Day 19: Dwelling with God in Contemplative Prayer
As you begin to spend time with God, settle yourself somewhere quiet and comfortable. Take a few deep breaths. Spend a few moments gathering your thoughts, becoming aware of God’s presence with you and in you.
Journal for 5 minutes on yesterday’s experiment of praying and fasting. What did you notice and learn? What challenged you? Did God say anything to you throughout the day?
Then, begin today’s devotional.
Read: Acts 17:24-28, Colossians 1:15-17, 1 Thessalonians 5: 16-18
Prayer is, for many of us, a struggle. As one my favorite theologians, Rowan Williams, puts it, “Prayer is something which many Christians are surprisingly embarrassed to talk about. It’s something we know we ought to do. Something we all feel we ought to do more of. Something most of us feel we could be better at. Something which we are convinced almost everybody does better than we do.”
One of the reasons I think prayer can be such a challenge is that we think of God as a distant, all-powerful being somewhere out there in the universe instead of, as Paul says, the One “in whom we live and move and have our being” and the One “in whom all things hold together.” If God is who Paul says He is, if God is holding us in existence here and now, and if He is the one in whom we live and move, then prayer isn’t some kind of long-distance telephone conversation. Rather, prayer means opening ourselves up to the deepest reality that is with us all the time. Prayer is being still and being quiet long enough to settle down into the Love that is creating us and sustaining us here and now.
Traditionally, the church calls this kind of prayer—prayer where we dwell with God in quietness and stillness—contemplative prayer. We try to silence the distractions, the noise, the smart phones, the constant barrage of entertainment and advertising—all the things that remove our attention from God’s ever-present love.
I would suggest that contemplative prayer is essential for following Jesus because Jesus Himself did a lot of it when He found time to be alone with the Father. Here Jesus shows us that dwelling with God—the very heart of contemplative prayer—is actually what we want more than anything else. It’s our deepest desire, and in it is true joy, true delight. That’s why Paul tells us famously to pray without ceasing. Paul knows that for us to find true thanksgiving and joy, we need to develop an internal silence and stillness where we are always dwelling with God.
Prayer: Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.
Today's Experiment: First, spend at least 5-10 minutes in silence. Still your mind; breathe deeply; let yourself sense God’s sustaining presence, His love holding you and all things in being. Then, say the ancient “Jesus prayer” (above) a number of times. Try, if you can, to let it become a part of your breathing as you go throughout the rest of your day. Breathe in during the first half of the prayer and breathe out during the second half: inhale Christ’s presence and exhale the sin that would keep you from Him. Many of the earliest Christian mystics and contemplatives would try to dwell in this prayer all day long. They would say the prayer internally as a kind of unbroken rhythm, just like breathing. Try it—the more you practice, the more the prayer gets inside you!
By Joe McQueen, Professor of English