Sacred Mundane: The Blog

Ok, so this post is not technically about prayer … and it’s not about the book on prayer, but it’s about an insight into life that has been pulsing in my heart, that came out of a teaching about prayer.

I’m talking about listening. Last year, I took a counseling class (amazing class!) at Multnomah and we spent week after grueling week learning about effective listening skills. Who would have thought it was that hard?! It is! We are a culture do not listen. We interrupt, finish people’s sentences, look at our watches, get distracted, one-up each other’s stories or constantly draw the conversation back to ourselves, or plan what we’re going to say next while the other person is still finishing their sentences. Today, I started a class on Communication skills for ministry and part of what we talked about was … (hey, let me finish my sentence!) … listening. Then, we had our prayer class today, which I think will probably be the most life-changing class I’ll ever take. Dr. Blom did an exercise. First he had one girl talk to him for 2 minutes about whatever she wanted. He sat across from her and listening intently, saying “mmhmm” and “oh” and all the appropriate listening cues, he nodded and showed emotion and truly cared. Then, he had Jeff talk for 2 minutes about Dutch. As soon as Jeff started talking and sharing, Dr. Blom started glancing at his watch, then he looked at the floor, stood up, shuffled around, looked through some papers, glanced at the clock on the wall, fidgeted some more … you get the point. After one minute Jeff finally said, exasperated, “Forget it! You’re not even listening. I quit.” (He knew what Dr. Blom was doing but it still riled him up.) Dr. Blom went on to explain how sometimes we think that God listens to us like that and our prayer life is affected.

Afterward Jeff and I had a long conversation about listening. Thankfully, neither of us feels like God does that with us. We know He loves us and listens to us intently, but what struck us was how few people we know who truly listen. Like, I can count them on one hand. Secondly, and what’s really scary, is that some of the worst listeners, perhaps the worst listeners, are often pastors! Now, there are a lot of pastors who are great listeners, and I am not pointing fingers because I am one of the worst listeners and that’s why I’m focusing on this area, but it almost seems that the “higher up” the person is, the worse they are at listening. In seminary, I can think of one particular professor who always listens intently and it always amazes me. Even when he’s busy, rushing to teach a class, he’ll stop for a second, and when I’m talking, he’s all there–he’s genuinely listening and engaged in what I’m saying. But some of the spiritual giants in my life, some of the most amazing, wise, godly people I know are some of the poorest listeners. Why is this?

Mostly, I think it is because people are just so busy. Pastors and ministry workers have so many people and there are so many needs that they cannot possibly listen to everyone. But I think what God’s challenging me to do is to be all there when I’m with someone. Tom Jones (some of you know Tom from Corvallis) probably does this better than anyone I’ve ever met. Tom could be rushing to class, but if you stopped and talked to him he was all of a sudden in a zone, his eyes tunneled into yours, he was actively listening, scrunching his eyes in concentration, nodding, “uh-huh”-ing, and taking in every word as if you were the only person on earth. That is amazing to me. I told Jeff, probably more than any other means, I am shown love by someone listening, truly listening, to me. When we finish other’s sentences, say things like “yeah yeah” or “I know, I know” we are basically communicating, “I already know what you’re saying and I don’t love you enough to listen to your thoughts.”

To further illustrate this concept: When Jeff and I got home from seminary tonight (after 10 straight hours of class! Whew!) We ran in the door and cralwed down on our hands and knees to go tackle Dutch and smother him with kisses. Instantly, he wanted to “tell” us all about his day. Now he doesn’t know English yet, but he babbled and babbled, pointing at things and gesturing, and clearly “telling” us all about his day. Of course we listened intently, saying “really?!” and “wow!” and “that’s great, Dutch!” soaking up every word. Did we gain any new information from him? No! Did we already know what he was saying? Yes, gibberish! But did we still actively listen? Of course! Because we absolutely cherish him and love him and want to communicate that to him by listening to him. It is the same with God and it should be the same with us! How amazed people would be if we truly listened to them!

So, my goal is to be known as a listener. I may not be the most insightful, wise, amazing person, but if I can listen to people, then I can communicate love to them better than all the wise quotes in the world. I pray that we as ministry leaders and servants of God can learn to truly listen to people, to communicate to them, by our actions, “I love you enough to listen to you. I value your thoughts and ideas. I care about what you have to say.” I think we would see walls crumble down around us and hearts transformed before our eyes. Let’s try it, shall we?

 How perfectly timed even the certain chapters of this book are!  It is Sunday afternoon, and I have just gotten home from church, eaten lunch, and put Dutch down for his nap.  I crept into our bedroom, settled into our bed leaning back against the headboard, and savored the silence.  Opening the book, I saw the title: The Prayer of Rest.  Sabbath Prayer—that is the topic of this chapter on this Sabbath day.  Jeff is still at church helping with some things, so I am alone (ok, my parents are here but they’re downstairs), and ready to enter in to this Sabbath Prayer.
 Foster describes this restful prayer as letting go “of the grasping and grabbling, all of the controlling, all of the manipulating dynamics of life” (93).  That is me!  Resting is so hard for me because it means letting go, completely.  It is “a way of tempering our gnawing need to always get ahead.”  And even when I do rest, if I have some sort of insight or impression from the Lord, I am always so antsy to write it down so that I don’t forget it, that before I know it I’m not resting anymore!  Foster describes this in his experience sitting over an outcropping looking at the ocean.  He kept thinking that he had to find a paper and pen to describe such an amazingly restful experience … instead of just experiencing it!  Perhaps that is the curse of the writer, always thinking of how to communicate the experience rather than just experiencing.
 At any rate, this prayer of rest is similar to the prayer of relinquishment, but involves more stillness.  It has been called “holy leisure” which refers to a sense of balance in life between activity and rest, work and play, sunshine and rain.  Balance is so lacking in our lives today, we either fall off the boat on one side or the other.  To be balanced is to be rested and centered, grounded in a proper understanding of who we are and who God is.  We understand our responsibility and duty and joy in godly service, but we also understand our place, our utter dependence on God and our responsibility to rest in His presence.  We are, as Foster says, gently cupped in his hand.
 Some practical suggestions Foster give are solitude retreats.  As a nursing mother, I don’t necessarily have the opportunity to take a solitude retreat, but I can do mini retreats, at night when Dutch is in bed, right now while Dutch is (not napping!  Squawking in his crib and singing songsJ.) supposedly napping.  These little moments of alone time give way for reflection, and allow me to be still. 
 Silence is another way to enter this Sabbath Prayer.  Silence does not necessarily mean not talking, but a silence “of our grasping, manipulative control of people and situations.  It means standing firm against our codependency drives to control everyone and fix everything.”  Oh how my mind is constantly running, dreaming up scenarios and ideas and things to do.  How difficult it is for me to cease altogether.  Right now, when there is something I want so badly, so deeply, it is an ache inside my heart, it if so hard to just sit, silently, quietly, in stillness, and rest in God, trusting Him and refusing to do things myself. 
 The end prayer of this chapter summarizes my prayer: “Savior, I am not good at resting in the hollow of Your hand.  Nothing in my experience has taught me this resting.  I have been taught how to take charge.  I have been taught how to be in control.  But how to rest?  No I have no models, no paradigms for resting.”  So I pray that today, this Sabbath, with a day looming ahead filled with 10 hours of straight classes tomorrow (!), with decisions and meetings this week and hopes and dreams buzzing like angry bees in my mind, I will lean back my head, and rest.  I will sit and watch the river and trust.  I will play with my son and be still.  I will laugh and curl up in the hollow of God’s hand. 

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.