Thoughts on Contemplative Prayer
To embark on a sojourn of prayer is to follow God where ever He leads. Prayer is the deepest and highest work of the human spirit. As such, it is as Richard Foster speaks of it in his book The Celebration of Discipline, the “central avenue” through which God transforms us.
To follow God wherever He leads us is to know He desires to lead us deep into His heart. While God is Spirit, and as such has no physical heart, such an anthropomorphic way of thinking of Him is quite valid, for he has revealed His very image to us in the form of Jesus Christ – God made flesh.
Contemplative prayer or ‘centering’ prayer as it is often called, is not an intellectual endeavor. Instead, we seek to connect with God on a wholly spiritual level. To become still, as the psalmist says, and to know that He is God. In this manner of knowing we become aware of His presence in a very real way. We then become attentive to whatever He wants to reveal to us in our devoted time in prayer with Him.
By way of simple instruction, let me offer some simple steps to follow in order to engage the Divine Spirit of our Living God in such a form of quiet prayer:
- Ask the Holy Spirit to give you a sacred word that will function as your intention around which you seek to center your thoughts on God, and around which to listen to the Holy Spirit in whatever He wishes to reveal. Examples might be one of the following: faith, hope, love, joy, peace, rock, cross, mercy, compassion, grace It could be anything He reveals to you. When you hear from Him what the word is, you can be sure He wants to reveal something to you.
- Find a quiet place and comfortable posture which will help you relax and hear from God. You may even want to kneel or prostrate yourself before Him as an added intention of reverence. Remember, to worship God is an active verb, not just a passive thought of the heart and mind. Begin to quietly introduce your sacred word as you acknowledge God’s presence with you and His desire to work within you.
- Your thoughts may wander from time to time, this is completely natural to our humanity. When they do, simply speak your sacred word as a way of drawing you back to God as your central focus. Do not think of this as a quick or violent swing of your thoughts, but rather a gentle re-calling of your mind and centering on God.
- After a designated period (20 minutes is good but begin with less if you need to and work up to that) end your time of contemplative prayer with thoughts of thanksgiving for God’s divine presence with you. What a joy that the Creator of the Universe has opened His presence to you in such a real way; this is His great desire. He created you for fellowship with Him.
This form of prayer may be completely new to you. However, it is a very ancient form of prayer practiced by many of the great saints of the ages. Remember not to set any high expectations for yourself in your special time with God. He is the Master and He alone will deliver to you whatever He wants you to learn from such prayer. Your part is to simply ‘be’ in His presence and let Him lead as He will as you center yourself and your thoughts on Him.
“In a state of grace, the soul is like a well of limpid water, from which flow only streams of clearest crystal. Its works are pleasing both to God and man, rising from the River of Life, beside which it is rooted like a tree.”
St. Teresa of Avila
May the Lord add His blessing to these thoughts, offered here to His glory…
In the name of the Father, and the Son and the Holy Spirit, now and ever and unto ages of ages. Amen.
Shalom,
Pastor Brad
Wisdom, Let Us Attend!
Wisdom, Let Us Attend
“Let us test him with insult and torture,
so that we may find out how gentle he is,
and make trial of his forbearance.”
Wisdom 2:19
It’s only one more week till Good Friday, a day which no doubt is one of our high holy days as disciples of Jesus. We mark special days and times with special readings of scripture, so that we may ‘enter in’ with our spirits, to the very remembrance of what we celebrate. In our ‘entering in’, we hope to see anew our souls as they are before God. We seek to hear Jesus’ words to them then, as His words to us today. We want Him to search us and see if there is any wicked way in us (Psalm 139:23), that we may repent and be saved.
Holy Week, which begins on Palm Sunday, is one of those times we ‘enter in’ to such remembrances. Today we reflect on one of the readings of scripture for next week on Good Friday. However, the scripture is not one you may have heard before as it comes from what many Protestants call the ‘Apocrypha’ – The Book of Wisdom.
In our ‘entering in’, we hope to see anew our souls as they are before God.
Such books were set aside for holy reading, but not viewed as inspired by the some of the Protestant Reformers, which was a departure from the historic view of those books by both, Western and Eastern Christians. Whatever your opinion may be on what should or should not be a part of the Canon of Scripture, one thing is certain; you can’t read the Book of Wisdom and not see its inspired prophetic tone.
Wisdom, chapter two, is voiced as the thoughts of the evil men who put Jesus to death. Their thoughts speak of how they detest Jesus for what they see Him as, a self-righteousness man who professes special knowledge and condemned their ways:
12 ‘Let us lie in wait for the righteous man,
because he is inconvenient to us and opposes our actions;
he reproaches us for sins against the law,
and accuses us of sins against our training.
13 He professes to have knowledge of God,
and calls himself a child* of the Lord.
Wisdom 2:12-13
In their evil thoughts, those who condemned Jesus to death, didn’t realize how prophetic they were. Jesus is ‘the righteous man’, ‘the Messiah’. They saw Jesus as, “…inconvenient”. I pray we never see Jesus and His ways as an ‘inconvenience’, but I’m afraid we often do. How many times do we put off His urgings to us and dismiss them as just our own contriving’s? Jesus’ words do bring conviction to our souls if our hearts are open. Sadly, we know many hearts are not open to the Spirit of God.
As you prepare for Holy Week, I invite you to read Wisdom chapter two. You can read the entire chapter here. Listen for the voices of evil and notice how contemporary they are to the thoughts of so many today. Jesus challenged their way of living and thinking then, as He still does ours today.
In the ancient liturgies of Eastern Christianity, before scripture is read, the Reader chants out, “Wisdom, let us attend!” Let us attend to the wisdom of the Word today. May Jesus search us today and see if there be any wicked way in us… and let us repent, that He may turn our ashes into beauty.
Shalom for a Holy Lent,
Pastor Brad
Image credit: https://www.ubiquityuniversity.org/wisdom-school/GreatBooks.htm
Strange Voices
Strange voices
‘They will not follow a stranger, but they will run from him because they do not know the voice of strangers.’
John 10:5
There are many voices in our world, each calling out for attention. Yet only one of them holds any hope for our lives. The plurality of voices in our modern culture is deafening at times. Confusion seems to reign as we listen to the news and hear such divergent opinions, such division. One must ask the question, ‘Where is truth?’
The answer to that question is really quite simple. The gospel of St. John tells us that Jesus, in His own words is the truth, and that His truth will, “set us free”(John 8:32). However, John doesn’t just say the ‘truth’ sets us free, but rather, the knowledge of the truth sets us free. We must know truth, to be delivered from the hands of lies.
Christ is God, and He is truth. John says in his first epistle, that, “God is light and that in Him, there is no darkness at all.” (1 John 1:5) If you’re finding yourself confused over the clamoring of voices in our world today who seem to be pulling us apart at the seams, then might I suggest an answer for you? Know the truth. Know Jesus so well that you cannot mistake his voice. Jesus says that His sheep will know His voice.
We must know truth, to be delivered from the hands of lies.
It’s a sad reality that in the church of our day there seems to be such a divergence of opinion on what truth is, and if there even is such a thing as truth. How hard is it to look at an apple tree and see that it has apples on it? Perhaps the problem in our world is not that the voices who compete against truth are cleverer and more deceptive, but that the sheep simply don’t know the Shepherd well enough to recognize His voice out of the cacophony of voices? We must learn to listen to the voices around us with discernment and recognize them for the fruit they produce.
How hard is it to look at an apple tree and see that it has apples on it?
Hopefully, through your Lenten times of fasting and prayer, you’ve heard the voice of the Shepherd more clearly. The only way to recognize His voice among the others is to be sure you know it – to be sure you know Him. Remember, Jesus said it’s in the ‘knowing’ that we are set free.
To St. Paul, to know Jesus was to know His power, the power of His resurrection. As we approach Holy Week and the high holy days leading us to the celebration of Jesus’ resurrection, let’s double down on our efforts to hear from Jesus. Let’s devote even more time to the contemplation of His way, His truth, His life. And, may our contemplation give way to implementation, as we let God turn the ashes of our lives and our world into the Beauty of life following the Good Shepherd.
Shalom for a Holy Lent,
Pastor Brad
Image credit: http://mentalfloss.com/article/62731/9-strange-sounds-no-one-can-explain
The Greatest Force In All the World
The Greatest Force In the World
Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will hardship, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?
Romans 8:35 NRSV
Go ahead. Let your imagination run wild. I guarantee you won’t be able to think of anything so powerful, or so horrific it can separate us from the love of God. St. Paul tried to think of something – but he couldn’t. It just doesn’t exist.
The love of God is the greatest force in all the world, because it is the very essence of His being. St. John tells us this in his first letter, “…God IS love,” (1 John 4:16 emphasis added). John goes on to say that to live in God is to live in love. The problem in our world is, too many people ‘believe’ in God, when not enough actually ‘live’ in Him.
When we who believe in God, actually begin to live in Him, we change the world. It took less than three hundred years to convert the Roman Empire to Christianity; and that was with no mass media whatsoever. What began as a small band of radical Jews in a far-off unimportant corner of the Empire spread like a wild fire out of control. The fuel of the fire was the love of God that was poured out through those who called themselves Christian, those who chose to live out the mystery of participating in the life of God in Jesus Christ.
The love of God is the greatest force in all the world, because it is the very essence of His being.
You and I have that same choice to make today. The choice isn’t to just believe in Jesus Christ as Messiah, but to realize that He is God and has given His life, His love, His all for and to us. And, a part of that ‘all’ is that we may partake of His divine life, empowering us to live a life of unparalleled love for everyone, even our enemies.
Today, on this Lenten Friday, as you look upon the cross of Jesus and view His tortured, bleeding body, think about His love. Think about His goodness. Why not meditate on these words from songwriter Don Moen:
Think about His love, think about His goodness
Think about His grace that’s brought us trough
For as high as the heavens above
So great is the measure of our father’s love
Great is the measure of our Father’s love
So great is the measure of our Father’s love
The cross of Christ… what love! Now that is turning ashes into beauty!
Listen to the full song here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KVo4otd9LGI
Shalom for a Holy Lent,
Pastor Brad
Image credit: https://philadelphiabapt.org/tlof-because-god-is-love/
To Eat or Not to Eat?
To Eat or Not to Eat?
Do not work for the food that perishes, but for the food that endures for eternal life,
which the Son of Man will give you.
John 6:27
Have I mentioned how much I love to eat? And not only eat, but I enjoy the pursuit of cooking a deliciously tasting gourmet meal that not only tastes great but looks fabulous. But, today is Wednesday and I really shouldn’t be writing about food; it will only tempt me more!
Wednesdays have always been a traditional day of fasting according to the ancient ways of the Christian faith. The Jews fasted on Tuesdays and Thursdays. The early Christians, wanting to distinguish themselves from the Jews, chose Wednesdays and Fridays as fast days. Wednesdays are in remembrance of the betrayal of Jesus during the last week of His life before the cross, and Fridays are in honor of the day of His crucifixion.
The very fact that the Jews had two days of fasting each week should say something to us of what God expects from us. Jesus grew up fasting in a devout Jewish home. That means He fasted on Tuesdays and Thursdays and celebrated all the many rituals of the faith in which He was raised.
We should take note that in the gospels Jesus never says the words, ‘if you fast’. Rather, in Matthew chapter 6 we hear Jesus say, “When you fast”. Jesus expects his disciples to fast. However, in many modern Christian churches the discipline of fasting is rarely if ever practiced. We should also note that fasting, in biblical terms, is always the giving up of food for a given time, and for the purpose of learning to rely upon God for our sustenance.
We should take note that in the gospels Jesus never says the words, ‘if you fast’
It’s interesting to me that the early church didn’t just fast during a particular season of the year, like Lent; they fasted every week. The practice of fasting quickly reveals the things that control our appetites. When we tell ourselves, we will do without something Satan seems to bring the temptation of it right to the forefront of our minds.
The practice of fasting quickly reveals the things that control our appetites.
It is precisely in leaning on the power of God’s Spirit to help us overcome such temptations that we find the real value of fasting – we grow in the mighty power of God’s Spirit. We learn to do the hard work of relying upon God for spiritual food that fills and sustains us in ways earthly foods can’t. Several hours after eating our hunger pains soon return to haunt us. However, after feasting on God during our fasting, we will have a satisfaction no earthly food can give.
So, how’s your Lenten fast going? It’s never too late to begin, or should I say, ‘begin again’. Why not try it today? Offer some time of fasting and self-denial to the Lord today and spend the time you would normally be eating in prayer and reading of the Word. If you do, I promise you’ll find more than enough to satisfy your desires. To not eat may make you feel wilted at first, like turning to ash, but remember, God can turn ashes into Beauty.
Shalom for a Holy Lent,
Pastor Brad
Image credit: https://www.thespruceeats.com/gourmet-defined-1665527