Sacred Mundane: The Blog

 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. 

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.