Practicing the Presence, Or, Procrastinating Prayer?

Practicing the Presence,

Or

Procrastinating Prayer?

            When I invited my church family to covenant with me to pray for an hour a day, I was pleasantly surprised at how many accepted the challenge.  I’m sure that many were already praying for longer periods of time than I was.  I also know that many felt that this was a miserably long amount of time to spend rattling off a prayer list.  Frankly, I agreed with them, and encouraged them instead to spend that hour seeking God rather than seeking God’s blessings.    Still others came to me with what seemed like a pious objection to the idea of spending a quiet hour with Jesus:

            “I spend all day with Jesus,” they said.  “When I’m driving down the road, I’m thanking Him for the beautiful day.  When somebody at work tells me about some trouble they’re having, I take a second and ask God to bless them.  When my kids have me at wit’s end, I ask God for help.  Why do I need to spend a certain time alone in a chair, praying, when I can spend all day with the Lord?”

            It sounds good, on the surface.  I mean, who could argue with something like that?  Yes—we should spend all day with Jesus, in just the ways that have been stated above.  We should practice the day-in, day-out presence of God in our lives.  In fact, The Practice of the Presence of God is a wonderful work by Brother Lawrence, a must-read for anyone who wants to learn prayer.  In a nutshell, Brother Lawrence was a 17^th century Carmelite monk who hated his job working in the monastery’s kitchen.  It seemed an unspiritual drudgery to him, until one day he had a revelation:  Every dish and floor he scrubbed, he scrubbed for Jesus.  From that moment, he began to practice the presence of God everywhere he went.  He spent his days cooking with Jesus.  He passed his hours cleaning with the Master who cleansed his soul.  When he made his relationship with Jesus the main thing in his life, suddenly everything else took on new meaning.  Brother Lawrence writes, “We ought not to be weary of doing little things for the love of God, who regards not the greatness of the work, but the love with which it is performed."  He also says:

"We should fix ourselves firmly in the presence of God by conversing all the time with Him...we should feed our soul with a lofty conception of God and from that derive great joy in being his. We should put life in our faith. We should give ourselves utterly to God in pure abandonment, in temporal and spiritual matters alike, and find contentment in the doing of His will,whether he takes us through sufferings or consolations.”

What a beautiful thing, to practice the presence of Almighty God!  If this is what my parishioners meant when they said they spent all day with Jesus, then I applaud them.  I wish every Christian would spend all day with Jesus in this way.  The problem comes not from practicing the presence of God, but when this form of prayer is the only form of prayer.

An exasperated husband once sat with me in my church office, talking through his marital problems.  “I don’t know what she wants,” he said.  “She says she wants more time with me, but I think I spend plenty of time with her.”

“What to do you spend time doing?” I asked.

“We do everything together,” he said.  “We go shopping together.  We work in the garden together.  We watch movies together.  We eat dinner together every night.  We talk together.”

“But have you ever tried listening together?” I asked.

Now that was something he’d never tried.  He’d spent so much time just doing the mundane things of life—and those were good things.  But while he passed the time with her, he’d busied himself with his own talking.  So much so that he never took the time to listen.

The same can be true when we practice the presence of God.  Brother Lawrence’s epiphany was just what he needed at the time—a fresh experience of the mundane world.  He needed Christ’s presence to sanctify everything in his life.  The practice of the presence of God called him to “pray without ceasing (1 Thessalonians 5:17 NASB).”  Perhaps Lawrence’s spiritual awakening is just what you need—or maybe it has become an excuse for you to neglect a real quiet time with Jesus. 

Don’t get me wrong—I’m not saying you should compartmentalize your relationship with the Lord into one hour on your knees.  Lawrence was on to something, and so was Paul when he wrote to the Thessalonians.  But asking God to bless your efforts throughout the day is not enough.  There must be lengthy times of intimacy between the believer and the Lord. 

A husband and wife need to do more than run errands together.  They must gaze into one another’s eyes and speak sweet words of love.  They must truly be together—on a core level.  They must frequently share an embrace, a kiss, and make love with each other as God intended.  They must truly communicate with each other, and this involves both speaking and listening.  This is how marriages grow.  This is also how our relationship with God grows—when we take time to just be with Jesus.  Don’t just mutter a prayer to him throughout the day.  Share quiet time with Jesus.  Let Him hold you in His love.  Speak quiet words of worship and let Him respond with adoration. 

Practicing the presence of God can be an amazing way to spend your day—as long as it doesn’t become a way to procrastinate your prayer time.  Brother Lawrence would be horrified to find that his spiritual realization has given countless people an excuse to not have a daily time of prayer.   In The Living Reminder, Henri J.M. Nouwen says that believers should…

walk in [God’s] presence as Abraham did.  To walk in the presence of the Lord means to move forward in life in such a way that all our desires, thoughts, and actions are constantly guided by him.  When we walk in the Lord’s presence everything we see, hear, touch, or taste reminds us of him.  This is what is meant by a prayerful life.  It is not a life in which we say many prayers, but a life in which nothing, absolutely nothing, is done, said, or understood independently of him who is the origin and purpose of our existence.

            Walking in God’s presence also means sitting in God’s presence.  Praying without ceasing does not preclude your daily quiet time with Jesus.  As spouses must spend exclusive time together addition to all the errands, so the Christian must devote exclusive time to Jesus in addition to “ceaseless prayer” throughout the day.  The believer’s cry of relationship with the Lord should echo the words of Michael W. Smith’s song, “Draw Me Close.”

Draw me close to you
Never let me go
I lay it all down again
To hear you say that I'm your friend
You are my desire
No one else will do
Cause nothing else can take your place
To feel the warmth of your embrace
Help me find the way
Bring me back to you

You're all I want
You're all I've ever needed
You're all I want
Help me know you are near

           

Hymn to the Logos

 “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word was God.  He was with God in the beginning.”  These are the opening words of the Gospel of John.  Whereas Matthew and Luke start with the beginning of Jesus’ earthly life, and Mark launches with the beginning of Jesus’ ministry, John goes back to the beginning of all things.

            Genesis 1:1 says, “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.”  The next chapter tells how God spoke everything into being.  God’s spoken word became the generative force from which everything emerged.  Drawing from God’s use of the spoken word for creation, John begins his gospel by pointing out that all things begin with the Word.  The Greek word that John uses for Word is Logos.  The Logos is more than just a word.  The Logos is The Word.  The Logos is God’s creative intention articulated to the universe.  The Logos is God Himself. 

            The more I pray, the more I realize that prayer isn’t about getting what you want.  Prayer is about God.  It’s about a growing intimacy with the Creator who spoke your name and called you into existence.  It’s about knowing God—knowing the Word.  So what’s the best way to know the Word?  Pray the Logos.  Pray the Word.

            John says that the Logos “was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of men.”[i]  Prayer is about seeking God “in the beginning.”  It’s about daily starting over with God, in a place of uncomplicated trust.  His mercies “are new every morning.”[ii]  Each day is a new creation.  Revelation 21:5 says, “He who was seated on the throne said, ‘I am making everything new!’ Then he said, ‘Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true.’"  In His newness of constant creation and renewal, Jesus points us back to his Word which is faithful and true.[iii]

            It was The Word who spoke the world into being.  It was The Word who fashioned Adam and breathed into him the breath of life.  A rabbinical tradition says that when God breathed into Adam, God actually spoke the divine name, Yahweh, into the molded man so that he came to life.  It was one word that energized the first man, and it is still the Word that gives us life today.  “In him was life, and that life was the light of men.”[iv]  What could be more powerful than The Word?  What could be more simple than a word?  The Logos Prayer invokes the power and the simplicity of both.

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[i] John 1:2-4 NIV

[ii] Lamentations 3:23 NIV

[iii] Revelation 19:11

[iv] John 1:4 NIV

Public & Private Prayer

            Many people experience difficulty with their quiet time because their entire devotional life is based on public prayer.  In other words, they pray only at church, at the dinner table, or in prayer meetings.  Don’t get me wrong—there’s nothing wrong with public prayer.  In fact, author and prayer teacher Daniel Henderson makes the case that more is said in the Bible about public prayer than about private prayer.  Group prayer provides novices a way to learn prayer by listening to others.  It unites the hearts of believers and centers them on a common purpose.  Corporate prayer creates loving relationships in the body of Christ.  It invokes God’s presence, for God inhabits the praises of His people.[i]  But if public prayer is the only exposure you have to prayer, of course you’ll have difficulty imagining how a person might spend an hour doing that!

In his book Contemplative Prayer, Thomas Merton discusses the relationship between corporate and private prayer: 

Though liturgical prayer is by its nature more “active,” it may at any moment be illumined by contemplative grace.  And though private prayer may tend by its nature to greater personal spontaneity, it may also be accidentally more arid and laborious than communal worship, which is in any case particularly blessed by the presence of Christ in the mystery of the worshipping community…

The opposition between “official public prayer” and “spontaneous personal prayer” is largely a modern fiction.  And this is true whether “official” prayer is regarded as the “true” and “contemplative” prayer, or whether these adjectives are chosen to dignify personal devotion.[ii]

Merton’s stance is that public and private prayer are equal in nature, though they are often very different in function and form.  Public prayer focuses on the needs of the praying community, and their shared relationship to God.  While private prayer may still focus on the needs of others, the primary relationship to God is that of the person praying.  Public prayer tends to rely on eloquence in order to inspire the group to join in agreement, while private prayer rests rather on intimate expressions that might never be shown in a communal setting.  While there certainly are occasions when a public prayer might take on the tone of a private prayer, getting too personal in public isn’t generally advisable.  Similarly, while there are times when you may want to speak out loud to God in private prayer, addressing your Creator in private the same way you would in a public meeting might feel stilted and artificial.  These two types of prayer generally fall under the category, “separate but equal.”

            This blog is about your private quiet time with Jesus, not about public prayer.  Indeed, public prayer is an essential part of the healthy Christian life.  This blog’s focus on private devotion should by no means be understood as a statement against group prayer—that is simply a subject for a different work.  Henderson’s book, Fresh Encounters: Experiencing Transformation Through United Worship-Based Prayer, is an excellent resource for prayer group leaders and pastors who want to explore corporate prayer more deeply.  Henderson says that many Christians object to public prayer on the basis of Jesus’ warnings against hypocritical and ostentatious spirituality   In Matthew 6:5-6 (NIV), Jesus says:

“When you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by men. I tell you the truth, they have received their reward in full.  But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.”

The problem with this objection is that Jesus himself frequently prayed in public.  He wasn’t telling people that they should never pray in public, but instead intended them to make their prayer life a sacred thing between them and God.  Rather than putting on a show to impress others, Jesus’ followers should focus solely on their Lord, who is both the subject and object of their prayers.  When you pray in public, don’t do it to be seen by others.  Do it to have an experience of the living God. 

When given the choice between public displays of faith that draw attention to the worshipper, and private devotion where the worshipper can pour his heart out before God in seclusion, Jesus clearly prefers the latter.  He tells us to go to our room, close the door, and pray.  According to Henderson, the King James Version’s rendering of “inner room” as “closet” is a most unfortunate translation.  It would have worked in Shakespeare’s day, when the word meant a formal meeting place, but today it conjures images of kneeling among shoes and hanging coats.

In his book, How to Live a Holy Life, C.E. Orr writes about our need for the prayer closet.  Go inside, and shut the door, he says.  The problem is that…

Too many people leave the door open.  Prayer that feeds the soul must be offered with the door shut…God is in secret.  He is hidden from the world.  The world does not see him, neither knows him.  You can never reach God in your prayers unless you shut out the world.  Shutting the door means something more something more than closing the door of your literal closet.  Persons may enter the literal closet and close the door, and yet have the world in their hearts and thoughts.  Such have not closed the door in the true sense.

In the public assembly you must enter your closet when you pray, and shut the door, or your prayers will not avail with God.  You must talk from your heart to the heart of God.  Those assembled may hear your words, but they do not know the secret.  The secret is between your heart and the heart of God.  You scarcely hear your words.  You know and hear more of the speaking of heart.  There is a blessing in such praying; there is a joy that cannot be told.  Such prayer feeds the soul upon the divine life and lifts us in realms of light and happiness.  Thank God for the sweet privilege of secret intercourse with him.  O beloved, when you pray, enter into your closet, and be sure to close the door.[iii]

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[i] Psalm 22:3

[ii] Merton, Thomas.  Centering Prayer.  Herder and Herder:  New York.  1969.  Pg. 75.

[iii] Orr, C.E.  How to Live a Holy Life.  An eBook produced by Mark Zinthefer, Charles Franks and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team