Sacred Mundane: The Blog

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. 

 There is a problem.  Every time I read this book I cry.  Chapter six, Formation Prayer, once again is perfectly timed.  Literally seconds before opening the book, I was putting my son down for his nap.  As I always pray for him as I put him down, this time, all I could was rest my forehead on the side of the crib and pray a simple, desperate, “God, change me.”   You see, I have wicked heart.  You may or may not see it, but it’s true.  I saw it this morning, nothing outwardly, just an attitude.  A simple finding out about someone else’s successful situation and my initial response was one of criticism, frustration, and envy.  Oh of course I’d never say such a thing, and a moment later I was asking God to change my heart, but that was my initial response.  That’s what was in my heart—not pretty.
 I need formation.  I need transformation.  God is so good to use prayer in this way.  At first, as Foster says, we are happy to have God answering our requests, but then He insists that He wants to take us deeper, so He changes prayer from being about asking for things to being about Him changing us.  The key to this is humility.  Humility leads us through “the many little deaths of going beyond ourselves” (62).  One way of humbling ourselves is given by Therese of Liseux and she called it simply The Little Way.  The Little Way simply includes seeking out the menial job, welcoming unjuct criticism, befriending people who annoy us, and helping those who are ungrateful.  The little way is a simple practice of small, seemingly insignificant things for which we will never be thanked, praised, or lauded for—which is why it is so effective in cultivating humility.  God help me practice the Little Way.
 I was also drawn to the discussion of the importance of solitude.  Henri Nouwen says that “without solitude it is virtually impossible to life a spiritual life.”  Through solitude a “liberty is released in our hearts when we let go of the opinion of others!”  But this really hit me:  “At first we thought solitude was way to recharge our batteries in order to enter life’s many competitions with new vigor and strength.  In time, however, we find that solitude gives us power not to win the rat race but to ignore the rat race altogether” (63).  You see, I love being alone.  I love solitude, but it wasn’t until my first year of seminary that I realized something.  I’d written some paper for my spiritual formation class and my professor wrote on my paper, “Being alone does not necessarily equal being with God.”  Ouch.  A little rebuke and correction for me.  Solitude and quiet, silent time alone is not to recharge me for me, it is so that I may decrease and He may increase. 
 The chapter on Relinquishment and this chapter on Formation are like a one-two punch to my heart.  Good, powerful, effective—and knocking the wind out of me. 
 Lastly, Foster talks about contemplating our own death as a means of formation as we pray.  I do not like this.  I do not like to think about death, especially when it involves me!  I constantly pray that God would let me live long enough to see my children grown, that is my simple prayer.  But what Foster is saying is that it’s healthy to recognize that we will someday be gone, and that the world will go one as normal.  Things do not revolve around us.  Yes we are valued and loved and important, but our life here on earth is limited.  We live for something greater. 
 I actually think my prayer right now is nothing more than my prayer was right before reading the chapter: “God, change me.”  Now I wait, submit, and practice the Little Way.

Ok, got to be honest.  This response is too tender to display for the world to see.  Drop me a line under “contact” and I’d be happy to share it with you. 🙂 

Bless you & thanks for reading!

K

Foster’s Chapter 4 (click there to read) is entitled the Prayer of Tears.  Essentially, he is speaking of the essence of having a broken and contrite heart before God.  What stood out to me in this chapter was the difference between simply being sad over things (nothing very spiritual about that!) and being sad over the things that God is sad about.  Just this morning in my quiet time I read about Esau getting gypped out of his birthright and his blessing.  He was sure sad over that!  He wept and wept.  But these are not the kind of tears that Foster is talking about. Esau’s sorrow was entirely wrapped up in his self and his loss and his wants.  What Foster urges us (through innumerable passages of Scripture, I might add) is to ache and hurt and weep and mourn over the things that break the heart of God.
I get glimpses of this.  I know, however, that I have not even come close to scratching the surface of understanding what this means.  Sorrow hits me when I see a tragedy.  For example, we have been praying for some little baby twins that were born prematurely.  We prayed and prayed that God would let them live, but yesterday we received word that they’d died.  That grieved my heart.  And it grieved God’s heart too, I know.  But the biggest offense against the love and holiness and righteousness of God is our sin. 
I know enough to know that I cannot bring this broken and contrite heart upon myself.  So as I sat and read this chapter, I wondered, “How is one supposed to do this?”  Thankfully, Foster anticipates that and gives helpful, practical advice.  Basically ask, then confess our sin, specifically, then receive the forgiveness of God, then obey (the evidence of repentance). 
So, by way of response and application, this morning I confessed.  Self-centeredness, scheming to get my own way, holding tightly onto things that God wants relinquished, demanding my own way, pleasing man rather than God, having critical thoughts in my heart toward others, pride, arrogance, vanity, impatience, having critical thoughts in my heart toward others (hey, some of these come up more than once!), scheming and not letting Jeff be the leader of our household, taking matters into my own hands, being short with my immediate family, having a me-first attitude, being focused on the things of earth more than things above, being obsessed with myself—my life and dislikes and preferences, not being sorrowful over my sin, and being critical of others in my heart. 
What I want to emphasize here, in my response to this chapter, is that it does no one any good to be fake about this.  I can sit here and write nice flowery, sad-sounding words about how horrible it is that our sin separates us from God and that our world has basically shaken its fist at God and turned from Him altogether.  But if I were to do that, and not truly grieve in my heart, then I’m just committing a worse offense—hypocrisy.  What my prayer is right now is that God would truly, authentically make us weep over our sin.  NOT because it causes uncomfortable circumstances or even that it hurts other people, but that it hurts God and blasphemes His holiness.  I pray that God would take my heart and make it break for the things His breaks for.  I don’t want to be an Esau, I want to be like Jesus, like Paul, like Moses, who wept over the world’s condition before God.  I’m certainly not there yet, so I pray God would change my heart, that I can know this Prayer of Tears.