Being on the good journey of spiritual development and growth, what marks our practices of prayer or being in a quiet time, or what we do to maintain a devotional life, we come to recognize something over time that is not always recognized at first.  And what we begin to realize is vital to our growing process –  and this is it; 

How we come to God matters to what is experienced there, or what is known there. 

How I feel, what I am internally telling myself, or the story I am generating and narrating about each situation in my life, shapes and powerfully influences my awareness and experience of God’s presence. 

Stilling and Centering Prayer is a beautiful practice that helps us recognize how and what we are experiencing when we seek to be present to God. 

Now before I say anything else, I think it’s important to first and foremost recognize, there is a great delight in heaven when anytime, or in any place, or in any way, we make it our intention to turn our attention – what is our eyes and hearts and our wills – to God. Now there are thousand ways to come in faith and trust to God. The apostle Peter said that our faith, what is our faith-filled intention, no matter its level, high or low, great or small, to turn in faith toward God, is more precious than anything else, even gold. Recognizing this intention and this desire within you to seek God is monumental to the spiritual journey. At our core our faith is sourced and intimately connected to God. Now, many things compete with faith, but it is our learning to recognize this ever growing part of us, to care for it, to hold faith as precious as gold, and it is essential to the spiritual journey.

Thomas Merton beautifully described something of this when he wrote;  

I do not see the road ahead of me.

I cannot know for certain where it will end,

nor do I really know myself,

and the fact that I think I am following your will

does not mean that I am actually doing so.

But I believe that the desire to please you

does in fact please you.

And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing.

I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire.

Merton saw faith and the desire he had, flowing from what is, in him, as the surest marker of God’s will. 

Sadly, many of us have been told and believe that intentions and desires, good desires and good intentions, are somehow less than, and that only results and success and achievement matter most.

Spiritually speaking, when results are elevated over the preciousness of faith, we become skewed toward believing that God is somehow continually in a state of disappointment with us by our lack of perfect success at carrying out his will. I must strive to be better and better to achieve greater and greater results. Or that somehow God is disappointed with us because God was looking for something more and we did not deliver. God, we think, rejects me for my failure and I feel it. 

Equally problematic, and on the very opposite end of this, is the belief that if I am successful at doing it right, that I believe I am better than most and I don’t struggle with disappointment with God or rejection from God, rather I maintain kind of a false superiority. I become much like the rich man in Mark 10, who said to Jesus in front of all – All these commands I have kept from my youth. Jesus loved the rich man the scriptures tell us, even through his superiority, he saw something more. He saw a man still in progress. In that particular moment he lacked self-awareness and humility, he could not see his own unfinishedness, his own incompleteness, and became proud of the things he did. The rich man saw the external markers of what was success, and wanted to boast. He was not yet living from the deeper internal experience of a living, growing faith. 

What am I trying to say in all this? Our intention, our desire to turn to God in any way, is always a good thing, as full or as incomplete as it may be. But now, with that recognized, it is also very important for all of us who long for a transforming life within the Spirit of God, that we begin to be aware of this reality of HOW we are coming to God, in order to grow. Let me say it again – How we are actually coming to God, when we come to God to be present, matters. 

When I come frenetic, hurried, anxious, exhausted, demanding, expecting, critical, judging, or thinking more of the next thing I need to do after this time of being present with God – all of this reality going on in me, will shape what I experience next when I am present to God. One pastor said truly, he said;  Often when I am anxious or fearful, going to prayer and talking to God, ( and I’m often like that a lot), he said; truth be told, the more I prayed about my fears and worries, the more anxious I became, and when I was done praying, I almost felt worse than when I started.  I love that honesty of his own interior. 

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So here is the process by which we learn to settle. We recognize how we come, when we seek to come to God, matters. 

We begin with the practice of stilling and settling and calming all the drives and the desires of the ego-self that is on the run. 

We literally stop moving. 

We posture ourselves to be comfortable. 

We learn to practice in that place, being alert and attentive. 

We say – I am all here God. I’ve stopped moving. I am home. In You I dwell. 

We prayerfully seek to ground ourselves in an awareness of not what is temporary and passing, but to ground ourselves in what is eternal. 

Now let me note something else of this – All that marks life and living, our thinking, our doing and our feeling, are not what is eternal. When we pay attention to any thought we are having, or any feeling or any activity, we begin to see how short and temporary they really are. When we practice stilling ourselves, we can use our awareness of the temporary nature of our thoughts, feelings and actions, to help us to be present to God and what is eternal. 

And so I give attention to my body, my thoughts, my feelings – naming and being aware of my feelings, my own interior, and seeing how temporary and passing they all are. I recognize how they can drive and control this moment, bringing disease and unsettledness. And I let them go in order to be wholly present to God, without distractions and without attachments. 

I rest in that place of being held with God, not trying to fix, not trying to figure out, not fretting, not fearful, angry or worried. 

I am still and quiet, without expectations or demands. 

My only place is one of trusting, trusting God to do and to be, what is God’s alone to do.

And then I notice how I am when I am here. 

And I rest deeply in this presence.  

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