not simply requests (although they are), but participation in the life and rule of God over the creation.  When God himself is the One blessed, the creation is being offered back to Him in sacrifice, it’s transformation interceded for that He might properly be blessed by and within it, his just and loving character no longer obscured by the malice of demons and men.  Hands raised with palms up or resting on my knees symbolize openness to receive from him.  He doesn’t need the gestures, though.  (Invocation is not incantation.  Incantation is where an occultist tries to manipulate the divine; invocation operates out of the confidence that God is open to us and for us, and wills the best, and is active in the world, and so does not need to be manipulated!  In fact, he rather dislikes it…)

When doing the above, there are some bits and pieces of prayer I do find myself, personally, coming back to.  These are largely fragments of scripture and liturgy.  These days, I find myself using a lot phrases including the trishagion, the Jesus prayer, blessing upon the kingdom of the Trinity, affirmation that God is the source of all goodness and that we only offer to him out of his goodness (“All things come from you, and of your own do we give you”), pleading for mercy upon myself and the system of which I am a part, and sometimes appeals to his reputation a la the psalms.

In discerning how to pray and for whom, I find it helpful to keep a couple general guidelines in mind.  First, abstraction is frequently the devil’s realm, whereas the concrete and actually real is the Holy Spirit’s.  I think it was Oswald Chambers (but it may have been Bonhoeffer) who noted this with regards to the confession of sin and guilt — that Satan likes to stir up self-hatred along the lines of generalities (“you’re not pious enough”), but that the Holy Spirit is specific (“just now you were unreasonably angry with your brother”).  Tim Becker taught me that this applies over a vast range of matters.  Whenever a matter occurs to me, I try to think of some particular, specific request I can make about that matter, keeping in mind the just, loving character of God.  I then try to articulate that request in words.  If my request is too abstract, I try not to make it; if it has been corrupted with unbelief regarding the character of God, I confess it as brokenness and plead for mercy on myself and do not make it as a request.

On praying for myself, if I find myself falling into self-pity, I focus on gratitude and intercession.  If I am genuinely suffering, however, or am in real pain, I pray for myself.  C.S. Lewis notes that it is a trick of the enemy (temptation towards spiritual pride?) to convince us we should never pray for ourselves.  Sometimes we need mercy to strengthen us so that we can pray for others.  Here, I find it helpful to think of myself as like a ranger in a rough wilderness, responsible to help guide other pilgrims through treacherous land.  If my health or good judgment becomes compromised I risk the safety of everyone with me.  Of course, sometimes a ranger has to treck ahead despite pain.  There are no clear rules here, only guidelines.  Our success hinges not upon our genius to get it right, but on the faithfulness of Jesus, whose Spirit is the chief “ranger” who searches all things in this wilderness, even the infinite depths of God, and who will not get lost or tired.  If we get a bit wrong, we stumble, repent in His grace, then get up — and he is pleased with us doing so.

I hope this helps and isn’t either too general, on the one hand, or without sufficient explanation on the other!

Prayer: The Examen

As I’ve been thinking about prayer over the past several weeks, I’ve also taken stock of my own prayer life. Too often for me (and I suspect this becomes the case for many) prayer becomes routine. Every morning, I take time to read the Bible, and to read from another theological work. Prayer usually gets sandwiched between these two times of reading. Many times I don’t know what to pray for. Who to pray for is not a problem; only a few moments of reflection will quickly bring to mind plenty of people and situations for whom and for which I ought to be praying. But what to pray for – what to ask God to do for this people or in those situations – often becomes stale and unthoughtful.

As I’ve reflected on this, I’ve been finding myself confronted with my own unbelief. Do I actually belief God answers these prayers? Do I believe that God is listening? I concluded that I needed to find concrete ways to experience what God was doing in my midst and how God was answering prayers I was praying. So, I decided to practice the examen.

The examen is a spiritual exercise taught by St. Ignatius of Loyola. You can read a more detailed explanation of what examen is and looks like in practice here. A basic explanation of the examen is that it’s time spent consciously in God’s presence at the end of the day. It includes reviewing the events of your day and giving thanksgiving for the gifts God gave, and searching your own conscious and heart in the decisions you made.

Though I’m still not perfectly disciplined in practicing the examen – I’m rarely able to practice it multiple days in a row – I’ve hoped that practicing the examen would help me to see what God is doing in my life. It’s helped in that, but what I’ve noticed more is how practicing the examen has changed the way I go through my day. Since practicing the examen, I’ve found myself more deliberately recognizing what God is doing as He’s doing it.

The examen has disciplined me in practicing the presence of God throughout my day. I’m still far from able to do this perfectly. In fact I’m still rarely able to be fully present to God’s work in my midst for more than an hour. Nevertheless, I think this is the real benefit of practicing the examen. Being able to see how God is at work in hind sight is a blessing, but seeing God at work in the present makes the previous reflection worthwhile.

Prayer: Learning from Our Lord

Our Father in heaven, Reveal who you are. Set the world right; Do what’s best – as above, so below. Keep us alive with three square meals. Keep us forgiven with you and forgiving others. Keep us safe from ourselves and the Devil. You’re in charge! You can do anything you want! You’re ablaze in beauty! Yes. Yes. Yes.

Paraphrase of the Lord’s Prayer by Eugene Peterson in The Message

Whenever I read Luke 11, I’m always intrigued by the request made to Jesus by an unnamed disciple at the beginning of the chapter. “Lord, teach us to pray.” It’s a request I often pray myself when I begin a time of prayer and feel as if I don’t know what to say. The lesson in prayer that Jesus gives in this chapter of Scripture is what we now call The Lord’s Prayer. The Spiritual Formation workbook I’ve been going through included an exercise in meditating on Eugene Peterson’s paraphrase of the Lord’s Prayer (quoted above). I appreciate a lot of the insights Peterson gives through it. Here are each of the petitions in the “traditional” translation side by side with Peterson’s paraphrase along with some of my thoughts on how the paraphrase enriches the meaning.

Hallowed be Thy name -> Reveal who you are

“Hallowed be…” is from the King James Version, and is an archaic way of expressing a request for God’s name to be considered holy. God’s name is most “hallowed” by those who see Him most clearly. In the visions of the heavenly throne room in Isaiah 6 and Revelation 4, those around the throne never cease to cry out, “HOLY! HOLY! HOLY!” When we pray this petition, we’re asking God to reveal himself to ourselves, to the Church, and to the world, that we might cry “Holy!” with authenticity and passion.

Thy Kingdom come -> Set the world right.

The Kingdom of God is equivalent to a “right” world; a world without hunger or poverty, without sickness or disease, without sin or injustice. This echoes of Mary’s Song in Luke. When I pray this petition, I want to have in mind particular, specific, situations in the world that are not right at the present, and ask God to set it right.

Thy will be done -> Do what’s best.

There can be nothing greater than God’s will. Praying this with faith requires a broadened perspective. I intuitively want what’s best for myself. I need to pray for what’s best from God’s perspective. As we grow in faith and in relationship to the Father Son and Holy Spirit, we understand more clearly God’s will, and can pray for God’s will to be done in very specific and concrete ways.

Give us this day our daily bread -> Keep us alive with three square meals.

Of all the petitions in the Lord’s Prayer, I take this one the most for granted (as I’m guessing most Americans who pray this prayer do). Even as someone right out of school and in a career that I’m never going to get rich in, I live in considerable abundance compared to most of the world. Frankly, I have difficulty even imagining the situation being different. In a lifestyle of abundance, it’s difficult to perceive dependence upon God for daily sustenance. Like Job, though, my plenty can be taken away at any time. At no point does my plenty exceed my need for God’s provision.

Forgive us our debts/trespasses/sins as we forgive our debtors/those who trespass/sin against us -> Keep us forgiven with you and forgiving others.

I find it fascinating that Peterson translates this petition in terms of sustenance – “keep us…” – just as he translates the previous petition. Forgiveness is sustenance. For God to withdraw His forgiveness from us, or for us to withhold forgiveness from others, would be as detrimental and malnourishing to us as deprivation from food. Praying this petition ought to lead us to asking, “Who am I withholding forgiveness from?”

Lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil -> Keep us safe from ourselves and the devil.

I don’t think I’ve ever before thought of temptation as me imposing a threat on myself. But this is what Peterson’s paraphrase implies. This would make sin a form of sadomasochism. In our desire to sin, whether it’s a deliberate sin against someone else or a sin of self-indulgence, the temptation to commit any such sin poses an ominous threat to our own well-being. What if we really considered the danger our own sin imposes on ourselves?

“Lord, teach us to pray” is a prayer we ought to pray, and a prayer our Lord is eager to answer. Next time you pray the prayer that is the answer to that request, slow down and consider all that those petitions connote and imply.

Prayer: How Specific Should Our Prayers Be?

A while back, I felt convicted that as a pastor, I wasn’t praying enough. It was hard for me to see prayer as something I was supposed to do “on the clock.” If I wasn’t talking with someone, writing a sermon, answering an email, preparing a Bible study, I didn’t think it was ministry. I came to realize through conversations with more experienced ministers and through reading Scripture that prayer is what I’m supposed to be doing more than anything. So, I started praying more.

This has developed into praying very specific prayers. For example, in my InterVarsity work, I’ve become convicted that God’s vision for grad students at Carnegie Mellon is for there to be a network of witnessing communities in every college at CMU. Since Jesus says that wherever two or three are gathered, he’s there with them, I decided that at least two missional grad students in each college at CMU was a reasonable expectation, so that’s what I’ve been asking for. Likewise, I’ve realized recently how great it is to have “divine appointments” – moments in which I can either share my faith or hear someone else share about their faith. I felt convicted to pray for a divine appointment every day, and have been amazed at the frequency with which God answers those prayers.

Some of the responses I’ve gotten from fellow Christians about this praying have been interesting. When someone else in a prayer group heard me ask God specifically for two missional Christians in every college at CMU, he responded, “So you’re a person who prays numbers? I’ve been told that when you do that God will do one of three things, he’ll either give you less than what you ask for, give you  more than what you ask for, or give you something completely different.” Translation: If you ask God for something too specific, there’s no chance that he’ll grant your request to the “T.”

Likewise, when another colleague learned of my asking for a divine appointment each day, his response was cautionary. He reminded me that the reason those prayers were being answered wasn’t because God was doing anything different, but because I had simply made myself more open to divine appointments happening. Translation: Prayer is less about asking God to do something and more about making us more attune to what God is already doing.

It’s hard to pray specific prayers. In fact, it’s hard to ask anyone, whether God or a fellow human being, for something specific. In my support raising for InterVarsity, I’ve been encouraged to ask for potential donors to give specific amounts of money. Mustering up the courage to do this is extremely difficult, and I’m rarely able to find that much courage. Asking for something specific is scary because it increases the chance that our request will be rejected. The same is true for prayers to God; the more abstract our prayers, the less likely those prayers will go unanswered and the less likely our faith will be shaken.

At the same time, though, the specific prayers that I’ve been praying have been increasing, not decreasing, my faith. One of the influences on me in praying these specific prayers has been my InterVarsity training materials. InterVarsity’s Chapter Planting Manual encourages planters to ask God to bring specific numbers of students to various events, and when it does this, it says to only ask for the number of people you can pray for in faith. In other words, when you pray specifically, don’t pray for more than what you believe God can do. I don’t take specific prayers lightly. Praying in this way has forced me to reflect on my own faith and to think through what I truly believe my God is capable of.

Also, praying for “divine appointments” has, in my opinion, done far more than simply open me up to what God is already doing. I’m always amazed at how often God answers this prayer when I pray it, and how often divine appointments don’t happen when I forget to pray this prayer. I think God is teaching me something in this experience about his own heart for those whom He loves. God longs to gather His lost sheep, and He longs to do it through the voice of his people. Praying for divine appointments is showing me the heart of God in a very intimate way.

Specific prayers are dangerous. They make us far more vulnerable before God. But when we take them seriously, they also make us more honest with God about our own faith, and they open up for us the opportunity to experience God in ways far more vivid.

Prayer: Keeping it Simple

Simplicity is the characteristic of all real prayer and nothing pleases God better. He does not want so much formality in his service; great harm has been done by the reduction of devotion to a fine art dependent on so many rules. After all, everything depends on the Holy Spirit; it is he alone who teaches the true way of conversing with God and we see how, when he lays hold of a soul, the first thing he does is to withdraw it from all the rules made by men.

- Jean-Nicholas Grou, How to Pray

I struggle with simplicity in prayer. By simplicity, I’m not referring to intellect. I don’t think that prayers can be “too intellectual.” Our intellect is a part of who we are, and we’re to submit our intellects to Christ and use them in prayer. By simplicity, I mean honesty.

Many times my prayers feel empty and completely disconnected from myself. This happens to me often as a pastor. There have been (and will, no doubt, continue to be) times when I’ve been asked to pray for something or someone and have had no idea what to pray. Usually this happens in some type of public setting – the opening or closing of a meeting, a small group session, and, I’m ashamed to confess, in pastoral visitations. I’ll be asked to pray for a person or situation, will not know the situation well enough to know what to pray for, so I’ll simply start to spew words out of my mouth and hope they go somewhere. Often times the words “just” and ”bless” shows up in these prayers more frequently than normal. (“Dear God, bless ________. I just lift him/her up to you right now. And I pray that you would just bless them….”) My prayers feel completely disconnected from what’s really happening.

Often times, I run into this problem when I’m not being fully present to the situation. Either I’m daydreaming and thinking about something else entirely. Or, I am paying attention to the situation, but strictly from a human point of view with no attention to the Spirit’s presence. And so I begin praying perhaps too quickly, usually jumping into speaking to God without having given any thought to what I ought to say.

What’s even more troubling is that I don’t just run into this problem when praying for others, but also when I’m praying for myself. (“Dear God, I pray your blessing upon this day. I just lift up all that I’ll be doing up to you. And I pray that you will just bless it…”) Many times, my prayers feel completely disconnected from myself. When I have my own times of prayer, I often jump into my prayers too quickly. I see them as an obligation to be fulfilled for the day, and give no thought to the prayer before I begin. So empty words begin to spew out of my mouth that have no connection with my heart.

As I’ve been working to overcome this, I’m finding three things helpful:

1.) Silence is OK. If I need time to more fully appreciate a situation or to know what to say to God, it’s better to take that time and wait to begin praying than to fill silence by praying empty words.

2.) Begin by meditating on who God is. Meditating on who God is, especially in light of what or who I’m going to be praying about has helped me to know what to ask God to do, since all that God does comes out of who God is.

3.) If I still have no idea how to pray for myself, begin by confessing my life to God. I’ve learned this from reading St. Augustine’s Confessions. Much of what Augustine writes is simply recounting to God his life experiences, and reflecting on what God was doing in those situations. Doing this myself has led to insights into who I am, and who I am becoming, that I had never realized before.

New Blog Series on Prayer

I’ve been thinking a lot about prayer lately. Largely due to the spiritual formation workbook I’m using. I’ve decided I’m going to turn some of my reflections into a series of posts on prayer. Beginning next week and continuing for about 5 weeks, I’ll have a new prayer-related  post every Tuesday around 1pm.

Here’s a tentative schedule of posts:

September 1: Keeping Prayer Simple

September 8: How Specific Should Our Prayers Be?

September 15: Learning From Our Lord

September 22: The Examen

September 29: Thoughts on Prayer from “Guest Blogger” Matt Bell

Be sure to check back next Tuesday for the first post in the series!

Reflections on Praying the Rosary (Kind of…)

When I was ordained back in September, one of my aunts gave me a rosary. She had purchased it in Italy and then had it blessed by a priest at Notre Dame in Paris. I appreciated the thought, but also didn’t know what to do with it at first, since, as a Presbyterian, I’ve never prayed the rosary before in my life. Then a couple weeks ago, the spiritual formation guide I”m working through suggested taking  a week to try a new form of prayer. So, I decided to try using my rosary for one week…. kind of…

As a Protestant, it was hard for me to pray the Hail Mary. Granted most of it is simply verses quoted directly from Scripture, but it still felt out of place for me, so I replaced each Hail Mary with a recitation of the Jesus Prayer – “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.”

The main purpose of praying the Rosary is to meditate on the mysteries of our salvation – there are 20 in the Roman Catholic tradition. They’re all more or less events in the life of Jesus.

As I meditated on five of the mysteries each day while reciting the Jesus Prayer, the Lord’s Prayer and the Gloria Patri, I began to realize pretty quickly how “distanced” my mediation was. For example while meditating on each of the sorrowful mysteries (The Agony in the Garden, Scourging at the Pillar, Crowning with Thorns, Carrying the Cross, and the Crucifixion) I began to feel as if I was simply imagining the events in my head, viewing them in my imagination in the same way I would view a movie; thinking about the events in the same way I would think about the Civil War or any other historical event.

As I continued praying the Jesus Prayer, though, I came to a profound sense that Christ was in the room with me. Suddenly, I became convicted that the purpose of meditating on the mysteries is not thinking, but rather listening. My meditations changed from being a product of my own imagination to being an act of seeking to allow Jesus, the One who experienced these events, to tell me about them.

The result of this experiment has been some of the richest times of prayer I’ve had in a long time. Praying the Rosary (kind of…) has given me a “sacred space” of sorts in my time to be reminded of my union with Christ and all that entails. I think this is a practice that’s going to go longer than one week.

The Fear and Love of Life With God

About a week ago, I started working my way through the first in the Renovare Spiritual Formation Guides, called “Connecting With God.” The first section began with these quotes from Frank Laubach’s Letters of a Modern Mystic:

  This morning I started out fresh, by finding  a rich experience of God in the sunrise. Then I tried to let Him control my hands while I was shaving and dressing and eating breakfast. Now I am trying to let God control my hands as I pound the typewriter keys… There is nothing that we can do excepting to throw ourselves open to God. There is, there must be, so much more in Him than He can give us… It ought to be tremendously helpful to be able to acquire the habit of reaching out strongly after God’s thoughts, and to ask, “God, what have you to put into my mind now if only I can be large enough?” That waiting, eager attitude ought to give God the chance he needs.

 

Then, about a month later, he writes:

Oh, this thing of keeping in constant touch with God, of making him the object of my thought and the companion of my conversations, is the most amazing thing I ever ran across. It is working. I cannot do it even half a day – not yet, but I believe I shall be doing it some day for the entire day. It is a matter of acquiring a new habit of thought. Now I like God’s presence so much that when for a half hour or so he slips out of mind – as he does many times a day – I feel as though I had deserted him, and as though I had lost something very precious in my life.

 

The thought of this practice inspired me. I wanted this life of living in constant touch with God. I wanted to be constantly aware of God’s presence, to yield constantly to God’s will. I went to bed asking God to remind me first thing in the morning that He was present with me. He did.

For the first time in months, I awoke the next morning before my alarm went off. Usually, I wake up to my alarm, and often times so groggy that it takes me a second to remember where I am. Not on this morning, though. God did as I had asked, and I was reminded immediately of God’s presence with me. Wanting (or at least thinking I wanted) to surrender to His will, I asked/prayed, “God what should I do?”

I ‘heard’ a voice respond, “Get up and pray.”

I politely asked for a new assignment, perhaps going back to sleep. But the voice was persistent, “Get up and pray.”

 Finally, I got up and looked at my cell phone. It was still turned off; it’s set to turn off automatically at midnight and turn back on at 6am. I didn’t know what time it was, but I knew it was before 6. “Why would God want me to be up so early?” I asked myself.

Almost immediately I heard the voice again, “I want you to pray.”

The call to pray was so vivid that I fully expected to come out of my bedroom, turn the corner into my living room and see Jesus sitting on the love-seat… and this thought terrified me. Fully awake and out of bed, I still actually hesitated to leave my bedroom for fear of what Who might be out there. I finally mustered the courage to go into my living room, and was both relieved and disappointed to find that there wasn’t a first century Jew waiting for me. (At least not that I could see.)

I went on with my prayer time, which was better than usual, though frankly not as profound as what I was anticipating. I remember little of the Scripture I read that morning or the prayers that I prayed. What I do remember is the fear. I had a profound sense of God being presence, and I was seized more with fear than anything else. Why? This bothered me for much of the rest of the week.

I continued the week trying to practice this consciousness of  and submissiveness to God’s presence and will. Thursday night finally brought resolution to my sense of fear. I had just returned from the Upper Room’s Bible study and sat down in my living room for some personal devotion and close-of-day prayer. I began with the evening psalm appointed for the day by the lectionary I follow. It was the second half of Psalm 18 (the first half was appointed for that morning). As I was praying this Psalm, I slipped out of awareness of God’s presence and was simply reading the words of the Psalm rather unconsciously, to the point of having no comprehension of what I was actually reading. I caught myself towards the end, and entered back into an awareness of God’s presence. I heard the same voice I heard at the beginning of the week. Only this time, the voice said, “Read it again.”

I responded, “But God, I’m tired.”

Again, the voice said, “Read it again. And this time start at verse 1.”

Somewhat begrudgingly, I turned to Psalm 18:1 and read, “I love you, O Lord, my strength.”

I was floored. The words, “I love you.” convicted me in a way that they never had before. I knew immediately that I hadn’t prayed them with any sincerity, that behind my declaration of love to God was no sense of heartfelt devotion. I immediately asked God to teach me how to declare my love to him with sincerity. The voice responded, “Keep reading.”

I read on in Psalm 18, and after each verse I added the “chorus” of “I love you.” I began to read of God’s saving work done for the psalmist, knowing that he did them also for me. My “I love you”s became more heartfelt with each verse. I then began to notice not only the things God’s done for me, but also the attributes of God mentioned in the psalm. I remember reading the beginning of verse 8: “Smoke rose from his nostrils,” and I immediately responded, “You breath fire?!?!?! I LOVE YOU!” My chorus of “I love you” then moved from thanksgiving for what God had done for me to words of adoration to someone I deeply admire.

And then it got better. God had something else to tell me. I finished the Psalm and went on to the final Scripture reading in that days lectionary. I saw the reading listed in my calendar: “John 3:16-21.” I immediately knew what God wanted to say to me. As I read the familiar words, “Go so loved the world…” I felt in my heart God speaking back to me “I love you,” with the same passion and devotion as I had offered to God by the end of my reading Psalm 18.

And then finally, I turned to the Prayer at Close of Day Liturgy, which included these words from 1 John: “There is no fear in love…” My experience of walking with and submitting to God had gone full circle. I was immediately reminded of my early-morning experience at the beginning of the week. I had wondered and sought an explanation as to why I was so afraid that morning. God offered no answer to that question. He simply told me that fear is not the proper attitude to take in walking with God. Reverence, yes. But not fear. Walking with God and submitting to God is to be a practice and experience of love. Perfect love that casts out fear.