Prayer

Benay and I grew up in churches that didn't necessarily encourage God's grace. Our lives were filled with good Christian people but, honestly, we were taught a skewed doctrine. Neither one of us can ever remember hearing our parents sharing this doctrine but we both went to churches where the theme was the same......."God's grace is good and we are thankful for it but we also have to do our part and be good enough to go to heaven." It wasn't a "God did everything for us" mentality. It was more of a "God did his part now we need to do our part and together that might be enough to get us to heaven". Benay can even remember hearing a lesson from a man who showed, using scales, how God's grace needed our good works to finish the salvation plan. What an incredible burden! It has taken a few years for us to release that baggage and be 100% grace sharers.

Anyway, I needed to share the above to put in context what I really wanted to share today. It's relevant I promise.

A few years ago our church family had a prayer vigil. We planned the night before a holiday so as many people as possible could come. If I remember correctly, I think our group consisted of 7-8 people. We committed to pray through the night. Our brother João Spencer had done prayer vigils before and he volunteered to guide our prayer time through the night. At the top of every hour we would pray for 45 minutes for a specific topic and then take a 15 minute break. We started at 10-11 and went until 5-6 the next morning. As the night became morning I found myself catching little quick naps during our prayer time. With these quick naps came those old feelings of guilt that there was something wrong with me because I wasn't strong enough to go the entire night without sleeping. Somehow this was a testimony to my lack of spirituality. Those feelings led me to apologize to João. He had the most interesting, loving, encouraging and, quite frankly, Christian response. He told me not to apologize because he could think of no better place than on the Father's lap to fall asleep as I shared my requests.

I was reminded of João's inredibly loving, Spirit led response to me as I read these words this week from Trappist monk Basil Pennington in the book A Glimpse of Jesus by Brennan Manning:

A father is delighted when his little one, leaving off his toys and friends, runs to him and climbs into his arms. As he holds his little one close to him, he cares little whether the child is looking around, his attention flitting from one thing to another, or if he is intent upon his father, or just settling down to sleep. Essentially the child is choosing to be with his father, confident of the love, care, the security, that is his in those arms. Our Centering Prayer is much like that. We settle down in our Father's arms, in his loving hands. Our mind, our thoughts, our imagination may flit about here and there; we may even fall asleep, but essentially we are choosing to remain for this time intimately with our Father, giving ourselves to him, receiving his love and care, letting him enjoy us as he will. It is very simple prayer. It is very childlike prayer. It is prayer that opens out to us all the delights of the Kingdom.