To Gaze on the Beauty of the Lord

For the Christian mystic, nothing could be greater, more pleasurable, more sublime an experience than to be granted a vision of the face of Christ.  Once or twice while in prayer, I have thought to discern the image of Jesus before me.  It has always been fleeting--and never distinct, lest I should fix my gaze upon my Lord's exact features.  Rather, it is the semblance of Christ that I see.  It seems that He appears before me, not in the flesh but as a being of light or shining crystal.  I can discern that there are features, yet I am unable to focus on them.  I suppose if I were able to get a clear view of Jesus' face, then I'd balk at every artist's representation or actor's depiction of our Lord, smugly saying, "That's not what He looks like at all!"  But the face of Christ is never that clear.  It is His presence more than His physical face that is important anyway--and with that I am always content.

I suppose another reason for the vagueness of Jesus' face within my mind is that, were I to enter into my time of prayer with determination to see Jesus' face, I would simply be able to pull the image up from memory.  In essence, I'd be able to manufacture a vision, convincing myself that the Lord had chosen to appear to me again, whether or not He had.  Instead, it's best to step carefully into prayer, meditation, and contemplation--without forming any image in my mind.  If the Lord chooses to bless me with a manifestation of His presence, I do not want to be guilty of trying to manipulate the manner in which He chooses to do so.

The psalmist says that He longs to dwell in house of the Lord, to gaze on God's beauty and seek Him in His temple (Psalm 27:4).  This we can do everyday in prayer.  The believer is the temple of God, and it is on the inward journey that we seek and find Him.  When I walk through the inner courts of my heart and mind, that's where I'm likely to find him.  If I'm going to have a vision of Christ, it will be in quiet contemplation when I'm undistracted by the commotion and commerce of the world.

But that's not the only way I can gaze upon His beauty.

Psalm 27:8 says, "Your face, Lord, I will seek."  I must be actively seeking God's face throughout my daily activities.  I don't have to wait for mystical moments to come upon me, in order to see Jesus.  Verse 13 says, "I remain confident of this: I will see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living."  This means that a practical spirituality, and not always a head-in-the-clouds mysticism, will reveal the face of Christ in ways I never expected.  The beauty of new-fallen snow.  The whisper of winter wind.  The laughter of a child.  These things reveal the face of our Maker as surely as a vision--and far more often.  It's in the land of the living that I will see the goodness of the Lord.  That is, if I wait for the Lord.

In The Meaning of Prayer, Harry Emerson Fosdick writes:

One has only to consider that frivolous American who in the Rembrandt room of the Amsterdam Gallery looked lackadaisically around the room and asked: "I wonder if there is anything here worth seeing"; one has only to recall the women who climbed an Alpine height on an autumn day, when the riot of color in the valley sobered into the green of the pines upon the heights, and over all stood the crests of eternal snow, and who inquired in the full sight of all this, "We have heard there was a view up here; where is it?" to see that there is a spiritual qualification for every experience, and that without it nothing fine and beautiful can ever be real to any one.  "Mr Turner," a man once said to the artist, "I would never see any sunsets like yours."  And the artist answered grimly," No, sir.  Don't you wish you could?"  How clearly then must the sense of God's reality be a progressive and often laborious achievement of the spirit!  It is not a matter to be taken for granted, as though any one could saunter into God's presence at any time, with any sort of life behind him, and at once perceive God there.

No, the manufacture of mystical experience is not for you or for me.  Sublime experiences in prayer are granted; they are not gotten by human striving.  If I want to intentionally experience the resplendent glory of God everyday, then I must observe them with my eyes open.  I must look to the sunsets, the infants, the shriveled old ladies in nursing homes, and gentle breezes that whisper the name of God.  This is how I gaze upon the beauty of the Lord.  This is how I see the goodness of God in the land of the living.  I hope that you'll keep these things in mind as you do today's Prayer Bead meditation:

A MEDITATION WITH ECUMENICAL PRAYER BEADS:
(Click here to get your own)

Invitatory - v. 4
One thing I ask from the LORD,
this only do I seek:
that I may dwell in the house of the LORD
all the days of my life,
to gaze on the beauty of the LORD
and to seek him in his temple.

Cruciform - v. 8
Your face, LORD, I will seek.

Weeks - v. 1
The LORD is my light and my salvation...
The LORD is the stronghold of my life.

Benedictory - vv. 13-14
I remain confident of this:
I will see the goodness of the LORD in the land of the living. 

Wait for the LORD; be strong and take heart,
and wait for the Lord.

Be Merciful - From Luke 6

Everyone has enemies.  Oh, they may not be like the arch-nemesis of a superhero in an action movie.  They might not even be like a playground bully.  In adult life, playground bullies take different forms: antagonists in the workplace, adversaries within families, and even vainglorious saboteurs within your house of worship.   The way I deal with my enemies reveals the degree to which Christ dwells in my heart--or, rather, the degree to which I'm abiding in Christ.  I can choose to allow them to disturb my inner peace, which is a path of contention.  Assuming that they are the aggressor and I am the target (the only position a child of God should be in, when conflict is present), and assuming that I resist them on their own battleground, I am bound to lose.  The fact that they are an aggressor means that they are an aggressor-type personality.  While they are used to conflict, as a Christian I should be so un-used to conflict that its ways are foreign to me.  So engaging in a battle on unfamiliar territory would be devastating to me, were I to engage in it.

Instead, Jesus teaches another way.  He tells me to pray for my enemies.  He says I should show mercy.  Do good to those who persecute me.  That's radically different from the way the world responds to bullies.  Jesus says, "Resist not evil...turn the other cheek."  If I'm going to follow Jesus' way, then I'm going to have to train myself to think differently.  I'm going to have to realize that, as Simon Weil says:

We live in a world of unreality and dreams.  To give up our imaginary position as the center, to renounce it, not only intellectually but in the imaginative part of our soul, that means to awaken to what is real and eternal, to see the true light and hear the true silence.  A transformation then takes place at the very roots of our sensibility, in our immediate reception of sense impressions and psychological impressions.  It is a transformation analogous to that which takes place in the dusk of evening on a road, where we suddenly discern as a tree what we had at first seen as a stooping man; or where we suddenly recognize as a rustling of leaves what we thought at first was whispering voices.  We see the same colors; we hear the same sounds, but not in the same way.

To empty ourselves of our false divinity, to deny ourselves, to give up being the center of the world in imagination, to discern that all points in the world are equally centers and that the true center is outside the world, this is to consent to the rule of mechanical necessity in matter and of free choice at the center of each soul.  Such consent is love.  The face of this love, which is turned toward thinking persons, is the love of our neighbor; the face turned toward matter is love of the order of the world, or love of the beauty of the world which is the same thing.  (from Waiting for God, by Simone Weil) 

When I take myself out of the center, I begin to love my enemies.  Instead, they become my neighbors and my friends.  Absenting myself from conflict, I can find beauty in those who oppose me.  I can see God in them, too.

Today, I invite you to a meditation using the Protestant prayer beads.  As you repeat these words, let them soak into your spirit.  When you complete the meditation with the Benedictory bead, understand that just as power went out from Jesus to bring healing to everyone, so His power flows from you, bringing healing to your friends and enemies.

A MEDITATION WITH ECUMENICAL PRAYER BEADS:
(Click here to get your own)

Invitatory - vv. 27-28
I say to you who hear, Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you,  bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you.

Weeks - v. 36
Be merciful, even as your Father is merciful.

Cruciform - v. 37
You will be children of the Most High.

Benedictory - v. 19
Power came out from him and healed them all.

My Soul Waits in Silence

For God alone my soul waits in silence;

from Him comes my salvation.

He alone is my rock and my salvation,

my fortress; I shall not be greatly shaken...

For God alone, O my soul, wait in silence,

for my hope is from him.

He only is my rock and my salvation; 

my fortress, I shall not be shaken...

Once God has spoken,

twice have I heard this:

that power belongs to God,

and that to you, O Lord, belongs steadfast love.

Psalm 62.1-2, 5-6, 11 ESV

I meet a lot of people who for one reason or another are waiting in silence.  Some are in hospitals, waiting for their bodies to heal.  Others are in nursing homes, waiting for someone to come visit them.  Still others are widows or widowers, advanced in years and unable to frequently leave their homes.  All these people are learning something about waiting in silence.

Unfortunately, it often takes something like this in order to make people slow down, rest, and wait in silence.  However, the psalmist who did not find himself in any of these situations says that he waits in silence.  By practicing the presence of God in times of quiet rest, he finds hope, salvation, and refuge.  Because he does this, he is not shaken by the storms of life.

Twice in this psalm, David says that he waits in silence.  Twice also he uses the Hebrew word selah, which means "pause and reflect."  It is no coincidence, then, that twice David says that he heard from God.  In other words, the more you wait in silence, the more you hear from God.  Sometimes God speaks to you of His great power, and other times He declares His steadfast love.  But it is in those moments of silence that you hear.  

"Be still, and know that I am God," says the Lord (Ps 46.10 ESV).  When we allow times of stillness in our lives, when we draw the curtain on the world's distractions, when we rest in God alone, we find our hope.  I pray that today you will take a few moments to wait in silence.  It's only by doing so that you can hear from the God of steadfast love.

Pray Thyself in Me

And the Holy Spirit helps us in our weakness. For example, we don't know what God wants us to pray for. But the Holy Spirit prays for us with groanings that cannot be expressed in words.

(Romans 8.26 NLT)

Weakness.   Submission.  Silence.  Most of us don't like words like this, because they indicate an inability to perform or act on our own behalf.  Yet, the apostle Paul said, "I delight in weaknesses...for when I am weak, then I am strong (2 Corinthians 12.10 NIV)."  Paul knew that there's serenity in silence and submission.  He knew the wonder of weakness.  He knew the abandon felt by the spirit in moments of simple trust, and the freedom found in not needing to pray in "the right way."  

As a Pharisee, Paul had been trained in the "right way" to do everything.  As Tevye said in Fiddler on the Roof, "We have traditions for everything: how to sleep, how to eat, how to work, how to wear clothes."  But the Spirit taught Paul that all our striving leads to losing.  The more we expect of ourselves in prayer, the more we fail.  There is a limit to our human ability, and a limit to our understanding.  But God makes up the differences, if we let Him.

In prayer, we must abandon our own desires and surrender them to God.  Rather than praying for the things that we want, we must pray for the things that God wants.  This would be difficult, were it not for the Holy Spirit.  For what do we know of God's desires?  1 Corinthians 2.9-12 (NLT) says: 

No eye has seen, no ear has heard, and no mind has imagined what God has prepared for those who love him.  But it was to us that God revealed these things by His Spirit.  For the Spirit searches out everything and shows us God's deep secrets.  No one can know a person's thoughts except that person's own spirit, and no one can know God's thoughts except God's own Spirit.  And we have received God's Spirit (not the world's spirit) so we can know the wonderful things God has freely given us.

Weakness and submission mean not trying to figure out what God wants, but waiting for God to reveal His will to our silent hearts.  When we settle in to God's Spirit, when we allow ourselves to "be still and know," then God's Spirit begins to pray through us.  Then, it is no longer we who pray, but the Spirit of God who prays in us.  Francois Fenelon put it this way:.

Francois Fenelon

"Lord, I know not what I ought to ask of thee; thou only knowest what I need....I simply present myself before thee, I open my heart to thee.  Behold my needs which I know not myself.  Smite, or heal; depress me, or raise me up; I adore all thy purposes without knowing them; I am silent; I offer myself in sacrifice; I yield myself to thee; I would have no other desire than to accomplish thy Will.  Teach me to pray.  Pray thyself in me."

"Pray thyself in me."  What freedom!  What abandon!  What simple trust!  How would it be if our prayers no longer bore the check marks of a "to do" list that a wife gives to her husband, but instead looked more like that wife simply sitting in peace with him, holding his hand?  

Jesus' prayers ("Not my will, but thine be done") were yielded to the Father--how unlike the demands that we place on our Lord when we expect Him to do our will!  Instead of our way, Jesus' way seems to be "Pray thyself in me."  Today, I invite you NOT to pray--but to yield to the Spirit, and let Him pray for you.  Simply rest in God, and be the prayer that He places within you.

Contemplative Prayer: Waiting for the Lord

Psalm 130 is a Pilgrim Song.  Travelers going to Jerusalem would sing this psalm, along with others, as they ascended the mountain of Zion to attend the feasts of Passover, Tabernacles, and Pentecost.  These pilgrim songs were published as a little booklet that contained Psalms 120-134, collectively called Psalms of Ascent.  For me, the Psalms of Ascent are beautiful to use as I center my heart for contemplative prayer, because when I practice this kind of prayer, I feel as if my spirit were ascending to God on Mount Zion itself.  My spirit soars within me as I engage in the ancient Christian practice of contemplation.  I hope you'll discover contemplative prayer for yourself.

"I wait for the Lord, my soul waits..."

Contemplative prayer is different from traditional prayer, which seeks to tell God everything that is on your mind.  In contemplative prayer, the praying person seeks to immerse herself in God's presence.  She wants to hear God, rather than being heard by God.  Simply put, contemplative prayer is resting in God's presence, without saying anything.  And, if possible, without thinking anything.  Because whatever you're thinking is distracting you from whatever God is thinking.  Slowly breathe in and out, resting in God and trusting in His love.  Whenever you find yourself distracted by your own thoughts, simply repeat a sacred word from the scripture text you've been reading (I call this sacred word a Logos Prayer).  Let this word bring you back to silence, where you wait on, and listen to God.  Try it for twenty minutes or so, and see the peace that it brings.

Psalm 130 prepares the heart for contemplative prayer.  It says:

130 Out of the depths I cry to you, O Lord!
2     O Lord, hear my voice!
Let your ears be attentive
    to the voice of my pleas for mercy!

3 If you, O Lord, should mark iniquities,
    O Lord, who could stand?
4 But with you there is forgiveness,
    that you may be feared.

5 I wait for the Lord, my soul waits,
    and in his word I hope;
6 my soul waits for the Lord
    more than watchmen for the morning,
    more than watchmen for the morning.

7 O Israel, hope in the Lord!
    For with the Lord there is steadfast love,
    and with him is plentiful redemption.
8 And he will redeem Israel
    from all his iniquities.

Psalm 130 notes three stages in contemplative prayer: confession, contemplation, and connection.

First, verses 1-4 prepare the praying person to enter the presence of God through prayers of confession.  It is impossible to enjoy contemplation if your heart is burdened by sin.  So begin your prayer time by confessing your sins to God, and allow His healing and forgiveness to flow through you.  Let the "grace that is greater than all our sin" nourish and restore you.  "Out of the depths (v.1)" might refer to the depths of guilt or the depths of sin, but it may simply indicate the depths of the heart.  During this initial time, it's okay to use words, tears, and body movements to indicate your contrition.  But once you feel the Holy Spirit's assurance of forgiveness, move on from confession to quiet contemplation.

Next, verses 5-6 move us into the heart of contemplative prayer--which is simply waiting on God, with all your heart and soul.  When you feel distracted, don't get discouraged.  Simply hope in God's word (Logos), which returns you to listening.  Breathe in deeply, and breathe out deeply.  Breathe in God's love, and breathe out any worry or fear you might have.  Inhale God's grace.  As you exhale, release any tension or unforgiveness you may have for someone else.  Listen to God's Spirit as you breathe.  God may speak, or He may not.  If not, don't worry about this.  It's just you and God, sitting together in silence like two people in love who don't need words.  Mutual listening is a beautiful thing.  Be attentive to God, even as a watchman is attentive to his surroundings.  Wait for God, even as the watchman waits for dawn.  If you're distracted, return to your Logos Prayer again.  (For me, today, in Psalm 130 it would be "mercy."  For you, it might be a different word entirely.)  Wait, watch, and listen.  Rest in God's presence.

Finally, verses 7-8 take us from an inward focus to an outward attention.  Connection to others is never forgotten, lest contemplative prayer become nothing more than navel-gazing.  As the praying person emerges from contemplation, he re-engages the world in a redemptive way.  "O Israel, hope in the Lord!"  If contemplative prayer is introverted, it is lived out daily in an extroverted way, testifying of God's steadfast love and redemption, and working to reconcile the world to God.  The person who practices real contemplative prayer does not remain cloistered behind inwardly-focused meditations.  Rather, he lets his prayer life shape the way he encounters the world around him.

Today, I invite you to contemplative prayer.  If you've never practiced it before, don't worry--it's among the easiest (and one of the most profound) forms of prayer you could practice.  Start with confession, then move into quiet contemplation.  Finally, emerge into a connection with the world that puts you to work as an ambassador of Christ's redemption.  I pray that your soul soars as you learn contemplative prayer--as your "soul waits for the Lord, more than watchmen for the morning."  





*Scriptures taken from the ESV. 

Patience in Prayer

Patience in Prayer

Today is the second day in our 41st week, reading the Bible through in a year.  Our scriptures today are:  Jeremiah 37, 21, 34; James 5; Psalm 79.

This morning as I settled into my prayer time, my mind was wandering and restless.  Distracting thoughts pelted my consciousness like stones.  Finally, I was able to center myself, when I realized God's words to me from James 5, verses 7-11 (NIV).  The entire passage reads:

7 Be patient, then, brothers and sisters, until the Lord’s coming. See how the farmer waits for the land to yield its valuable crop, patiently waiting for the autumn and spring rains. 8 You too, be patient and stand firm, because the Lord’s coming is near. 9 Don’t grumble against one another, brothers and sisters, or you will be judged. The Judge is standing at the door!

10 Brothers and sisters, as an example of patience in the face of suffering, take the prophets who spoke in the name of the Lord. 11 As you know, we count as blessed those who have persevered. You have heard of Job’s perseverance and have seen what the Lord finally brought about. The Lord is full of compassion and mercy.

Patience is a difficult thing when you're engaged in any activity.  In prayer, it can be especially difficult because we're not used to sitting quietly in God's presence and simply letting God be God.  We try to fill the silence with our own thoughts, wants, fears, petitions, and so on.  But God would rather we listened to Him than fill the air with restless chatter.  He has some advice for us, as we try to settle our thoughts for prayer.

"Be patient...until the Lord's coming."  Certainly, this pertains to Jesus' Second Coming, but I think it means more than that.  For over two millennia, Christians have been waiting for the Second Coming, but I believe Paul is telling us to be patient as we wait for the Lord to manifest His presence in our heart when we pray.  Certainly, He is always with us--but when we enter into prayer with a patient attitude, expecting God to show up in a way that we can discern, He will.  Be patient until the Lord's coming.  Wait for Him.

"See how the farmer waits..."  Jesus talked about farmers all the time, drawing analogies from the agricultural life in order to demonstrate spiritual truth.  Now, Paul does the same thing.  The farmer sows his seed, and then he waits--simply trusting that the earth will produce.  Once you've prayed, don't fret about it anymore.  See how the farmer waits, with quiet trust, and do the same thing.  God will provide the increase.

"Stand firm..."  It's easy to waver in prayer, but God wants believers who will not falter.  Standing firm in prayer means sinking your feet deep in the mud of God's promises. The promises of God will cement you in place.  When you stand on His promises, He won't let you fall.

"Perseverance" is the key when you're struggling in prayer.  Sometimes you don't feel like praying.  Sometimes it's a struggle.  Sometimes you can even suffer in prayer.  But don't give up.  Like did, you've got to see your prayer through until God brings His blessing.

The unifying concept in all these four phrases is simply the idea of consistent trust and passivity before God.  The word "patient" comes from the root word "passive."  To be patient before God means to rest in Him, to quit trying to work and struggle, and simply trust.  Too often our prayers are filled with struggles within ourselves, wrestling with God, or battles with the principalities.  Why not try simply resting in God?  Be passive before Him.  Trust that He will work His purpose out.  Wait for the coming of the Lord.

Selah - Pause and Reflect

In Psalm 46, the psalmist declares that even as the storm rages all around, there is a quiet center, a fortress, where refuge can be found.  That fortress is found not behind walls, but behind the shield of God's presence.  When we get quiet, we can know God's peace, even in the center of the storm.  Three times in eleven verses, the psalmist uses the phrase "Selah" which means "pause and reflect."  Some Bible scholars say this is a music notation, and others suggest it is a reminder to reflect on the meaning of the verses.  Either way, Selah reminds us that taking time to pause and reflect helps us to find peace as the storms of life rage around us.  Verses 1-3* say:

God is our refuge and strength,
    a very present help in trouble.
2 Therefore we will not fear though the earth gives way,
    though the mountains be moved into the heart of the sea,
3 though its waters roar and foam,
    though the mountains tremble at its swelling. Selah

It seems that when we are in trouble, the first reflex we have is to jump around to try to fix our problems.  When fear overrides our faith, we move into our habitual ways of counter-attack when we are attacked, of reacting to situations rather than thoughtfully responding.  But when we take time to engage in Selah, then we remember that in the center of it all, God is our refuge and strength.  No matter what disasters are going on around us, there is calm in the storm when we pause and reflect, and listen to the Lord.

4 

Verses 4-7 say:

There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God,
    the holy habitation of the Most High.
5 God is in the midst of her; she shall not be moved;
    God will help her when morning dawns.
6 The nations rage, the kingdoms totter;
    he utters his voice, the earth melts.
7 The Lord of hosts is with us;
    the God of Jacob is our fortress. Selah

Here, we can understand the "city of God" to be more than just a place called Jerusalem.  Here, the City of God represents the people of God.  Psalm 125:2 gives an analogy between the city and the people, saying, "As the mountains surround Jerusalem, so the LORD surrounds his people, from this time forth and forevermore."  The river doesn't make glad a place--the river makes glad a people.  What is the river?  It's the never-ending flow of the Holy Spirit--the river of life that flows from God to us.  It's the salvation we have through Jesus, and the ability He gives us to flow in the perfection of His will.  It's the perfect peace that He gives us when our minds are stayed on Him (Isaiah 26:3).  This river is available to every believer who will practice Selah, who will pause and reflect on God's presence in the center of the storm.  When a city is besieged, it won't last long unless it has a dependable water source.  Jerusalem was fed by a river that flowed through a hidden tunnel.  When armies came against them, that river made glad the city of God.  In the same way, when the enemy of your soul comes against you, the never-ending flow of God's presence can make you glad.  Even though the nations rage and kingdoms totter, even though it seems like the earth is melting around you, God is your fortress and you will not be moved.

In verses 8-11, we encounter another "Selah."  This time, it's not simply a notation at the end of the verses.  It's a command from the Lord Himself.

8 Come, behold the works of the Lord,
    how he has brought desolations on the earth.
9 He makes wars cease to the end of the earth;
    he breaks the bow and shatters the spear;
    he burns the chariots with fire.
10 “Be still, and know that I am God.
    I will be exalted among the nations,
    I will be exalted in the earth!”
11 The Lord of hosts is with us;
    the God of Jacob is our fortress. Selah

"Be still, and know that I am God."  God tells us to be still.  Practice Selah, and you will know the presence of God.  When desolations come on the earth, remember that God is your refuge and strength.  When you find yourself at a loss for words, it's okay.  Just practice Selah.  Pause.  Reflect.  Let the Word of God speak.

Today, I give you a song by Mercy Me, entitled "Word of God, Speak."  I invite you to get comfortable, sit still, close your eyes, and play the video.  Let the words of the song become your prayer.  Breathe deeply in, and breathe deeply out, as you listen to the song and pray its lyrics to the Father.  Then, as the song concludes, continue to sit still.  Be still, and know the presence of God.  Take a few minutes to listen--and let the Word of God speak to your heart.

*All scriptures are taken from the ESV.