Some reflections about praying and being with God

I admit don’t pray very well. 

I am okay when I have my own private prayers because I will just speak my mind without much thought about structure or form. I wouldn’t think of what I should say, I will just speak my mind and from the heart, sometimes casual and sometimes formal. 

But when I pray in public or when I attend prayer meetings, I get quite stressed up as I don’t usually know what to say. I do know what to pray for, especially since it’s a prayer request. I just don’t know how to pray it. 

I also hold the view that we do not treat prayer like a wishing well, asking only for things we want, or reminding God to keep his promises, as if he needs any reminding. 

So to the very core of it, I do not really understand prayer. To me, God already knows what’s best and will give us his best, whether in a form of a blessing or discipline, he knows what is best for us. 

So then, why and what do I pray? 

I pray because it’s commanded by God and so I do it. But what do I pray about. I am not exactly sure and so other than taking on how Jesus taught us to pray, I would just speak my mind and my heart.

I also began to see what books I have on prayer and found I this in my stash. 

Praying Backwards, Transform Your Prayer Life by Beginning in Jesus’ Name

by Bryan Chapell

I have just started reading it and I like it. I do not want to rush through it and thought I’d read it bit by bit to learn and practice as I go. 

Here are some gems so far from the Introduction and first portion of the first chapter:

When we pray “in Jesus’ name,” we pray for his sake more than our own. We still present our desires and concerns to God, but we do so in the context of yielding our priorities to Christ’s priorities.

In this fallen world you cannot avoid suffering; you can have peace in the midst of it. You cannot avoid trials; you can have confidence of their purpose. You cannot bind God by your prayers; you can guarantee his blessing. You cannot direct the will of God; you can pray according to his will and rest in the assurance of his love. You can pray knowing that God will marshal the powers of heaven to accomplish on earth all he knows is best for your eternity. Praying in Jesus’ name is the key.

We approach the throne of grace without the burden of our sin and with the righteousness of our Savior. We ask for his blessing based on God’s wisdom, not ours. We trust in his faithfulness, not in the adequacy of our faith.

I especially like what Chapell says here: We trust in his faithfulness, not in the adequacy of our faith. 

I always berate myself for not praying enough, for not reading his Word enough, for not keeping close to God enough, and I realized I have been depending a lot on what I have done or not done to keep this relationship with God, when at the end of it all, it is God himself who first sought me, and who first call to fellowship and commune with me. 

So the next time when I am reminded to pray or read the Bible or just to be in his presence, I must not do it in guilt that I have not done enough, but to simply be there with the ever-present Emmanuel, God who is with us, who is with me. 

pearlie

My struggle with pride and humility

I struggle a lot with pride and humility. Do you? 

I have been taught to be humble my whole life but in my efforts to be humble in all I do, prideful thoughts still come to my mind untethered. I found that I will wallow myself in them but the moment I realize what I am doing, I will feel so ashamed and guilty about it.

According to the dictionary, humility is "modest opinion or estimate of one's own importance, rank," and pride is "a high or inordinate opinion of one's own dignity, importance, merit, or superiority, whether as cherished in the mind or as displayed in bearing, conduct." (emphasis mine)

So what does this mean? As much as I work on myself not to be prideful, to teach myself and practice humility, those prideful thoughts still come. I can't seem to stop them. What can I do? What am I suppose to do? Stop thinking?

Humility is a command from God. It is the fear of the Lord. We are called to be humble before God. But when I looked for the practice of humility in the bible, it is very much focused on doing and being, not thinking. Humility is to be patient and bearing with others in love (Eph 4:2), it is to value others above yourself (Phil 2:3), it is the willingness to be last and be servant of all (Mark 9:35), it is serving one another in love (Gal 5:13).*

I also started wondering how great but humble people experience prideful thoughts. Do they have them? How do they handle it if they do?

Could the key be, as in the definition above, not to cherish self in the mind? I cannot deny that prideful thoughts do come, but I think I still need to work on my mind to stop them. And when they come, to realise it as quickly as possible and to surrender to God as a work in progress and move on.

It is indeed a struggle. 

pearlie 

*I know I am probably not thorough enough in my search. I am sure I would have missed out verses on humility and the mind. If you know them, please let me into it.

Lord, teach us to love

CG was cancelled today but I have prepared for bible study on love in 1 Cor 13. I have looked up the Chinese character for love and saw that it can actually be a summary of 1 Cor 13! 

Love in Mandarin in traditional Chinese is 愛 (ài). The parts of "爫" and "夂" both mean actions. "心 (xīn)" means heart. Isn't it clear then that all our actions mean nothing if it is not from the heart, which sits right in the center of it all.  

"If I speak with human eloquence and angelic ecstasy but don’t love, I’m nothing but the creaking of a rusty gate. If I speak God’s Word with power, revealing all his mysteries and making everything plain as day, and if I have faith that says to a mountain, “Jump,” and it jumps, but I don’t love, I’m nothing. If I give everything I own to the poor and even go to the stake to be burned as a martyr, but I don’t love, I’ve gotten nowhere. So, no matter what I say, what I believe, and what I do, I’m bankrupt without love." 

(1 Cor 13:1-7, The Message)

Our Father in heaven, you have said that of faith, hope and love, the greatest of these is love. Faith will become sight and hope will see realization when we finally meet you. Only love will last forever and forever. Help us grow and mature in love in the way you have taught us.

"Love never gives up.

Love cares more for others than for self.

Love doesn't want what it doesn't have.

Love doesn't strut,

Doesn't have a swelled head,

Doesn't force itself on others,

Isn't always "me first,"

Doesn't fly off the handle,

Doesn't keep score of the sins of others,

Doesn't revel when others grovel,

Takes pleasure in the flowering of truth,

Puts up with anything,

Trusts God always,

Always looks for the best,

Never looks back,

But keeps going to the end.

Love never dies. Inspired speech will be over some day; praying in tongues will end; understanding will reach its limit. We know only a portion of the truth, and what we say about God is always incomplete. But when the Complete arrives, our incompletes will be canceled. When I was an infant at my mother’s breast, I gurgled and cooed like any infant. When I grew up, I left those infant ways for good. We don’t yet see things clearly. We’re squinting in a fog, peering through a mist. But it won’t be long before the weather clears and the sun shines bright! We’ll see it all then, see it all as clearly as God sees us, knowing him directly just as he knows us! But for right now, until that completeness, we have three things to do to lead us toward that consummation: Trust steadily in God, hope unswervingly, love extravagantly. And the best of the three is love."

(1 Cor 13:4-13, The Message)

Amen

pearlie

The still small voice

It has been awhile since I've settled down to read a book. There is just too many things happening at the moment that I could not find the time and when I do, I am just too exhausted.

I am still reading Dallas Willard's Hearing God but I have begun to love and appreciate Proverbs 20:27, and what Willard wrote about the still small voice, being one of the ways how God speaks to us. He said,

The final means through which God addresses us is our own spirits—our own thoughts and feelings toward ourselves as well as toward events and people around us. This, I believe, is the primary subjective way that God addresses us. Of all the ways in which a message comes from within the experience of the person addressed (such as dreams and visions or other mental states), the form of one’s own thoughts and attendant feelings is the most common path for hearing God for those who are living in harmony with God. Of all the possible subjective routes, this mode is best suited to the redemptive purposes of God because, once again, it most engages the faculties of free, intelligent beings involved in the work of God as his colaborers and friends.

Thus the familiar King James Version of Proverbs 20:27 says, “The spirit of man is the candle of the Lord, searching all the inward parts of the belly.” This is possibly better put in the Jerusalem Bible: “Man’s spirit is the lamp of Yahweh, searching his deepest self.”

In a passage of great importance to our exploration here, the apostle Paul makes a comparison between humans and God regarding self-knowledge: “For what human being knows what is truly human except the human spirit that is within? So also no one comprehends what is truly God’s except the Spirit of God” (1 Cor 2:11). Paul then points out that we have received the Spirit of God and concludes that we can therefore search out and know the very mind of God by means of his Spirit—in contrast to the proverb quoted earlier, which emphasizes the Lord’s use of our spirit. After quoting the question from Isaiah 40:13, “Who has directed the spirit of the Lord, or as his counselor has instructed him?” the apostle replies, “But we have the mind of Christ” (1 Cor 2:16).

So God uses our self-knowledge or self-awareness, which is heightened and given a special quality by his presence and direction, to search us out and reveal to us the truth about ourselves and our world. And we are able to use his knowledge of himself—made available to us in Christ and the Scriptures—to understand in some measure his thoughts and intentions toward us and to help us see his workings in our world.

pearlie
Source: Dallas Willard, Hearing God: Developing a Conversational Relationship with God, IVP, 2012.

My Lectio Divina

I continued reading Dallas Willard's Hearing God, Developing a Conversational Relationship with God last night and it was timely that I came to the section on a Lectio Divina, or Divine Reading.

I needed it because of a challenge I'm currently facing. The passage was exactly what I needed. It was on 2 Kings 6:11-17, where the king of Syria was at war with Israel at the time of prophet Elisha.

Lectio Divina is a traditional Benedictine practice of scriptural reading, meditating and prayer, to have a close communion with God. It has four parts to it: lectio (reading), meditatio (meditation), oratio (prayer) and contemplatio (contemplation).

I found this article helpful: Step by Step Through Lectio Divina, although it's Catholic in context. I will be using some of the material from here and from Willard's:

Firstly, I prepare myself in a quiet place free from distraction. I become quiet before God. I still my heart and place myself in the loving presence of Jesus. I commend to him all my worries, obligations and hassles of the day. They will still be there when I finish, or they will be resolved.

Lectio
I read the passage attentively, reverently, slowly. I patiently wait for God to reveal himself. His divine mystery cannot be contained or controlled by me. I let myself be taken in by his word and be drawn to him. I will not rush. I take my time, with patience and perseverance. I will allow myself to be immersed in the situation, because “those who lived through those experiences felt very much as we would have if we had been in their place”. I will listen with the ear of my heart for a word or phrase, a detail of the story that shimmers or stands out to me. I will see where I find myself in the passage: as one of the people in the passage, or a thing or even a fly on the wall watching it all happen. I do not choose this myself. I let the Spirit bring it to me.

The section that shimmers to me from the reading was v.12, where the king asked his servant if there was a spy in his army. The servants replied, "None, my lord, O king; but Elisha, the prophet who is in Israel, tells the king of Israel the words that you speak in your bedroom." And the I find myself as Elisha's servant in v.16-17 when he found an army with chariots and horses all around the city. Elisha said to him, "Do not be afraid, for those who are with us are more than those who are with them." Then Elisha prayed and said, "O LORD, please open his eyes that he may see." So the LORD opened the eyes of the young man, and he saw, and behold, the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire all around Elisha.

Meditatio
This is my human response to God in his word. I ponder and ruminate what I have just read. I quietly savor the word and meditate on it in expectation. I consciously open myself to him and let him touch my heart. I will engage my thought, imagination, emotion and desire. I reflect and consider the word or phrase that stood out to me and ask: why do these words resonated with me? Who or what I found myself to be in the passage? How does it feel to be this person or object? What draws me? What am I thinking or feeling about God? I ponder awhile and then I ask God: how does this connect with my life today? What do I need to know or be or do?

The passage stands out for me because God is indeed all-present. Really, whom shall I fear? And as the servant of Elisha, I felt I was in awe of God who is all-powerful and able to protect me and save me, no matter what happens.

Oratio
This is the prayer of my heart: unique, personal, honest and spontaneous, specific to the experience of encountering God in his word. I pray whatever I need to pray. I thank God for something or ask God for something.

I thank God for revealing himself to me, for showing me I need not be afraid because I have a sovereign and loving God who will not leave me or forsake me.

Contemplatio
This stage is God's response to me, totally beyond my control. I cannot create contemplation by myself. It is his divine gift. I do as I am led. I'm totally passive, held by the mystery of God. I will wait on him or simply be with him. I sit in the companionship of God, the one who showed up and can be seen. It's God's gaze on me and my gaze of faith back at him. I become focused on the Lord. It can be deep, intimate, intense and somstones tearful, often too deep for words. It's childlike, a surrender to the loving will of my Father in an even deeper union with his beloved Son. His gaze purifies my heart, illuminates my eyes with the eyes of Jesus, and teaches me compassion. I allow the Holy Spirit to shape me in the form of my Savior.

I nestled into the presence of God and enjoyed his peaceful and complete presence. I then fall into a deep peaceful slumber trusting in his love and righteousness.

I need nothing but God, and to lose myself in the heart of God.
~ St. Margaret Mary Alacoque

pearlie

My 2016 Reading List

In my 2016 goal to Abide in the Lord, I'm set to re-read Dallas Willard's Hearing God.


Hearing God, Developing a Conversational Relationship with God
by Dallas Willard

I have been getting recommendations to books in my GoodReads account. However, I've just realised that by putting one book in a folder, I could get a more focused recommendation. I did that with Willard's book and I got these very interesting titles, which I will put in my 2016 reading list.


God is Closer Than You Think
by John Ortberg


A Testament of Devotion
by Thomas R. Kelly


Sacred Companions, The Gift of Spiritual Friendship and Direction
by David G. Benner


Sacred Pathways, Discover Your Soul's Path to God
by Gary Thomas


The Deeper Journey, The Spirituality of Discovering Your True Self
by M. Robert Mulholland Jr.

Ah! I look forward to getting copies of these books and get started on them.

pearlie

Hearing God - the quiet inner voice

I have been quite discouraged lately, and I felt my prayers were like monologues. I did try to listen and I did read the Bible but when it came to my prayers, it was like facing a wall.

That was when I went searching for good books on Christian living and spirituality and found Dallas Willard's Hearing God: Developing a Conversational Relationship with God. I immediately bought a copy and started reading it straightaway.

Hearing God: Developing a Conversational Relationship with God
by Dallas Willard, IVP, 2012

It is an excellent book.

Willard firmly says that God do speak to us and we do hear him when we listen. He says, "people are meant to live in an ongoing conversation with God, speaking and being spoken to...he can and does guide us by addressing us."

One of my favourite parts of the book was when Willard used this analogy to explain why we need to be in Christ, to be given a new life to live and breathe in him, and how if we are dead to him we will never see or understand him and in the same way if we are dead to the world, and alive in Christ, we should not be "understanding" or succumbing to the world. He writes, "Though alive as a cabbage, it is dead to the realm of play. Similarly, a kitten playing with the string can make no response to numbers or poetry, and in that sense the kitten is dead to the realm of arithmetic and literature...without this [new] birth we cannot recognise God's workings: we do not possess the appropriate faculties and equipment. We are like kittens trying to contemplate a sonnet."

Brilliant!

In all my life, thus far, I am absolutely sure that God literally spoke to me, though not in an audible voice, twice. And in both times, with only two words. Brief, but powerful. My life and my faith have certainly been strengthened as a result.

Willard has now helped me confirm it and I am now nudged into pursuing this continuing conversation with God that I hope will grow into communion with him and finally a union with my God.

pearlie

p/s I just discovered that Dallas Willard has just died recently on May 8, 2013, aged 77. Here is a tribute to him by John Ortberg.

This is My Body, This is My Blood

One of the interesting experience I had during this silent retreat was the mass services that I have been attending. First, I must highlight that all the silent retreats that I have attended, four so far, were ran by Catholics. It is only because I only know of silent retreats organized by them. I don't seem to find any details about the ones ran by Reconre, and I have not encountered any other people who do them in Malaysia.

Anyway, about the Catholic mass, I recognise the sensitivity of the Catholics with regards to non-Catholics who attend mass, and I know that it is common practice that most priests do not allow non-Catholic to partake in the bread and wine. I accept that - because I do not subscribe to the doctrine of transubstantiation and therefore I am okay not taking it, which has been the case for the first two retreats.

During the third retreat, the father commented to the non-Catholics that if we would choose to receive it, we are invited to do so. He said the choice was ours. I did not and the reason was theological. I felt that if I choose to take it, then I will be subscribing to the dogma of transubstantiation because it will be given to me as such, based on the belief of the attending priest.

But during the this retreat however, things turned out very differently. During mass on the first night of the retreat, I automatically remained in my seat when the retreatants proceed to received the bread and wine.  Nobody said anything, the priest was silent about it, and I let it be, as being the common practice of non-Catholics in a mass. 

The next morning however, when I had my reflective session with a Catholic sister, she asked me very inquiringly, "Don't you take Holy Communion together with people in your church?" 

"Of course! I do! I do not take it in a Catholic mass because..." 

"Because you are sensitive to the feelings of the Catholics." she finished for me. 

I just nodded. She continued saying that she has spoken to the father about it and that it was okay if I desire to join them in receiving the sacrament. I thanked her for it and left the matter at that.

But I found myself in a dilemma. I had not tell her that though one of the reasons why I did not partake with them was because I respected them, the bigger reason was because of my theological stand. Like I mentioned, I felt that if I were to take it, it would seem like I am subscribing to the doctrine of transubstantiation. But she had approached it from the perspective of the body of Christ, that we come together to partake in the holy meal as a family in the Lord. 

I never felt so torn between. It felt wrong taking it and it felt wrong not taking it. As the time for mass drew closer and closer, I began to feel quite panicky. What should I do? Should I take it, or should I not take it? Or should I just not attend mass? 

I started writing my thoughts down. I write for therapeutic reasons. I write to feel better, I write to still my thoughts, I write to manage and to put in place my one million and one thoughts. 

And as I do so, the body of Christ begin to win over theology. But as I walked to the chapel, I was still undecided. As mass proceeded on, and as I begin to pay closer attention to the words uttered, I finally set my mind and stepped forward to partake in the holy meal together.

And that in itself is a very refreshing experience. I still do not believe or subscribe to the doctrine of transubstantiation, and it did not matter. What was special was that it has brought me to look at the Holy Communion anew. For the Methodists, we see it as the Holy Mystery of the Real Presence. Whilst it has not literally turned into the body and blood of Jesus, it is more than a symbol, more than a remembrance.  It is a Means of Grace. It is a holy sacrament that brings us into the holy presence of God through his grace and mercy.

I will not partake it anymore as before, I was serious about it but yet I can't help it but to say that it was in a sense of nonchalance in comparison to how the Catholics do it.

I will now partake it with more seriousness, more awe, more wonder, and in worship to my Lord Jesus Christ.

We will have the last mass service for the retreat later today. This may be the last mass I am permitted to partake in and as such, I will savor it and savor in the special and holy presence of my Lord.

Thanks be to God.

pearlie

Centering Prayer

Lately, I have been trying out a more contemplative prayer way by spending 15 minutes in the morning just being quiet. I am not sure if it is some kind of centering prayer, but what I try to do is to be still and spend that 15 minutes of quietness focused on God. The time usually pass by very quickly, which may be a sign that it will be good to increase the length of time slowly but surely.

It is not easy to keep complete focused all the time, but it still is a very good, peaceful and deliberate time of being in God presence. I do not desire to "empty" my mind in the quietness, but rather to fill it with thoughts of God. So, I began to pick favourite bible verses to dwell on, letting them sink in.

But I realised something today. I found that most of the verses that I have been choosing so far for the quiet meditation are those that focused on me in relation to Him. I do not think it is all wrong, I am after all desiring to have a closer relationship with Him. And so I chose John 1:1-4 today, though I was not so attentive today.

Nevertheless, I must say, it should come with more practice.

pearlie

The Circle of My Relationship with Jesus

I completed my retreat today - I have mixed feelings about it.

For one, I signed up for a silent retreat but it turned out not a silent one. Silent retreats are a blessing for introverts like me who sometimes feel drowned in the sea of extroverts, God bless them, they are everywhere!

The theme of the retreat was Friendship with Jesus Through Spiritual Exercises. I tend to be careful about the theme of friendship in relation to Jesus. If I am not mistaken, Jesus does not call himself our friend. He only called us his friends.

This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends. You are my friends if you do what I command you. No longer do I call you servants, for the servant does not know his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you. You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should abide, so that whatever you ask the Father in my name, he may give it to you. These things I command you, so that you will love one another.
~ John 15:12-17

I have not done much exegesis on this passage yet, but what I can say is that Jesus in calling us his friends is related to his work on the cross, where he laid down his life for us. This friendship is not reciprocal nor chummy, which is the danger if we see too much into Jesus as our friend. The context of friendship, I believe, is only in relation to him giving up his life. The language in the passage do not portray Jesus as friend - a friend as we understand it (1) do not command as Jesus is doing here and (2) friends choose each other to be friends, but we did not choose Jesus but he chose us.

I have not fully digested what I read here but it might be useful if you want to think about it more.

With regards to the spiritual exercises, it was described in the website that spiritual exercises will be introduced in the retreat but only one format of exercise was used. It was alright, really - it is quite a good structure though I'd rather have some variety. I know I sound like a whiner, but doing 12 exercises for 3 full days using the same format is really a bit much for me.

But I have had a good experience with God nonetheless. Each of the exercise were accompanied with a symbol and I thought that was good as it will help connect us to the experience we had in each exercise.

The spiritual exercise involve:
1. Preparation - before my prayer place, I consider ____ (e.g. how God created life). I make a gesture of reverence and humility.
2. Opening Prayer - With simple words, I offer my ____ to God/Father/Jesus/the Holy Spirit (e.g. offer my whole life).
3. Desire - I desire to ____. (the one intention of the exercise, e.g. know the the life-giving God).
4. Prayer - imagination contemplation of a related Scripture passage.
5. Conversation using the symbol.

The symbols were presented in the friendship theme but I am going to change it into a broader relationship perspective. Another observation is that I find that not all of the symbols were directly applicable. I don't know...I do not want to have such a critical spirit but yet, these things matter to me. So I am going to make changes as well.

The Circle of My Relationship with Jesus


Water
The Spirit hovers above the water to symbolise God who is the creator

Earth
Life that is brimming in the soil to symbolise Gos who is the life giver

My Grandma's Thimble
(anything that belongs to your grandmother or your birth certificate)
The link to my ancestors in our genealogy to symbolise my link to Jesus

Mirror
My image in the mirror to symbolise God creating me in his image
(I do not know how to change this. This is one exercise that I had the most problem with. I could not carry out the spiritual exercise because I could not relate the image I see in the mirror,i.e. my face, as an image of God. And if the mirror symbol is picked up from 1 Cor 13:12, we have to realise that mirrors at that time are made of cast metal or bronze, i.e. the image that you see will be dim and unclear, and the context of the mirror here is not related to us being created in his image. What do you think will serve as a better symbol?)

Bread
The body and the blood of Christ in the coming together as one body of Christ

Ointment
The ointment "in the alabaster jar" to symbolise that Jesus accepts us

Seeds
The word of God that God sowed on us as soil to symbolise listening to God

Ring
The ring that the forgiving father gave to the prodigal son who returned to symbolise forgiveness

Oil
The healing oil that symbolises God's healing power

Towel
The towel that Jesus used to wash the disciples' feet to symbolise servanthood

Fruit
A fruit to symbolise that I am merely a branch of the vine who is Jesus who is the source of everything I have and need

Cross
The cross of Christ where Jesus carried my guilt and shame

New Clothing
New clothes to symbolise that I am a new creation and risen with Christ into a new life

Candle
Fire on a candle to symbolise the Holy Spirit who is now in me, renewing me everyday in Christ, and bringing the symbols into a complete circle.

pearlie