The Prayer Practice - Being with God
Readings for this week July 31 - August 4
Click here for a pdf of this week’s readings
Day 1 – Being with God
Silence, Stillness and Centering before God (2 minutes)
Scripture Reading – James 4:8
In many relationships, there often comes a time when we move beyond just the desire to talk to someone, or talk with them or listen to them, and find ourselves in the place of simply desiring to be with them, spend time in their presence, just enjoying the blessing of being in their company, often in comfortable, companionable silence. This is the kind of intimacy that can grow between people who have come to know each other well – many couples who have been together for a while can relate to this state of relationship. It is the same with our relationship with God. Again, while talking to and with, and listening to God are always important and will always be key aspects of our relationship, there is a deeper level of intimacy in prayer that is reached once we learn to enjoy being with God.
Such contemplative prayer is at the heart of spiritual transformation. There are times when the words fall away, when the needs and sorrows and questions that are on our lips are stilled – not ignored or scorned, but perhaps suddenly not as pressing – and, even if for only a few moments, we are simply with God, sunk deep into the comfortable embrace of his presence, a presence that holds us, restores us and reminds us of our identity. Time spent with God is of crucial importance. This type of prayer is more about focus and gaze and contemplation – beholding God’s loving goodness, spending time in his presence, wrapped in his love. Whatever else happens in this time, however our needs and sorrows are addressed, we look upon God and come to know again his deep abiding love for us.
Question to Consider
How do you spend deeper, more intimate time with God?
Prayer
Heavenly Father, thank you for your desire to spend time with us, to meet with us in deep, contemplative prayer, and share yourself with us. Teach us how to spend slow, deep time with you. In Jesus’ name, Amen.
Conclude with Silence (2 minutes)
Day 2 – Contemplative Prayer
Silence, Stillness and Centering before God (2 minutes)
Scripture Reading – 2 Corinthians 3:13-18
Being with God involves a type of prayerful attention known as contemplative prayer. The name for this type of prayer, and the purpose of its practice, comes from one of Paul’s letters to the Corinthian church, where he talks about the believers “contemplat[ing] the Lord’s glory.” The Greek word used here by Paul can be translated as ‘to gaze at’, specifically in the context of ‘to direct the inner gaze of your heart at.” It is not a gazing with the eyes as such, but a gazing with the heart, beholding the Lord’s glory, focusing our inner self – the centre of who we are as intentional, willing beings – on the presence and beauty of God.
Our faith must be lived out; as James wrote, faith without works is dead. But faith also involves loving contemplation of the object of our faith, the one who makes faith possible, the one who makes life possible. In fact, it is such contemplation that inspires, renews and empowers our faith. Pastor and author A.W. Tozer once described it like this: “Faith is not a once-done act, but a continuous gaze of the heart at the Triune God. Believing, then, is directing the heart’s attention to Jesus. It is lifting the mind to “behold the Lamb of God,” and never ceasing that beholding for the rest of our lives. At first this may be difficult, but it becomes easier as we look steadily at His wondrous Person, quietly and without strain.” We place our attention on God, contemplating his goodness, beauty and the loving compassion that flows from him to us in Christ, through the Spirit.
Questions to Consider
What role has contemplative prayer played in your life? What form does it take? How do you connect with God at a deeper level?
Prayer
Lord God, teach me to pray. Teach me how to spend time in your presence, focused on you, beholding your glory. Show me how to pray deeper – more and more in your presence and in your power. Amen.
Conclude with Silence (2 minutes)
Day 3 – We Become What We Look At
Silence, Stillness and Centering before God (2 minutes)
Scripture Reading – Psalm 34
We will become what we absorb, what we focus our attention on, what we give ourselves over to. If we feed ourselves on the angry, lustful, selfish, anxious cultural content around us we will turn into angry, lustful, selfish, anxious people. But, as we saw yesterday, if it is the Lord’s glory that we contemplate and focus on then we’ll be transformed more and more into the likeness of Christ. News, social media, TV, God – we will slowly turn into whatever we spend our time looking at. Our brains are designed to rewire themselves based on what we observe. Mirror neurons in our brains respond equally well when we do something and when we see someone else perform the same action. Our nervous system participates in its own neural construction. if we look at (contemplate) God long enough, the neurons in our brains start to rewire themselves accordingly.
We take on the likeness of what we gaze upon – and this includes any incorrect view of God. If we only see a vengeful, angry God, we’ll become like that too. By gazing upon Jesus, by contemplating the glory of God as embodied and manifested in Jesus, we become more and more like Jesus, the loving, compassionate, self-sacrificial saviour of us all. This is how we change, how we transform, how we metamorphose into a more Christ-like person. The core of this change, the catalyst for it, is looking at God, contemplating God in all his beauty and glory. As we contemplate – and act on – the love of God given to us, we will become more loving.
Questions to Consider
What do you spend time contemplating and looking at? How have you noticed it changing you? How is God changing you?
Prayer
Almighty God, help me focus on you more, and the good and pleasing things of your world. Help me resist the temptation to waste my time and vision on things that deform your image in me. In Jesus’ name, Amen.
Conclude with Silence (2 minutes)
Day 4 – Distractions
Silence, Stillness and Centering before God (2 minutes)
Scripture Reading – Proverbs 4:25
As with anything in life, even the spiritual life, this type of contemplative prayer doesn’t happen automatically and doesn’t always run smoothly. There are three main things that can distract us from praying contemplatively, not because we are failures but because we are human!
We all know about distraction: the moment we try to relax and contemplate God our mind suddenly jumps all over the place, pulled away by events both past and future, conversations, appointments, etc. What we need to do is not give these distracting thoughts second thoughts: the moment they happen, we just calmly bring our thoughts back to God. And if we have to do this one hundred times during prayer, then that’s simply one hundred chances to return to God. Hurry (linked to our cultural impatience) demands results, craves productivity, simply wants to slot prayer in as one more thing on our to-do list. Prayer is a waste of time – and it is if we think this way. But the point of contemplative prayer isn’t to get anything out of God; the main thing we ‘get’ out of prayer is God himself. Fear can also stop us. Cognizance of our failures can arise in prayer. The pain of our lives can surface. The desire to avoid this happening is strong. But prayer is a healthy place for this to happen. Why? Because however we may be looking at God (and ourselves), he looks at us with love. However we think we have failed, God loves us and renews us for another try. However wounded and scarred we might be, God loves us and has already provided for our healing – if we will let him.
Questions to Consider
What are your main distractions from prayer? How do they distract you? How do you combat them?
Prayer
Gracious God, thank you for your patience with me. Help me overcome the distractions that keep me from spending time with you. Amen.
Conclude with Silence (2 minutes)
Day 5 – Beginning Again for the First Time
Silence, Stillness and Centering before God (2 minutes)
Scripture Reading – 1 John 5:14
We could all pray better, whether better means more frequently, more fervently, more selflessly, more intimately. Such aspirations are good ones to have, as long as they encourage us and spur us on in our yearning for God, rather than becoming scourges and whips driving us relentlessly forward, mercilessly reminding us of our failings. Cultivating a habit of prayer; slowing down to the speed of love to spend time with Jesus, in contemplation of the Father; being open and vulnerable with our Creator and Saviour and Sustainer – this is how transformation happens. Scripture is full of people doing just this, full of inspiration to help us as we seek to spend time talking to God, talking with God, listening to God and being with God.
Whether you are already on the road of prayer, or whether you are only just about to step out onto it for the very first time, pray from where you are, not from where you are not. Prayer is a relationship, a two-sided conversation that is up to us, but not only up to us. Like the entirety of a life lived in the power of the Triune God, we have our part to play, but we also know that God himself is the always active partner in the relationship and in the dialogue of prayer. Through his Spirit he works in us and guides us; through his Spirit he helps us pray, he teaches us to pray as Jesus taught the disciples and as Jesus himself modelled. If we open ourselves humbly to him, he will meet us where we are and begin to lead us further on along the road - and further into himself.
Question to Consider
What is the next step for you to take to enter into a deeper prayer life with God?
Prayer
Loving Father, lead me deeper into you. Transform my life of prayer from where it is now to a place of greater intimacy with you. Amen.
Conclude with Silence (2 minutes)