Six Books for the Journey – Course 4

Prayer – Finding the Heart’s True Home – by Richard Foster 1992

 

SIMPLE PRAYER

 

One thing stops people from praying

“It is the notion – almost universal among us modern achievers – that we have to have everything “just right” in order to pray. That is before we can really pray, our lives need fine tuning, or we need to know more about how to pray, or we need to study the philosophical question surrounding prayer, or we need to have a better grasp of the great traditions of prayer” p 7

 

“What I am trying to say is that God receives us just as we are and accepts our prayers just they are. In the same way that a small child cannot draw a bad picture so a child of God cannot offer a bad prayer….In Simple Prayer we bring ourselves before God just as we are, warts and all. Like children before a loving father, we open our hearts and make our requests. We do not try to sort things out, the good from the bad. We simply and unpretentiously share our concerns and make our petitions. We tell God, for example, how frustrated we are with the co-worker at the office or the neighbour down the road. We ask for food, favourable weather, and good health” p 9

 

“Simple Prayer involves ordinary people bringing ordinary concerns to a loving and compassionate Father. There is no pretence in Simple Prayer. We do not pretend to be more holy, more pure, or more saintly than we actually are. We do not try to conceal our conflicting and contradictory motives from God – or ourselves. And in this posture we pour out our heart to the God who is greater than our heart and who knows all things (1 John 3.20)” p 10

 

We should not be afraid to be self-centred

“The only way we move beyond “self-centred” prayer (if indeed we do) is by going through it, not by making a detour round it.” P 11

 

Our families and friends and neighbours

“Very simply, we begin right where we are: in our families, at our jobs, with our neighbours and friends. Now, I wish this did not sound so trivial because on the practical level of knowing God it is the most profound truth we will ever hear. To believe that God can reach us and bless us in the ordinary junctures of daily life is the stuff of prayer”p 11

“We must never believe the lie which says that the details of our lives are not the proper context of prayer. For example, we may have been taught that prayer is a sublime and otherworldly activity; that in prayer we are to talk to God about God. As a result we are inclined to view our experiences as distractions and intrusions into proper prayer. This is an ethereal, decarnate spirituality. We, on the other hand, worship a God who was born in a smelly stable, who walked this earth in blood, sweat and tears, but who nevertheless lived in perpetual responsiveness to his heavenly Father.” P 13

 

DON’T BE DISCOURAGED BY YOUR LACK OF PRAYER

“Even in our prayerlessness we can hunger for God.  If so, the hunger is itself prayer. “The desire for prayer” writes Mary Clare Vincent, “is prayer, the prayer of desire”. IN time the desire will lead to practice, and practice will increase the desire. When we cannot pray,we let God be our prayer. Nor should we be frightened by the hardness of our heart: prayer will soften it. We give even our lack of prayer to God.” P 14

 

BRING OUR DARKNESS TO GOD

“We should learn to pray even while we are dwelling on evil. Perhaps we are waging an interior battle over anger, or lust, or pride, or greed, or ambition. We need not isolate these things from prayer. Instead we talk to God about what is going on inside, that we know displeases him. We lift even our disobedience into the arms of the Father; he is strong enough to carry the weight. Sin, to be sure, separates us from God, but trying to hide our sin separate us all the more. “The Lord” writes Emilie Griffin, “loves us – perhaps most of all- when we fail and try again”.

 

 

PRAYER OF THE FORSAKEN

 

Times when we feel God has withdrawn his presence from us

“The first word that should be spoken is one of encouragement. We are not on a rabbit trail, but a major highway. Many have travelled this way before us. Think of Moses exiled from Egypt’s splendour, waiting year after silent year for God to deliver his people. Think of the Psalmist’s cry to God, “Why have you forgotten me?” (Psalm 42.9). Think of Elijah in a desolate cave keeping a lonely vigil over wind and earthquake and fire. Think of Jeremiah lowered down into a dungeon well until he “sank in the mire”. Think of Mary’s solitary vigil at Golgotha. Think of those solitary words atop Golgotha. “My God, my God, why….why….why?”

Christians down through the centuries have witnessed the same experience. St John of the Cross named it “the dark night of the soul”. An anonymous English writer identified it as “the cloud of unknowing”. Jean-Pierre de Caussade called it the “dark night of faith”. George Fox said simply, “When it was day I wished for night, and when it was night I wished for day.” Be encouraged, you and I are in good company.

In addition I want you to know that to be faced with the “withering winds of God’s hiddenness” does not mean that God is displeased with you, or that you are insensitive to the work of God’s Spirit, or that you have committed some horrendous offence against heaven, or that there is something wrong with you, or anything. Darkness is a definite experience of prayer. It is to be expected, even embraced” p 19

 

GOD’S APPARENT WITHDRAWAL STOPS US FROM BEING IMMATURE AND FASHIONING HIM IN OUR OWN IMAGE

“Can you see how our very sense of the absence of God is there an unsuspected grace? God is slowly weaning us from fashioning him in our own image. Like Aslan, the Christ figure in The Chronicles of Narnia, God is wild and free and comes at will. By refusing to be a puppet on our string or a genie in a bottle, God frees us from our false, idolatrous images.” P 20

 

PURIFICATION IN THE DARK NIGHT OF THE SOUL (St John of the Cross)

 

“St John of the Cross says that two purifications occur in the dark night of the soul, and in some measure I experienced both. The first involves a stripping us of dependence upon exterior results. We find ourselves less and less impressed with the religion of the “big deal” – big buildings, big budgets, big productions, big miracles. Not that there is anything wrong with big things, but they are no longer what impress us. Nor are we drawn towards praise and adulation. Not that is anything wrong with kind and generous remarks, but they are no longer what move us.

Then, too, we become deadened to that impressive corpus of religious response to God. Liturgical practises, sacramental symbols, aids to prayer, books on personal fulfilment, private devotional exercises – all of these become as mere ashes in our hands. Not that there is anything wrong with acts of devotion, but they are no longer what fascinate us.

The final stripping of dependence upon exterior results comes as we become less in control of our destiny, and more at the mercy of others. St John calls this the “Passive Dark Night”. It is the condition of Peter who once girded himself and went where he wanted by in time founded that others girded him and took him where he did not want to go (John 21.18-19).

For me the greatest value in my lack of control was the intimate and ultimate awareness that I could not manage God. God refused to jump when I said “Jump!” Neither by theological acumen nor by religious technique could I conquer God. God was, in fact, to conquer me.

The second purifying of St John involves stripping of dependence upon interior results. This is more disturbing and painful than the first purification because it threatens us at the root of all we believe in and have given ourselves to. In the beginning we become less and less sure of the inner workings of the Spirit.  It is not that we disbelieve God, but more profoundly we wonder what kind of God we believe in. Is God good and intent upon our goodness, or is God cruel, sadistic and a tyrant?

We discover that the workings of faith, hope and love become themselves sadistic and subject to doubt. Our personal motivations become suspect. We worry whether this act or that thought is inspired by fear, vanity and arrogance rather than faith, hope and love.

Like a frightened child we walk cautiously through the dark mists that now surround the Holy of Holies. We become tentative and unsure of ourselves. Nagging questions assails us with a force they never had before. “Is prayer only a psychological trick?” “Does evil ultimately win out?” “Is there any real meaning behind the universe?” “Does God really love me?”

Through all this, paradoxically, God is purifying our faith by threatening to destroy us. We are led to a profound and holy distrust of all superficial drives and human strivings. We know more deeply than ever before our capacity for infinite self-deception. Slowly we are being taken off vain securities and false allegiances. Our trust in all exterior and interior results is being shattered so we can learn faith in God alone. Through our barrenness of soul God is producing detachment, humility, patience, perseverance.

Most surprisingly of all, our very dryness produces the habit of prayer in us. All distractions are gone. Even all warm fellowship has disappeared. We have become focused. The soul is parched. And thirst. And this thirst can lead to prayer. I say “can” because is can also lead us to despair or simply to abandon the search.”  P 23-23

 

 

THE PRAYER OF EXAMEN

Self-examination

“Madame Guyon warens us of “depending on the diligence of our own scrutiny rather than on God for discovery and knowledge of our sin”. If the examination is solely a self-examination, we will always end up with excessive praise or blame. But under the searchlight of the great Physician, we can expect only good always.

Not that there is no pain. Guyon notes, “When you are accustomed to this type of surrender, you will find that as soon as a fault is committed, God will rebuke it through an inward burning. He allows no evil to be concealed in the lives of His children.” And so there is a painful “inward burning”, but we know that it is a purifying fire and can welcome its cleansing” p.30

“St Teresa of Avila understood the value of self-knowledge. In her autobiography she writes, “This path of self knowledge must never be abandoned, nor is there on this journey a soul so much a giant that it has no need to return often to the stage of an infant and a suckling.” Self-knowledge is not only foundational but also a foundation that can never be forgotten.” P 31

 

WE MUST BECOME AWARE OF OUR OWN SIN

“We must not deny or ignore the depth of our evil, for paradoxically, our sinfulness becomes our bread. When in honesty we accept the evil that is in us as part of the truth about ourselves and offer that truth up to God, we are in a mysterious way nourished. Even the truth about our shadow side sets us free (John 8.32).

There is therefore no need to repress, suppress or sublimate any of God’s truth about ourselves. Full, total, unvarnished self-knowledge is the bread by which we are sustained. A yes to life means an honest recognition of our own evil, but it is also a yes to God who in the midst of our evil sustains us and draws us into his righteousness. Through faith, self-knowledge leads us to a self-acceptance and a self-love that draw their life from God’s self-acceptance and love. So St Teresa is right after all; this is “the bread with which all palates must be fed”. Her words are wide counsel indeed. “This path of self knowledge must never be abandoned.” P 32

 

IT IS NOT THE SEARCH INTO ONE’S OWN SPECIAL RESERVES BUT A SEARCH INTO THE HEART WHICH WILL LEAD US TO GOD

“With examen more than any other form of prayer, we b ore down deeper and deeper, the way a drill would bore down into the bowels of the earth. We are constantly turning inward, but inward in a very special way. I do not mean to turn inward by becoming ever more introspective, nor do I mean to turn inward in hopes of finding within ourselves some special inner strength or an inner saviour who would deliver us. Vain search!  No, it is not a journey into ourselves that we are undertaking but a journey through ourselves so that we can emerge from the deepest level of the self into God. As St John Chrysostom notes, “Find the door of your heart, you will discover it is the door of the kingdom of God.””  P.33

 

THE PRAYER OF TEARS

Abba Anthony “Whoever wishes to advance in building up virtue will do so through weeping and tears” p 37

Jeremiah is known as the “weeping prophet” and the reputation is well deserved. “O that my head were a spring of water,” he moans, “and my eyes a fountain of tears, so that I might weep day and night for the slain of my poor people!” (Jeremiah 9.1). If Jeremiah did not pen the book of Lamentations, we should have! “Cry aloud to the Lord! O wall of daughter Zion! Let tears stream down like a torrent day and night! Give yourself no rest, your eyes no respite! (Lamentations 2.18)

Almost every page of the Psalter is wet with the tears of the singers. “I am weary with my moaning” laments David “every night I flood my bed with tears; I drench my couch with weeping” (Psalm 6.6). Weeping, in fact, was such a habitual practice for David that he could appeal to his tears as a witness before God. “You have kept count of my tossings: put my tears in your bottle Are they not in your record?” (Psalm 56.8). The singer who so beautifully describes our soul’s thirst for God as a hart longing for flowing streams goes on to confess, “My tears have been my food day and night” (Psalm 42.3). Psalm 119, that extended paean of praise to Torah, contains this haunting lament: “My eyes shed streams of tears because your law is not kept” (Psalm 119.136).
Consider Jesus who “offered up prayers and supplications with loud cries and tears” (Hebrews 5.7). See him weeping over his beloved Jerusalem “How often have I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing!” (Matthew 23.37) Listen to his beatitude upon the broken, the bruised, the disposed, “Blessed are those who mourn” (Matthew 5.4) “Blessed are those who weep” (Luke 6.21) Watch his tenderness towards the Mary who bathed his feet with her tears: “She has shown great love”. Hear his word of absolution “Your sins are forgiven”, and his benedictus “Go in peace” (Luke 7.35-50)

Or think of Paul who came to Asia “serving the Lord with all humility and tears” (Acts 20.19). To the Ephesians he said, “For three years I did not cease night or day to warn everyone with tears “ (Acts 20.31). To his flock at Corinth he declared “I wrote you out of much distress and anguish of heart and with many tears” and later he could rejoice that their “mourning” and “godly grief” had led them to repentance (2 Cor 2.4. 7.7-11).

BUT IT LEADS TO DEEP JOY

What is it about all this sorrow and weeping and mourning? It sounds a bit depressing, at least to those of us who have been brought up on a religion of good feelings and prosperity. The old writers though had a different view. They saw it as a gift to be sought after, “the charism of tears”.For them the people most to be pitied are those who go through life with dry eyes and cold hearts. They actually called this inner heart turmoil “deep joy”.

 

 

THE PRAYER OF RELINQUISHMENT

“Your will be done” was Jesus’ consuming concern. To applaud the will of God, to do the will of God, even to fight for the will of God is not difficult…until it comes at cross-purposes with our own will. Then the lines are drawn, the debate begins, and the self-deception takes over.  But in the school of Gethsemane we learn that “my will, my way, my good” must yield to higher authority” p 51

“The Prayer of Relinquishment is a bona fide letting go, but it is released with hope. We have no fatalistic resignation. We are buoyed up by a confident trust in the character of God. Even when all we see are the tangled threads on the back of life’s tapestry, we know that God is good and is out to do us good always. That gives us hope to believe that we are the winners regardless of what we are being called upon to relinquish. God is inviting us deeper in and higher up. This is training in righteousness, transforming power, new joys, deeper intimacy” p 5

 

THE CRUCIFIXION OF THE WILL

“The fuller answer lies in the purposes of God in transforming the human personality. Relinquishment brings to us a priceless treasure: the crucifixion of the will. Paul knew what a great gift this is. “I have been crucified with Christ”, he joyfully announces. There is relinquishment . There is crucifixion. There is death to the self-life. But there is also a releasing with hope: “It is no longer I who live, but it is Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me “(Galatians 2.19-20)

 

John Woolman, the Quaker tailor who did so much to remove slavery from the American continent, once had a dramatic vision in which he “heard a soft, melodious voice, more pure and harmonious than any I had heard with my ears before; I believed it was the voice of an angel who spake to other angels. The words were “John Woolman is dead”. Woolman was very puzzled over these words and sought to “get so deep that I might understand the mystery. Finally he “felt divine power prepare my mouth” and he declared, “I am crucified with Christ”. Then the mystery was opened and I perceived that the language John Woolman is dead meant no more than the death of my own will.

“The death of my own will” – strong language. But all of the great devotional masters have found it so. Soren Kierkegaard echoes Woolman’s experience when he notes “God creates everything out of nothing – and everything which God is to use he first reduces to nothing”

Do you know what a great freedom this crucifixion of the will is? It means freedom from what A W Tozer called “the fine threads of the self-life, the hyphenated sins of the human spirit”. It means freedom from the self-sins; self-sufficiency, self-pity, self-absorption, self-abuse, self-aggrandizement, self-castigation, self-deception, self-exaltation, self-depreciation, self-indulgence, self-hatred and a host of others just like them. It means freedom from the everlasting burden of always having to get our own way. It means freedom to care for others, to genuinely put their needs first, to give joyfully and freely.” P 56

 

Charles de Foucauld “Father I abandon myself into your hands: do with me what you will. Whatever you may do, I thank you. I am ready for all, I accept all. Let only your will be done in me, and in all your creatures – I wish no more than this, O Lord” p 57

 

FORMATION PRAYER – The Communion of Solitude (Henri Nouwen)

THE PRAYER OF ADORATION

MEDITATIVE PRAYER, INTERCESSORY PRAYER, AND SO ON FILL THE REST OF THIS WONDERFUL BOOK