Sacred Mundane: The Blog

In Chapter 3, (Click there to read), Foster talks about the “Prayer of Examen.”  David cried out this prayer in Psalm 139:23-24: “Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my thoughts.  See if there is any wicked way in me and lead me in the way everlasting.”  Our little comfortable, Christian culture does not like this sort of prayer.  The ironic thing is that we are all into introspection, but not into God-introspection.  We like to dig into our hearts and see all the hurts and wounds but don’t want God to expose the sin and selfishness.  What Foster explains though is that this is not a dreadful thing but “something of immeasurable strength and empowerment.” 
The first part of this prayer, the examen of consciousness, is where we reflect on how God has moved and revealed Himself to us throughout our day.  This is so lacking!  Yesterday, I had a remarkable encounter with my mom and my aunt where God simply showed up.  It was so miraculously wonderful, it was as if God took a knife and cut through a veil of deception, despair, and confusion.  It blesses God when we meditate on these things!  The more we practice this, this calling to remembrance, the more our spiritual eyes will be open to see things throughout the entire day.  As I began writing this, I stopped after that last sentence and decided to wait a day before finishing this reflection, to see if that last sentence was true, to see if by being more conscious of God’s activity in life my life would be more sacredly lived.
It was true.  Yesterday I had one of the sweetest mommyhood experiences.  I rarely am home alone with Dutch, but yesterday I was. Jeff had meetings and Mom and Dad were running errands.  We played, but mostly I worked on “stuff”, typical mommy stuff like planning meals and balancing the checkbook.  But then, I realized that I was missing out on a rare and sweet opportunity with my boy.  I put away my busyness and took Dutch in my arms and put my favorite worship CD, Robbie Seay Band, into the little stereo.  And then we danced and danced and sang and worshipped God.  Worshipping God with my son seemed to open my heart like it hadn’t been for a while.  I cried and cried, partly just over things I’d been struggling and wrestling with, partly over longings and aches, partly in joy of how sweet it was to hold my precious son.  During a particular slow song as I cried, he rested is head against my chest and just rested in my arms (that in and of itself was a miracle for my busy little boy!).  It was truly a sacred moment and I was so overwhelmed and thankful to God that I’d gotten to experience it.  But it was this type of prayer, the prayer of examen, and specifically the examen of consciousness that triggered my thoughts to be more aware of God moving throughout my day.  It wasn’t some huge event, but it was special and sacred.
The second type of prayer of examen is the examen of conscience.  Here we ask God to search us and know us.  I’ve been praying this as well.  One cool thing is that I can see God doing this quickly.  Last night, I had a rotten attitude about several things.  As soon as I sat down to class last night, I was reminded of this and a wave of truth, and conviction flooded over me.  I knew, I repented, and it was over! God is so soft and tender and loving.  He is so gentle.  Since it wasn’t something I’d outwardly done to someone, I only confessed it to Jeff and purposed that today I would respond better.  And this morning, after going to God in prayer, He did give me the grace to be better, to have a better attitude, and to breathe grace better than I had done the day before.  It’s a small example, but I can see this working out in my own life.  My prayer is that I would have a short account with God, that my heart would be so soft and yielded and tender that He would be able to immediately bring things to mind, that they would swiftly be taken care of, rather than piles and piles of undealt-with junk cluttering my heart.  That is my prayer.

In Chapter 2 (click there for a link to the book, then search for chapter 2), Foster talks about the kind of prayer that Jesus offered on the cross, “My God, My God, why has thou forsaken me?” Though I am not in the middle of such a season of prayer, I have known it more than once. I can think of two specific seasons where this type of prayer characterized my prayer life. The truths that carried me through, that Foster reiterates, are these: This season of aloneness, of silence, of nothingness, are not because God is displeased with me or that I have committed some horrendous offense against heaven. In fact, the two times I have keenly experienced this have been after making significant decisions to deny myself and follow Jesus. One such experience was in San Jose, when the world had fallen down around us. That was by far the darkest night of my soul, to use Saint John’s language. Heaven was iron. There were no responses. And yet, as Foster explains and I have found to be true, it does pass. That season was for nine months, and then some of the most glorious blessings followed. The other season was just this Fall, when we’d moved in with my parents and things weren’t good with Jeff and me and I was coming apart at the seams. Nothing seemed to offer any solace and there seemed no good outcome to our circumstance. That too passed. We still live here, but my heart has changed and Jeff and I, by the grace of God, have flourished once again in our marriage—even more so than before.

Foster calls this season “The Purifying Silence.” Though we often cannot tell, even afterward, exactly what God’s reasons were for His prolonged silence, we can often see a spiritual growth afterward that is unrecognizable in the middle of the storm. The further we get from the incident, the more clear it is. We are now just beginning to see the fruit of some of those dark nights of our souls in San Jose, and I am just now (even today!) beginning to get glimpses of the ways that God is changes, purifying, testing, and deepening our faith during this time.

What is beautiful about these seasons is that we realize that we truly realize that we cannot manage God. As Foster says, “God refused to jump when I said, “Jump!” Neither by theological acumen nor by religious technique could I conquer God. God was, in fact, to conquer me” (p22). The beauty of unanswered prayer, and of silence, and even of suffering is that we cannot control or manipulate God. And though our wicked hearts can want to at times, there is such a greater, more profoundly abiding peace when we recognize our true place in HIS plans and HIS purposes. This deepens my simple prayer.

Lastly, I loved Foster’s discussion of the “Prayer of Complaint.” As he says, “This form of prayer has largely been lost in our modern, sanitized religion, but the Bible abounds in it … The ancient singers (in the psalms) really know how to complain” (p23). This really struck me. I seldom complain in my prayers but often complain in my heart! How backwards is that? If I had a problem with Jeff (not even something he’d done wrong but just a problem), and I talked to everyone else about it (and myself) but not him, how ridiculous is that? But we do that with God. He would rather have honest complaining lovers than pious, proud, hypocritical religious people. My conclusion through all this is that I purpose to be honest with God and to wait patiently on God. When He is silent, He is still God. I can complain and pour out my heart and draw near to Him, but understand that He is in no obligation to respond to my beck and call. When He sees fit, in His infinite love and abounding wisdom, He will hear my call and come near. He’s promised He will.

This term, Jeff and I are taking a Spiritual Formation class called “Prayer.” I’m anticipating it with joy and dread at the same time. I want to pray so much but feel so scared of failure because I’ve never felt successful in that area. Well I’m getting started on our reading, since we start class next week, and one of our texts is Prayer: Finding the Heart’s True Home by Richard J. Foster. I’d recommend it for sure! For each chapter I read I am assigned to write a 2-page response on how it impacted me. I’m going to share these with you. If you’d like to get the book and read it too it’d be fun to do together. In fact, you can click here and it’ll take you to the book online at Amazon and you can read the chapter there (search for “chapter 1”, etc.). I’d love to hear your insights as well. But even if you don’t have the book, hopefully the reflections will still connect our hearts. Here is Chapter 1:

My greatest spiritual desire and goal is to become a woman of prayer. Every New Year’s my spiritual goal is to pray more. While I love and flourish at reading my Bible and can easily pass away hours digging into its truths, I fail miserably in the department of prayer. In the past, during a time when I lived by check-off lists and dos and don’ts of spirituality, I prayed for hours, but it was more of a check-list of people and their concerns and pushing through on my knees at 5am with clenched teeth. It wasn’t a joyful thing or a power-producing thing or an intimacy-promoting thing with the Father.
Now my spiritual life doesn’t look like that. Now I actually like God. J But now that I’m not motivated by lists and rules, my time in alone, quiet, daily focused prayer is practically non-existant. I talk to God a lot. I talk to Him while I drive or walk or when I’m sad or hurting or struggling, but most days I rarely sit down and have a concentrated prayer time.
I was moved deeply by Foster’s use of the home as an illustration of entering the Father’s heart through prayer. As anyone of my friends could tell you, I am longing for a home so bad right now it’s like there’s an agonizing ache in my heart. Today we went and looked at a new home in our town, which is a slight possibility for down the road. It was so amazingly perfect for what we hope for (to be able to use it for ministry, etc) that it moved me to tears. But, we are not now in the position to buy it. So, I give that to my Lord and He brings me to this book, and speaks to me that as I oohed and awed over the kitchen and living room and office for Jeff to study in and beautiful master bedroom, he wants me to explore the home of His heart and drink of its pleasures. There is nothing quite like the word “home” that can reach that far into my heart right now. I believe the timing of this book is divine.
The first chapter of this book was like a shot of hope. I am at the stage of simple prayer, to be sure. But what was so freeing was that that’s ok! As Foster said, I feel like there is a chasm between me and “real” praying. As CS Lewis said, “Lay before Him what is in us, not what ought to be in us.” With this difficult situation of living with my parents, having no money, and both being in seminary full-time, I’ve poured out my heart so many times to God, and felt so often that my complaints, hurts, frustrations, impatience, was somehow not what I should be lifting to God. But it is!
One of the major obstacles I struggle with at this point is that I know that beloved ACTS model of prayer and so, like an obedient ACTS-er, I start with adoration and try to think of as many character qualities of God as I can. But somehow, I begin to drift somewhere between there and the next step, confession, and I never even make it to Supplication. So, then I feel frustrated. Or, I get 10 minutes into prayer and I’m so spiritual exhausted that the thought of another 20 minutes is more than I can handle. It’s like those long-distance runners who say that after the first 30 minutes you get your 2nd wind and then it all gets easier. Well, I can’t run long enough to get my second wind! I run 25 minutes and I’m done. So, I loved what Foster said about being honest with God when we’re tired. He said we can tell God, “I must have rest, I have no strength to be with you at this time.” I couldn’t believe when I read that! Is that ok to say to God? I suppose it’s much better than just walking away and leaving Him hanging? I have no trouble doing that with exercise. When I begin a new workout, I’m weak, my muscles haven’t gotten used to the new intensity, so it takes time. So after reading this chapter, I sat here on my bed, with my eyes open and talked to God about how the chapter made me feel, what I loved about the house we looked at today, and told Him how much I loved Him and wanted to trust Him for our future, even when I got scared and impatient. That was all. Maybe five minutes. But I think He was listening and I think I’ll be back for more …