As I approach my daily prayer time, here are some of my thoughts. All too often I do not do these things well or at times not at all, but when I do, it seems to bear good fruit. I am not inventing anything, but I am heavily leaning upon the wisdom of multiple saints.
FOCUS
Do I have the right level of attention to God/ my chosen sensitivity, earnest involvement of all my mental faculties – that is like the attention I would give if I were in a war similar to a soldier being briefed for a battle with life and death consequence if I miss anything.
CONNECTION
Connect with God = in his presence, I in Him, He in me.
Mother Theresa said to “pray before we pray” to get to awareness of His presence, even if we don’t feel anything. He loves us infinitely (all He does is infinite, the same as His love for Jesus, that resulted in the Holy Spirit). Our effort are tangible evidence that we choose to desire to love Him back, as deeply as we are able. The Lord’s Prayer reminds me / us that we are to connect heaven with the earth. Like Jesus, we are to bring the kingdom of light into the kingdom of darkness. Scripture reminds us that we have risen with Jesus as Christians, with the Holy Spirit dwelling within us, and “we are seated in heavenly places” in some mysterious, but real way as family. I need to remind myself repeatedly that God is infinitely beyond anything I can think of. He is strong and I am weak; He is trustworthy. He loves me and wants my good; He has plans, dreams, desires for my life – and on my own, I cannot live that life. I NEED Him.
MENTAL QUIET AND BEAUTY
A picture of Jesus helps my mind focus. Classical wordless music softly playing in the background. Relax & clear out mental clutter / distractions = focus on Him. Formula prayer may help to get to intimacy, but intimacy require sharing two hearts at a deep level. Mentally our brain activity switches to Beta, slow wave actions with beauty (music and art, quietly sitting or kneeling or standing with focus on God, and praise and worship, “enter into His presence with praise…” This process might be characterized as “intuitive”. Formula prayers may help that transition too, but they are not a substitute for word from the heart. Part of my spiritual journey involved realizing that Jesus was perfectly left-brained and also perfectly-right brained, and I was only minimally like Him, since I was almost totally functioning with my left-brain.
MYSTERY and HEAVEN
We are told to “cast our cares …” In Isaiah and other scriptures we are told that as high as the heavens are above the earth, so are God’s ways and thoughts above ours, but He tells us repeatedly that he want to reveal His secrets (revelation). The gist of that is that we can try with all our intellects to know and understand God and His plans, but pure logic can only take us so far. We are reminded that becoming holy, knowing God, and getting to heaven is not reserved for those with PhD’s. In fact, thinking that we can mainly understand and relate to God with our intellects may be a hindrance – it was my first 32 years … but more about that later.
BE AWARE OF THE STATUS OF OUR GOD
And our privileged relationship as beloved children:
A private audience with the creator of everything. I recall that He is Emmanuel – the God who reaches out to me, before I did anything to merit His actions on my behalf. “… and he THIRSTS for ME.” He is a gift giving, not-quite spoiling, but lavish daddy who delights in pouring out His abundant gifts on us, His children. And the greatest gift of all, beyond His salvation, is His Intimacy.
