Week #12: Engage in the discipline of Morning and Evening Prayer

Prayer is essential to Christian living.  This is true of all areas of our life of faith, but is especially true as we attempt to live out our Christian life through the discipline of Simplicity.  There is simply no possible way that we can seek first the Kingdom of God, and his righteousness, apart from an active prayer life.  A single hearted focus on God's kingdom is a prayerful focus.

Prayer calls us to a deeper reality of life.  Through prayer we become open to the pulses of God's spirit; we become attuned to the whispers of God's voice.  No longer is our Christian life merely a matter of dry belief or disassociated religious doctrine.  Rather, our life of faith becomes a life in the Spirit.  Through the discipline of prayer, our inward selves remain open to the graces of God, which then effects the manner in which we live our outward lives.  The choices we make, the expressions of our desires, the very essence of how we engage in the life around us begins to change as we approach these things not solely in our own power or understanding.

It is through prayer that we are formed more deeply into the image of our Christ.  It is through prayer that we hear the voice of God, a voice which directs, guides, challenges, convicts, and comforts.  It is through prayer where we find the ability to more deeply enter into the reality of our healing and forgiveness.  It is through prayer that we enter into an ongoing conversation with our Lord, a conversation that is the foundation of every faith-filled desire or activity.  It is in prayer that we receive the strength to stand against temptation and live lives of obedience to the will of God.
 
The practice of morning and evening prayer, sometimes done through the use of liturgical rites, is an easy way to develop a deeper habit of prayer in our lives.  Importantly, there is no legalism here.  The practice of morning and evening prayer is not about the mere filling up of time or the lifeless recitation of words.  Morning and evening prayer is less about the form we use and more about the focus which shapes our life.  We are lead into freedom as the practice of prayer calls into a radical centredness, shaping us both inwardly and outwardly.

Through the practice of morning prayer we are able to lay before God our hopes, our anxieties, and our questions concerning the day which lies before us.  We take the needed moments to enter once again the the mercies of God which are new every morning.  We seek God's face as that which is our first priority, and our ultimate aim in life.  We listen to God's voice, spoken in scripture and in silence, and we anticipate the Spirit's leading.  The grace of morning prayer is that it aids us in our continual and day-long desire to be open to God in our lives.  Having taken moments to ground ourselves in the desire for God's kingdom to be done on earth as it is in heaven, we are more apt to see expressions of that kingdom as we go through our day.

Through the practice of evening prayer we again approach this radical centredeness, this time examining our past thoughts, words and deeds in light of the call of faith.  We thank God for the expressions of God's mercy and grace throughout the day, for the strength and peace that He brought.  We ask God to bring to mind any ways in which we fell short of the glory of God, and we humbly confess those things before God, confident in His mercy.  We lay our questions, our concerns before the one who never sleeps, thus freeing us from the habit of taking our concerns and worries with us into our night-time rest.  We end the day in the same way as we began, in the place of freedom.

Without prayer, we have to ask ourselves, what does it mean to seek first the kingdom of God?  How can we possibly seek God's will and kingdom in our life without developing a habit of continual, focused prayer?  These things make no sense, and bare no concrete reality in our lives, without having a solid footing in prayer.

Find a liturgical resource that includes a form of morning or evening prayer and resolve to engage this practice for one month.  While you do not want to be legalistic about it, understand that developing a habit requires a certain degree of discipline.  Try to focus more on connecting with God than 'getting through' the liturgy.  Reflect on your ability or inability to carry this prayerfulness with you throughout the day.

Week 11: Carry a cross in your pocket.

Simplicity takes dedication and some focus.  It is not something that we can just jump into and expect that we be able to master this discipline.  The reality is quite the opposite.  Simplicity, like each and every discipline, is not something we master.  Simplicity is a way of ordering the entirety of our life, our bodily life, our thought live, and our spiritual life, around the one foundation of seeking first God's kingdom.  In this sense there is a sense of progression as we learn how to live out the discipline of Simplicity.

A necessary part of this learning concerns the need to train ourselves to be attentive to the divine kingdom around us, and the divine voice within.   For many, we simply have not developed the ability for such single hearted focus.  The world of distractions, in which we are immersed, has provided a different sort of training.  Our focus continually shifts from one thing to the next.  The ever shifting landscape of images, sounds, and slogans constantly barge in upon us.  Thus, so often the Kingdom of God gets squeezed out of attentiveness.

Thomas Kelly writes: "There is a way of ordering our mental life on more than one level at once. On one level we may be thinking, discussing, seeing, calculating, meeting all the demands of external affairs.  But deep within, behind the scenes, at a profounder level, we may also be in prayer and adoration, song and worship and a gentle receptiveness to divine breathings."  It is, what Kelly describes, as living from a 'divine center' in the midst of the tapestry of our regular life.

This centred living, however, while life-giving when it is achieved, can take some time to cultivate.  Physical reminders, such as carrying a cross in your pocket, can serve as a needed reminder to refocus our lives and re-engage in a life of divine attentiveness.  The manner this takes place in our lives can take many forms.  You can use the physical presence of the cross to remember a Bible verse.  In this manner, whenever you consciously recognize the cross in your pocket, or put your hand in your pocket and feel the cross, you inwardly repeat the verse of delay.  Similarly, the same practice can be done as a reminder to pray.  Here you may take a few moments, attempting to again enter into the 'divine centre' that Kelly spoke of.  Or, you may simply hold a loved one, or a particular situation in prayer.

A contemporary version of this may be to use a religious picture as your cell phone screen. Many people today  have smart-phones with personalized home-screens.  What is more, for many the cell-phone is the tool which links them to the world around them.  The cell phone is the tool for e-mail, messages, social media interactions, shopping, research, games, and host of other activities.  Because of this, the cell-phone is perhaps the biggest tool of distraction in this modern day.   It is simply the case that people are always on their phones. Changing the home-screen image to something that will remind you of the need for a single-hearted focus upon God's Kingdom is a wonderful way to interrupt the flow of distractions that come from the phone.  Amid the dings and beeps of notifications, opening the phone, and seeing religious image on the home screen, calls us to you take a moment to be look to the Spirit of God, to root ourselves in the presence of God, to meditate, to pray, to look for where the drawing of the Spirit, before we look at the email or notification.

The beauty of this practice, whether a physical cross in the pocket or an image on our cell-phone, is that it only a second.  It's strength, however, is found in training ourselves to be open to God's Spirit.  In the midst of a hectic world it bares the constant reminder to step out of a life in which we are be distracted and consumed by the things of the world, and into a life in which we consciously open ourselves, single heartedly, to the things of God.  Furthermore, born out over time, this practice equips us to not be 'distracted by many things', as we find ourselves being able to focus on 'the greater thing' for longer periods of time.

Week # 10: Meditate on Scripture

It is easy to think that reading the Bible is a fairly strait forward practice.  Open the book.  Read the words.  Close the book.  It's that simple, right?  In reality, reading the words of scripture is a lot more involved.  Reading scripture is not like reading any other book.  We read scripture as a spiritual discipline - a devotional act in which we live out our longing for God in our lives.  Psalm 1 declares that the blessed of God are those who 'delight in the law of The Lord, and on his law they meditates day and night.'  Similarly, Psalm 119 is an extended meditation on God's word.  We simply cannot deny our calling to live to a life of continual immersion in the word of God.

The term meditation can be  confusing word in our time and culture, particularly because of the ways meditation is treated in other religious contexts.  We must realize, however, that Christian meditation differs from the more 'eastern' understanding.  Christian meditation is not an act of emptying - it is an act of filling.  We do not attempt to jettison ourselves of everything we are, rather we engage in the activity of filling our lives -  our minds, hearts, and souls - with the things of God.  Richard Foster writes that 'Christian meditation, very simply, is the ability to hear God's voice and obey his word'  Thus the call to meditate on the God's word day and night is, at its heart, the call to listen to God's words.   For the psalmist,  the law's of God were not just the dry commands as written in the Torah - they were the voice of God detailing how to live in covenant relationship.  The words of God are to be listened to as an act of faith and love.

So how do we meditate in the way that the Bible instructs us to?  A cursory look on the internet will uncover many different systems and styles to choose from.  The most famous way to meditate on Scripture is what is known as 'Sacred Reading' or Lectio Divina.  This practice occurs in four distinct movements.

The first movement is to read a passage slowly and thoughtfully. Importantly it should be a chunk of scripture - not just our favourite verse.  Importantly our attitude is not to simply read the words of the text, but to listen to God's voice as He speaks.  We imagine God speaking to us through the words of scripture.  In this movement we listen for a word or phrase that jumps out at us.  This isn't about understanding or definition.  We seek not to 'study' anything.  We simply remain open to whatever in the reading seems to grab our attention.

The second movement is to read the passage again, this time focusing on how the reading touches our personal lives. Instead of the question 'what strikes you in the reading' we ask ourselves 'what is Jesus saying to me?'  We don't force this, or rush past it, for our desire is to interact with God's voice in a very personal way.  This may mean we may have to sit in silence for a while until we hear the text 'speak' to us personally.  That's ok. Time we spend in this movement is never wasted.

The third movement calls us to ponder what this reading calls us to.  There is a sense of prayer here.  We offer ourselves to God in response to what we hear God speak to us.  We can understand this as a pondering of the question: 'what does Jesus want us to do?'  We allow the words of God that we have read and listened to, to touch us and change.  We amend our lives in response to what was spoken to us and sit with the practical implications of God's words.  We seek to be formed by the words of scripture, and the voice of God spoken into our lives.

The last step in meditating on scripture is to to sit with it.  We carry the words of scripture with us throughout the rest of our day. In his 'Introduction to the Holy Life'; Saint Francis De Sales instructs us to 'carry our spiritual bouquet'  Just as the fragrance of a bouquet of flowers fills a room, we allow the God's word, listened to and reflected upon, to linger in all areas of our life.  Importantly, this is not a conscious pondering of the scriptures.  There is no intentionally mindful reflections that takes place.  We merely rise from our time of meditating on God's word, and carry God's voice with us as we enter into the rest of the day.  We proceed with our tasks of life  attempting to be open to God's voice, still living and active.

Meditation on God's word is essential to the discipline of Simplicity because it is only through opening ourselves to God's voice that we can truly say we seek first the kingdom of God.  What is more, as Psalm 1 so vividly images, this desire for God's word to be spoken personally into our lives, and the cultivation of it, is to be a continuous habit of our lives.  We are called to meditate on God's word 'day and night'.  The person in blessed relationship with God is imaged as a stalwart tree, one who is continually and constantly feeding from the ever-flowing streams of water.   So too, we are called to the devotional act of sitting with, listening to, and living out God's word in our lives.  It simply is a practice and an habit that we cannot deny.

Week # 9: The Spiritual Discipline of going to sleep.

How well do you sleep at night?  If you are like millions of people today, the answer is probably: ‘not very well’.  According to a report from the CDC, over 70 million Americans suffer from some sort of sleep-related problem.  The number is equivalent here in Canada.  It is estimated that roughly 40% of Canadians do not get an adequate night’s sleep.  Sleep deprivation is a huge problem today.

This lack of sleep affects not only our productivity and our mood, but also our spirituality.  Sleep fails to be restorative for us.  Instead of rest and quiet, we suffer through a sense of internal noise; our minds spins with all the questions and concerns of the day.  Because of this, we toss and we turn, more out of internal frustration than any physical discomfort.  And when we arise in the morning, we do not feel rested.  We do not feel renewed.  We wake up feeling like we have waged a war within ourselves – and we are still tired.

The Bible talks a lot about sleep.  In fact, for the Israelites, each new day began at sun-down.  Genesis 1 contains the recurring phrase ‘There was evening and there was morning, the nth day.’  An important lesson is seen in this.   The very first thing Israel was to do at the start of a new day was to go to sleep.  Each day began with act by which Israel lived out the realization that they were not in control.  The day started with trust, with reliance.  Each day began with the active laying aside of all the worries of life in order to be renewed in the presence of God.

Sleep is not to be merely a time in which we rest our body, but it is a time in which we lay aside all the frustrations and concerns of our souls.  Instead of suffering through restless nights because of the anxieties and worries we carry inside, we are called to lay them aside and trust in the provisions of God.   Biblical sleep is the laying down of our whole selves - body, mind, and spirit - in the presence of God, trusting that God will guard and keep us.  Psalm 4 ends with the phrase ‘I will both lie down and sleep in peace; for you alone, O LORD, make me lie down in safety.’ 

Seeing our evening sleep as a spiritual discipline frees us from the constant demand of having to be the one to figure things out.   We are able to lay aside the anxiety produced from feeling like we need to be in control.   The constant churning of the mind is finally put to ease and we can sleep in peace because we are surrounded by the one who ‘neither slumbers nor sleeps.’ 

God does not want our sleep to be frustrating or anxiety provoking.  It is to be a blessed thing.  Every night we have the opportunity to experience the renewing power of the Spirit.  Every night we are able to connect with that divine peace which is able to cut through all the noise and chaos of life. 

Before retiring for the night, spend 5 minutes in silence with the simple aim of acknowledging the presence of God.  Rehearse the day and ask yourself the questions, “What do I need to give God thanks for?”, “Is there anything I need to confess?” or “what plan, decision, or worry do I need to give to God?’   Importantly, this is not to be an active time, simply allow things to come to mind and simply place them before God.  Wilfully choose to see your time in sleep as spiritually restorative, not just physically. Sleep in the conscious presence of God.  As you get under the covers, ask God to be at work in you, to guide you, to restore you, to teach you.   Sleep is not a time for you to be active, it is not a time for you to define or be in the driver’s seat.  It is time for you to simply receive the loving work of the one who restores you.