“Greater, Deeper, Truer Prayer”

           This past week has been an exercise in prayer.  When I first heard that prayer was the discipline for this week, I was ecstatic.  I was hoping to dig deeper into my own spiritual life and find out what true prayer looks like.  As I had grown, I thought, in my knowledge of doctrine and theology, I felt like it had gotten consistently more difficult to pray with the child-like faith that Jesus calls believers to in the New Testament.  Was I just overthinking this discipline, as I am often prone to do?

            According to Foster, “the discipline of prayer brings us into the deepest and highest work of the human spirit” and is “the central avenue God uses to transform us” (33).  So far, so good.  I totally believe that stuff!  Foster then goes on to say that “listening to God is the necessary prelude to intercession” (39).  Gulp.  Oops, sorry God.  I really haven’t been listening to You.

            It was with this conviction that I set two goals for my prayer life this week.  The first was to set aside small amounts of time in my day to listen for God’s guidance for my life or other people’s lives.  If a person or worry would pop into my head, I would take time and pray for them, trusting that God had led me to this thought.  The second goal was to practice “flash prayers” as I noticed the people around me.  This exercise involved being intentional as I went about my day, concentrating on other people as much as I concentrate about myself and all of the things that I have to do.

            As I began to have this quiet time with God a couple of times a day, I noticed something about myself.  Sometimes, I am an insecure pray-er.  I will attempt to listen to God, but my mind will immediately begin to fill with the most random of thoughts, steering my concentration away from the time that I was setting aside to listen for God’s will and guidance.  Frustrated with myself, I would give up and then try to come back a little while later for quiet time.  Then, the same thing would happen. 

            However, I also had the opposite happen while I was having this quiet time to listen to God.  It only occurred a couple of times out of the multiple times that I tried it, but God would sometimes put on my heart a person or a worry that I had not laid at the feet of God.  I would then sit and reflect about that person or worry in my life, asking God to take the issue into His hands. 

            The second exercise that I attempted throughout this week was the discipline of flash praying.  This worked out pretty well the first couple of days.  As I would pass people in the hall or on the sidewalk, I would really pay attention to the way that they would greet me or their body language.  I would then offer a quick prayer to God, asking Him to bring peace into the life of the person that I had just encountered.  Generally, I liked this way of prayer.  The only thing that I was confronted with when I would quickly “flash” this prayer to God was the fact that I wasn’t really taking the time to seek God’s will in the prayer.  I was reverting back to my old method of simply praying and not truly listening to God.

            More often than not this week, I wished for a monastic lifestyle, a lifestyle that was structured with work and prayer.  Foster says in his book that prayer is to be the most important aspect of one’s life.  Is it the most important aspect of mine?  Often, I would have to say that I do not uphold prayer in my day to day activities.  But, before I become too morose and hard on myself, I keep reminding myself that prayer is a learning experience, and that God does not judge me on how eloquently or well I pray.  Instead, I am to keep on persevering and taking time throughout my day to let prayer permeate – this gives me hope to continue to refine the discipline of prayer in my own life.

Finding Peace in Meditation

It is no accident that my lovely professor assigned the discipline of meditation to be done the week before midterm exams.  I mean, what better way when you are freaking out over assignments, papers, and study guides to simply go off into a secluded area and think for extended amounts of time about life and God?  This assignment – no matter how difficult it was to complete – has probably brought me the most peace yet this semester.

            The difficult thing about meditation for me is that I really didn’t know how to go about this discipline.  In class, we discussed how meditation was like a re-focusing of the soul that enables us to move beyond the superficialities of our days, weeks, and even culture to become connected once again with God.  Meditation is cutting out all of the potential stressors that keep us “too busy” to listen to God, and once again being brought back into His arms for a purposeful time of listening.  Now, this was all well and good, but I still didn’t really know what to do or how to act.  When my boyfriend mentioned something about his meditation, I asked question after question in order to better understand the way in which people can meditate and be in community with God.  At the end of this conversation, I realized that God doesn’t expect me to have the perfect actions of meditation.  Instead, He wanted me to come to Him just as I am.

            After that epiphany, I made the goals of being peaceful in daily activities and going outside and reflecting upon myself, God, and His creation.

            The goal of being peaceful in daily activities went well until today.  Today has been a hailstorm of activity with no time for my introverted self to just sit back and take a look around (us introverts are weird…don’t judge us!)  When I am stressed or harried, I get this feeling inside my stomach and a slight headache.  This feeling kept on coming and going all day as I raced from class, to work, to lunch which included a different work, to work (again), and now as I sit, reflecting upon my day and week to come with the homework and work that needs to be accomplished.  How is it that the busyness of life can just stop me in my tracks and keep me from seeking the Lord?  As I am writing this, I almost feel as if this time of blogging is a meditation of thought and crying out to God for the knowledge of priorities!

            Another goal that I had for this week was to physically remove myself from the places where I usually haunt and move elsewhere in order to experience God in a new way.  At some point during the weekend (I can’t even remember what day – yikes!), I put on an almost disgusting amount of winter wear and began to walk along the paths that are just outside of the dorms where I stay.  On one path, there was a tree that had fallen down.  As I sat on this fallen tree, it was apparent how utterly loud the forest can be.  However, all of the sudden, the woods would grow so still and quiet that it was almost eerie.  As I looked at the bright yellow leaves that had fallen to the ground, I was in awe of the ways in which God has and continues to redeem creation.  During the course of time that I sat there, I began to pray, “God, please be with me.”  Then I thought about this statement.  God was and is already with me.  It is I who has to be with Him.  I am the one who needs to get their priorities straight and be willing to be present with God. 

            All in all, this week has been very convicting to me.  I thank God that His grace abounds, and that I was blessed with peace.  I pray that now I will be able to continue to strive for this peace even in the midst of the business of this life. 

            So, peace be upon you, my friends, as we journey together.  God bless.     

 

Commitment to Confession…Wha?

            Well…this week’s spiritual discipline was about the purpose and execution of confession.  During this week, I was confronted with my motivations in confessing my sins and wrongdoings and trying to decipher the nature of confessing itself.  Growing up, I had always known that sins needed to be confessed to God and to others; however, I had never really thought about what confession actually meant.

            Meaningful confession – in a nutshell – is a constant examination of the conscience and naming the sin that is found, having a deep sorrow and regret for this sinful nature that is found, and then the determination to avoid sin and to be ruled once more by the Holy Spirit.  It is about recognizing that you are a cosmological liability (thanks for the term, Cain Taylor!) and moving beyond this to accept the grace and redemption that God offers.  To me, this sounded daunting.  I decided that, for this week, I would really examine myself and see what possible sins that I have committed that I needed to confess.  I decided that I would have to decide later if I needed to confess this sin publically.

            At first, I was confused.  I examined myself without seeing some huge, ugly sin that was waiting for me to confess it.  In my head, I felt fine.  I felt like I was being a good Christian.  Then I realized something.  I realized that I had been going through the motions of Christianity.  You know what I mean, my friends.  I had been going to church, actively reading my Bible, and actively praying.  However, I was stagnant spiritually.  This realization astounded me, even though I had been thinking about this idea for a while now.  Later, I attended a girl pow-wow.  If you don’t know what this is, let me enlighten you.  This is where a group of girls get together, sometimes scheduled, sometimes not, and talk about our lives and feelings.  In other words, REAL conversation takes place.  We talk – and sometimes laugh and sob – about our struggles and fears and then pray together at the end.  During this conversation, I spilled the beans about my stagnant spiritual life.  Instead of giving heap loads of advice or condemnation, these friends listened and were empathetic.

            When I went to bed, I felt like there had been a weight that had lifted off of me.  I knew that I did not have to pretend to be a saint when I know that I am a sinner.  However, the feeling of spiritual stagnancy still lingered like the smell of my shoes after I wear them all day (haha).  Then I realized something:  I had never really confessed my fears and thoughts to God.  I mean, I knew that He heard these thoughts, but I had never really purposefully confided to God.

            After confessing these thoughts to God, I can say that I am more aware of the joy that comes after confessing the sorrow of sin that is present in my life.  The examination of myself is still continuing, and I still feel a sense of stagnancy.  However, God has blessed me with joy as I fumble my way along this journey of following Him, even when my feelings are a little bit “off.”

            Blessings to you all as you search your own lives and discover the hardship and the joy of confession – a discipline that is daunting but, in the end, so good.   

Lessons from a Stapler - A Reflection on Worship

            Worship, as defined by Richard Foster, is “the human response to the divine initiative.”  It is “kindled within us only when the Spirit of God touches our human spirit.”  To me, just these sentences alone are enough to be radical.  Instead of a worship that is ritualistic or simply going through the motions, true worship is the response to God’s attributes becoming known to my human mind.  It is forgetting about all of the lists that I make in my mind, even for a moment, and reflecting and then acting upon God’s ever-present Spirit.

            As you all can probably tell, I have been thinking a lot about worship this week.  It is the first discipline that my class and I are going through.  When I first thought about the assignment for this week, I have to admit that I thought that it would be so easy.  However, God really showed me how much I can fail in something that I think about so much.  This week, it was my plan to really focus on God throughout my day and be willing to stop what I was doing so as to let God transform me through my actions.  In some ways, this went well.  In other ways, I find myself begging for the grace of God as I was confronted with an onset of exhaustion and mindless business that forced my focus away from God.

            Most of this week, I felt like the stapler that I use in the Business Office where I work.  Now, don’t get me wrong, I love this stapler because of the imperfections and frustrations that it applies to my life – I’m also not using this blog to try to convince anyone to buy me a new stapler.  This stapler has a habit of looking so perfect on the outside; but when I go to connect two pieces of paper together, the stapler will literally fall off of the hinges that hold the entire thing together. I was reminded of this stapler whenever I would try to find a spot in my day to sit in silence and wait for God’s Spirit to invoke a response.  Instead of finding a peace, somehow I felt jarred from my hinges with more work and stress.  It was only after stumbling through each bit of business and exhaustion that I would look back and realize that it was God who was providing me with the energy to keep going.  Sometimes, it feels like I can only praise God when the stresses that are placed upon me are temporarily lifted.  Anyone else?

            However, during the frantic business of last week, I also found times where God reminded me of who I am and why I need to spend time with Him.  Before I go to bed each night, I always read a couple of chapters in my Bible.  For the last several weeks, I have been reading through the Psalms.  A common theme that I continued to read over and over again was the statement, “Praise the LORD.”  Whenever I would read that, there would always be a peace that would wash over me.  I guess you could say that God was putting me back onto my hinges, just like after each time I attempt to staple something.  I also felt God’s Spirit touching my own when I was at a Bible study and we were all going around in a circle and praying for each other.  The power of prayer is overwhelming and reminded me, again, that God was putting me back on my hinges again.

            I guess that is just how life is sometimes.  God can be found in the midst of my worries, fears, and stress, but only after I actually stop and let Him put me back onto my hinges again.

Who Am I?

This journey that I am a part of begins with family.  My family is one of the primary ways in which I identify myself.  As the youngest child with two older brothers, I always felt protected and cared for – except those times when my big brothers got the impression that I was the spoiled brat and therefore needed to be excluded and brought down a peg on the ladder of life.  However, being the little sister had and continues to have its advantages.  Because of both of my brothers’ influences, I am a closet fan of all things Star Wars, the Red Hot Chili Peppers, and Crash Bandicoot.  Slight tom-boyishness aside, my parents and my brothers have made me cherish a life that is surrounded by love, compassion, understanding, and grace.  God certainly has blessed me in this way.

Another blessing that has formed me into who I am today was having the privilege of going to a public high school.  Usually, people have horror stories about how much they loathed high school and all of the people there.  This is definitely not the case for me.  I like to think that my group of friends and I floated above the drama and pressures of high school.  Although there were some difficult times, the group of friends that I hung out with since elementary and middle school stayed intact, still keeping in contact today.  Now that I attend a Christian college, people always ask me about my horror stories from attending a public school.  My only answer is those brown paper lunch bags would always squish my sandwiches so that they looked super nasty when I tried to eat with my friends at lunch.  Oh the horror!

Some random facts about me include a love of black olives, an intense attraction to reading, a love of organization (sometimes there is a little bit too much love going on there), an excitement over kittens, squirrels, and llamas, and a love of fall.  My idea of a perfect day would include a lot of laughter, serious talks, and temporary tattoos.  As of this moment, I am majoring in Biblical Studies and Intercultural Studies and minoring in Business Leadership.  With these degrees, I hope to work at a not-for-profit organization in some type of human service and administrative role.

So you are probably asking, what is even the whole point of this blog and this rant?  The purpose of this blog for the semester is to reflect on the Christian life in general and my own spiritual journey as I study the disciplines of spirituality.  I hope to live life well and the way that God intended it to be:  being filled by His Spirit in order to give of myself to others.  Now that you have some background information about me, feel free to ask me any questions that you might have.  In upcoming posts, I will be reflecting upon and probably mentioning different events that have happened in my life.  Again, if you have any questions or would like to talk, I am always up for a chat over hot chocolate!

Blessings to you all in the days to come.