When I was invited to write this column, I was a little bit intimidated about where to begin. Saints have written volumes about contemplative prayer. My wife can certainly tell you that I am no saint. But St. Augustine’s words, “My soul is restless until it rests in You O God,” penetrate to the deep passion of my heart. Prayer is a movement of response to our Creator who loves us and pursues us like the hounds of heaven. God is the consummate lover who wants to be in an intimate relationship with us as His created beings.

Contemplative prayer has been revolutionary in my search for God, my struggle to discover the fullness of Love, and my yearning for the complete truth. In contemplative prayer, I have been given a taste of God, of Love, and of Truth.

I came to faith during my teen years. My paternal grandmother was a Christian who had a strong influence on me having a heart to seek God. She mirrored God’s unconditional love to me in a visible and palpable way, which gave me hope that I wasn’t alone in the fragmented dysfunctional house where I grew up.

Grandma was a Protestant, so I followed that tradition. While I served in the Navy, I was introduced to a Christian group who discipled me in the disciplines of prayer, Bible study, scripture memory, and fellowship. I remember reading Robert D. Foster’s Seven Minutes with God as a guide on how to plan a daily quiet time. The prayer time suggested was 2.5 minutes and the format suggested was: Adoration, Confession, Thanksgiving, Supplication.

At that point in my spiritual journey, my concept of God vacillated between two extremes. At one extreme, I perceived Him as a remote benevolent monarch roaming around the universe who would punish me quickly for the slightest infraction. On the other side of the spectrum, I had a warped thought – maybe He was kind of like a celestial slot machine (a big sugar daddy) and if I could find the right formula, life would be rosy.

So my 2 ½ minute daily prayer life followed the pattern above, but mostly I really thought prayer was all about bringing a grocery list of requests to God. I was not living a faith-based prayer life.

In 1994 my world crashed. God used a series of circumstances to bring me face to face with Him. He left me no doubt that He is real, and has called me to be in a relationship with Him. To be in a relationship with God is something more incredible than marriage and marriage is a Holy Covenant. I can imagine if I would spend 2 ½ minutes a day with my wife, there wouldn’t be much intimacy. Yet the Creator of the whole universe who loved us even before He called us into being – even before He implanted us into our mother’s womb – and who loves us for eternity, knocks on the door of our heart quietly for us to invite Him in. That’s pretty incredible. I love being with my wife. I can assure you that I spend more than 2 ½ minutes a day with her. I can’t wait to spend time with her, and we’ve been married 32 years.

While God pursues us, He is the perfect gentleman. He patiently waits. He does not barge into our lives. He created us with a free will and He will not violate our free will. The choice is ours. Do we want to accept His invitation to be in relationship with Him?

Moving away from my “grocery list litany” style of praying and into a contemplative approach of fellowship with God was catapulted by an incredible little book which is one of the greatest pieces of Christian literature of all time entitled Practicing His Presence by Brother Lawrence and Frank Laubach. These two men in church history have written very practically and simply on the subject of the practice of the presence of Christ. Brother Lawrence lived in the 17^th Century, and Frank Laubach lived in the 20^th Century, but their writing is a testimony that the reality of walking almost continually in the awareness of the presence of Christ is possible. It is in the presence of Christ that I myself discovered the healing of my fragmented soul.

Off the top of my head there are many incredible writers on contemplative prayer who have helped me in my journey. I strongly recommend Henri Nouwen, Thomas Merton, and Francis Keating for starters.

I’ve been aware of God’s pursuit since I came to faith in my teen years, but my response was sort of an approach-avoidance posture. How can you really get to know someone if you don’t spend any time with that person? Seven minutes with God may have been fine during my infant years of spiritual development, but God doesn’t want us to be infants all our lives. For me personally, the shift in my head began when I read in Luke chapter 11 about one morning when, in response to Jesus’ disciples' request that He teach them to pray, Jesus gave them a format. I noted that the disciples didn’t ask Jesus how to pray. They said, “Lord, teach us to pray.” Up to that point in their spiritual journey, they had watched Jesus pray to the Father, but their minds had not comprehended that Jesus was actually God enfleshed in their midst.

I began to pray following The Lord’s Prayer, and making it very personal. Below is an example of how I began to pray. This type of prayer revolutionized my concept of God and moved me out of the “grocery list” mode into the very Presence of God:

I would pray, “Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name.” – Just saying those words connected me with the reality of Jesus saying, “our.” – God is my Father.

And I’d pray a sentence, “Father I thank You that hallowed – holy – is Your name, Abba Father. I thank You that You are my Father, my holy Father. God, I thank You that You are holy—that You are not a man that You should lie; neither the Son of Man, that You should repent. You have said, and shall You not do it? Or have You spoken, and shall You not make it good?(Numbers 23:19) I’d memorized that verse years ago and it seemed to float naturally to the surface of my mind in this prayer. God is not man. God is the Creator and man is His creation. God is holy, and I’d pause to meditate on that before moving on to the next sentence.

“Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.” – After praying those words I would pray: “Holy Father today I pray that Your heavenly kingdom would come to earth.” Imagine there being no separation from heaven. I was petitioning God to bring heaven into my day. Sometimes that happens you know – somebody pats you on the back, you get a smile when you’re having a bad hair day, another driver lets you squeeze into a packed lane during rush hour. Nature screams to me of the objective, visible reality that there is a God – that we have a Creator. You cannot look at a rose and say the textures and shading are random chance. God has used this prayer to open my eyes that heaven is a lot closer than we realize.

“Give us this day our daily bread.” – I pray “Lord Jesus, You are the Bread of Life and I pray that You would come in and fill my heart with Your living presence.” With my hand on my heart, I would do a centering exercise as I pray, “Lord Jesus, I thank You that You are in the Father. And Holy Father, I thank You that You are in Lord Jesus. And Lord Jesus, I thank You that You are in me and I am in You – that Your Holy Spirit lives in me, teaching me, praying for me, and comforting me.” And I would conclude that verse with, “Holy Father, I thank You for providing my daily needs.

“Forgive us our sins, as we forgive those who have sinned against us.” – I would pray, “Father forgive my sins, and help me forgive those who have sinned against me. Most of all, help me forgive myself.” I would name specific sins during this time if I could identify them.

“Lead us not into temptation.” – I would pray, “Father, today I pray that You would lead me away from temptation to sin.”

“Deliver us from evil.” – I would pray, “Father, today I pray that You would deliver me from the evil one—please put a hedge around me.”

“For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever and ever. Amen.” – I would pray, “Holy Father, truly Yours is the true kingdom, true power, and true glory for ever and ever. I thank You for the hope that because of Jesus’ finished work on the cross I am a part of that kingdom and that I am Your son who will one day be able to see You in all Your splendor and glory.” Amen

As I prayed that way for a number of months, an amazing thing began to happen. One morning God just sort of scooped me into His arms in a big hug. In the months previous to this moment, I knew I’d been trying to draw closer to God, but I don’t think I truly understood what I was doing until this moment. I had opened the door and let Him into my heart – we were in daily fellowship. It was like being on a date with God. He had been silently waiting at the door of my heart until I invited Him in. The movement into contemplative prayer was the key that opened the door of my heart. At this point, I have a confession to make to you my reader; I have come to realize that I have a Protestant mind, but a Catholic heart, which is a topic for another article.

As I moved further in my journey with contemplative prayer and I felt more comfortable conversing with God, I began learning other facets of prayer. No wonder I didn’t feel like God was listening to me all the years I was throwing grocery lists at Him. If I always greeted people with a list of “I wants,” I don’t think I would be successful in forming a real relationship with them. God wants a relationship with us that includes regular fellowship—He created us to be intimately connected to Him and contemplative prayer is one facet of walking that out.

August 2007