Daily Archives: January 12, 2008

This book!  It never ceases to amaze me.  It peaks into my heart, sees the questions, fears, and concerns, and addresses them all!   (By the way, if you’re just joining this conversation, I’m reading Prayer: Finding the Heart’s True Home by Richard J. Foster)
 Chapter eight is The Prayer of Adoration, and when I saw this I thought, “Uh oh, I’m no good at this one.”  You see, because I know my ACTS model, I know that I am “supposed” to begin my prayer with adoration, right?  But because I’m so wrapped up in myself, I always get adoration tangled up in thanksgiving (praising God for what He’s done for me), and then I drag myself back to just listing God’s attributes, which feels more like a Bible verses memory lesson than anything that resembles true heartfelt adoration.  So I cocked an eyebrow and dug into this chapter, unsure of what I’d find.
 A treasure!  First, Foster says we don’t need to worry so much about separating thanksgiving from praise.  True, praise is on a high plane because with thanksgiving “my thoughts still circle about myself to some extent.”  But he insists that they interweave and that we should be distracted trying to separate them. 
 Obstacles to adoration are so many.  Most—the whirl of life and its myriad distractions.  Foster’s story of a cat, scratching during a particular silent moment of a prayer meeting, hit my heart.  Everyone in the meeting was distracted by the cat and felt that they couldn’t focus on hearing from God. But one missionary insisted that he was just wondering what God wanted to say to him through the cat.  That is how we should view distractions!  How guilty I am of often viewing my precious, wonderful son as a distraction at times.  My privileged role, that of wife and mother, will be replete with these opportunities for God to speak through Dutch’s smile, his laugh, his curious questions (when he can talk!), and his brave attempts at new feats.  Paying attention to these small wonders is what inspires adoration to the God who is behind it all. 
 Secondly, we cry “encore!”  Instead of simply enjoying the pleasures that we have, we demand more and more pleasures.  Instead of simply enjoying the roof over my heart, I dream of the day when we will move out.  Tonight, I actually had the audacity to dream about the day when we might have a bigger bathtub.  Oh dear. 
 Here is the real key.  I’ve always wondered, “So how do I do this adoration thing?”  Foster sees exactly where I’ve gone wrong.  He says (as I have said!), “it seldom helps to count our blessings or rehearse the glorious attributes of God (!).  We do not learn adoration on the grand cosmic scale by centering on the grand and the cosmic, at least not at first.”  He explains that we start in the plain old nooks and crannies of life.  Today, for me it looked like this:  Taking a walk outside with Dutch, with the rain slightly misting on us, taking in the smell of rain and the green trees and sound of gravel crunching under our feet.  It was teaching Dutch (again!) how to go down the stairs once he got to the top, and being present with him, matching his high-pitched squeaks and laughs with my own.  It was putting him on my lap and bouncing on our exercise ball until he laughed so hard he had hiccups.  It was savoring the sesame flavoring in the stir fry dinner we ate tonight.  It was kissing Jeff while he had his eyes closed washing his face.  And it was sliding into our soft, warm, clean bed and sinking deep under the down comforter, silently thanking God for the luxury of a comfortable mattress.  Yes, these are very small things, but they drew my heart to thankfulness, which draws my heart to God.  These are, as Foster says, stepping stones.  Stepping stones help us to experience the pleasures of God. 
 My application is to live tomorrow, the entire day, in utter thanksgiving, as Foster suggests.  My goal is to say, not “please”, but “thank you” for the entire day.  From the moment I wake up, until the moment I go to sleep, I endeavor to ask nothing from God save the ability to praise and thank Him.  I’ll let you know how it goes … 

Have I mentioned this book is amazing?  It is as if the very longing and cry of my heart for more prayer in my life is being specifically answered through every word of this book.  Questions, uncertainties, fears, struggles, are all addressed.  God has definitely ordained this, and I would recommend it to anyone longing for a deeper, truer prayer life and communion with God.
 This chapter is on Covenant Prayer.  What does that mean?  Simply, commitment.  We are so scared of commitment in our non-committal society, partly because we are afraid of lost freedom, and partly because we are afraid we will not be able to measure up and fulfill our commitments (at least those are the reasons I am afraid of commitment).  I cannot tell you how many times I have vowed to pray a specific amount or fast or do some other spiritual discipline and then seemingly fallen on my face.  And freedom?  Why do we fear a loss of freedom?  Foster explains that “We gain freedom in anything through commitment, discipline, and fixed habit” (67).  Freedom is not a lack of restraint it is a mastery over something. 
 We also fear that commitment will make prayer “seem like compulsory exercises rather than free-will offerings” (68).  I have had this fear, but it is a tactic of the evil one.  As Dietrich Bonhoeffer says, “Prayer is not a free-will offering, it is an obligatory service which He required” (68).  Now that tends to make us think of clenched teeth and no fun, but that’s not true!  It is through faithfully loving my husband that our feeling and emotions and passion grows.  Foster also assures me that God is pleased with our efforts to please Him, and like anything, we will stumble and struggle, but He is pleased when we get back up again and try to once again fulfill our commitment, through His working and power. 
 Before we had Dutch, Jeff and I used to pray in the mornings before work.  But somehow, through the fatigue of pregnancy and sleepless nights and busy days of parenting an infant, the discipline is gone.  So, we’ve now begun again, waking at 6am so we have two hours before Dutch gets up to pray, read our Bibles, reflect, and exercise.  We began a week ago.  It has been grueling, and I cannot say that I have actually enjoyed getting up any single morning, but already the benefit has been profound.  We can sense that we have more peace through the day, having already spent time with our Lord and together.  Our bodies feel better, having exercised, and our marriage seems stronger, having spent time together with the Lord.  It’s definitely not a habit yet—it takes every ounce of my effort in the morning, especially when at the end of it I then start my day with an excited, active, busy little boy on my hands, but I cannot even express how much I can already see God using this discipline to move in my life and change my heart. 
 I was specifically encouraged by Foster’s encouragement of us to use whatever preparations we can to ensure our focus.  He says a fixed time and a fixed place will help.  Right now it’s early morning, in the bonus room.  Yes, I’d love a more inspiring and romantic local, but we don’t have it, so there it is.  Foster even admits a cup of coffee in hand helps him—my choice would be green tea, so perhaps I’ll start that little ritual. 
 I think of romance with my husband.  If we’re going to have a special evening together, we make preparations to make it special.  Dressing a certain way, candles, certain music, etc.  in order to focus our heart and attention on each other and our love.  The same is true with God.  My goal is to brainstorm and pray for creative ways that I can prepare my heart, at 6am, to meet with God and be full attentive to Him and focused on Him as I pray.  I’ve started a prayer journal to record things to pray about, and that helps.  I pray God continues to give me creative ways to commit to Him, and to be faithful as He’s been so faithful to me.