A Rather Long Respite: Finding Love in Devotion

It has been quite a long time since I have put words to paper in this blog. As I sit here listening to Bethel's "It is Well" I am reminded on how my soul has been over the past couple months. Like a wound, the soul needs time to heal. I say this because my soul is healing, my soul is being made new. So many lyrics flood into my mind right now singing words of truth into my very being. As a Christian I find myself so lost in this life, in this world. I have felt so lost over these past months of transition. From getting married, to moving to Cincinnati, continuing my education from a distance, starting numerous new jobs, and identifying who I am again.
I am writing now after the completion of a Spiritual Formation class. This class required a great deal of self reflection. This is hard, it is not fun nor is it easy to take a critical look into ones own soul. But I did, and I have come out on the other side bearing my soul on paper.
Disclaimer to what is to follow: there is mention to an assignment that was done in which we had to visually plan out an entire month of our life. This assignment really put into perspective my personal spiritual life and I HIGHLY recommend this exercise to anyone wanting to take this introspective reflection.
Through this reflection this is what I walked away with: Forewarned it is lengthy, I have been absent in writing so I am making up my absence here:

          Formation it self is a concept that entails a continuous experience. Within Wesleyan theology there is a study of the immediate and the process. Within this understanding, there is a process to salvation just like there is a daily process to formation. The process of formation is something that begins and starts anew each day. There is a particular scripture that comes to mind when I think about this: “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new” 2 Corinthians 5:17. Each day dawns with a new set of struggles, valley’s, high places, and blessings. So where do I find myself each day as a child of God’s, walking day-to-day on this journey to salvation? By taking a look into what this journey looks like and means to me I am able to identify the goals I wish to see to fruition. In establishing goals to be met, obstacles and snares are bound to appear. Being able to identify these obstacles and find ones way to the other side becomes a part of the journey. The ways in which to get to the other side of these daily struggles and obstacles are found in our daily patterns of our formation. Expounding on both John Cassian and Esther de Waal, these daily practices can be identified. It is clear, through Cassian and de Waal, that love is the ultimate and final goal in everything we do. All of our actions, each breath, and every word we utter is out of love, points to love, and is a reflection of the love of Christ in us. This, then, is my ultimate goal: to act firstly and foremost out of my love for Christ, to be the love of Christ, and in all things (action, words, and life) point back to love.

            When establishing practices and goals, what goes through my head is that childhood phrase ‘Practice makes Perfect’. I have started applying this little ditty to my spiritual life. Working through these spiritual practices is what leads to a foundation in the spiritual disciplines and accomplishing these spiritual goals set in place. There are certain goals that I wish to accomplish to set as my foundation in the spiritual disciplines.  There are two goals I am practicing on this part of my journey, daily prayer and scriptural study. I appreciated the assignment we had earlier this month of the monthly schedule. Only doing this for a month got me thinking and making me feel slightly convicted. These two practices I wish to incorporate into my daily life were taking the back burner.

            This first practice to discuss is prayer in conjuncture with answering: what does this look like in my everyday life? Addressing what this looks like will help to achieve it as a final goal. Reflecting back on my month outline I have been very adamant about what I labeled as “quiet time”. I have found myself either engaging in my morning devotions, or sleeping through my alarm. The goal then becomes the intentional time set aside each morning to begin my day, each day, in conversation with the creator. What this looks like is, self discipline played out by me in waking and being with God. This looks like the start of each day being spent in communion with God, talking and actively listening to the voice of God. My mornings must then become a lying aside of my own needs and wants to center my being within the voice of God. The struggles and obstacles I face are internal struggles. It is the quieting of the mind and the awakening of the body. This idea is flushed out in Cassian: “First, there must be a complete removal of all concern for bodily things. Then not just the worry but even the memory of any business or worldly affair must be banished from within ourselves” (Cassian, 102). This was a concept that the early church fathers addressed and saw a need to overcome. The denying of ones flesh for the convening of the Holy Spirit. I find my mind to be so loud when I sit in silence with God that I cannot hear myself over the din. This noise then drowns the silent commune with God and I become distracted by my own life. This obstacle has always been a difficult one for me to overcome. I find myself centering myself and visualizing the chaos and noise been muted and filed away as God then takes precedent. Sometimes though this takes my entire “quiet time” that I have allotted. Upon further reflection of this, that might just be what I need though. For just a moment in my day to have everything silenced and taken over by the grace of God, provides for a brief respite.

            What Cassian had to say over prayer really did hit home with me. In both identifying it as a struggle within myself as well as a universal struggle that I am not alone in the chaos. Cassian is also immensely helpful in providing guidance through the struggles of prayer. In the Cassian text there is a progression, which is given, on our life in prayer: supplication, promises, pleading, and thanksgiving. Cassian says this on the matter: “Hence all of these types of prayer on which I have been speaking are valuable for all men, and indeed quite necessary. And so one man will now offer supplication, prayer then, later the purest and most zealous pleas” (Cassian, 109). To simply put it then, prayer is prayer. This is where the practice makes perfect mantra begins to play out. I tell my youth this whenever we pray; they always say they aren’t good at praying.  I tell them keep practicing, keep praying, and soon prayer will become as natural as breathing. In hindsight it is time for me to start taking my own guidance. Being called into the service of the church and those who make up the church also calls for daily intentional time and moments with God. I find this more and more as each day I interact with people and go home and need just a moment to be with God. I have learned to prepare myself and spend moments with God before I leave for work. I have found myself spending moments with God throughout the day when the service to the Church and the people of the church starts to weigh. Being actively engaged in a youth ministry program, there is an ever more present need to live by example.

            I have been putting a great deal of focus on the practice of prayer in my life because I am able to acknowledge the importance of prayer in ones daily life. This is such an importance, Esther de Waal iterates on the Benedictine importance of prayer: “For praying can never be set apart from the rest of life, it is the life itself. St Benedict did not ask his monks to take a vow to pray, for he expected prayer to be central in their lives, permeating whatever else they were doing” (de Waal, 145). Prayer is the center of our lives and everything we do stems out of this life prayer. This then brings me to my second goal in my spiritual journey right now, scriptural study.

            It is appropriate that scriptural study comes out of a place of prayer. Prayer has the power to change the heart, the mind, and the body; just as when scripture is studied from a prayerful heart for the transformation of the life, scripture has the power to change lives. In Deuteronomy, specifically the Shema, scripture is meant to be so close to ones own that it should be like symbols tied to the hands and forehead. I believe that this is relevant to the entirety of scripture, not just the Shema. The closeness of scripture only comes through the studying of the word. This is why on my schedule outline my “quiet time” is labeled as such. This time is designed to spend in study, in prayer, in silence, in communion with God. Maybe these moments and times should be broken apart, different times of my day for different moments with God, I think this is where the obstacle is, where I struggle so much with scriptural study. I also believe that this is an area where I am still discerning what this looks like in my day-to-day life.

            The notion of priority over balance in ones life is a notion that can become quite heated. This notion of prioritizing the life, giving different weight to certain aspects over others, compared to the balance of all aspects together, is tough to distinguish from one another. I am persuaded to find more of a balance between all aspects of my life over prioritizing my life. I start to visualize my life like so: my life is represented as a sharpened pencil, the point of this pencil is God, who runs into the very center of my life (like the lead does in a pencil), on top of this sharpened pencil is a plate in which everything that makes me, me is on. In order for this life to remain intact, God becomes the stabilizer as everything on this plate is shifted to balance the plate upon God in my life. Esther de Waal strikes the importance of balance within life and within the Benedictine approach that without it the approach for the individual and the community loses its foundation (de Waal, 85). These aspects: balance, proportion, and harmony, lead the individual into a healthy sense of humility. Humility is not just the ability to see ones self more modestly or lowly then another, to put others needs over ones own; but humility is also the knowledge of ones self. Esther de Waal notes that within our self is a temple where God can be reached. This is humility towards ones self, lowering ones self in the presence of God. Through balance comes humility which allows a healthy view of ones self. It is here where I am able to overcome the obstacle I have in scriptural study. The healthy view of myself points to the balance I need to have between these aspects of my life and scriptural study. Esther de Waal states it a bit more eloquently: “…it will lead the monk to do ‘all that he once performed with dread, he will now begin to observe without effort, as though naturally, from habit, no longer out of fear of hell, but out of love for Christ, good habit and delight in virtue” (de Waal, 89-90). This is where my heart longs for, out of love not out of obligation. This “out of love” will emerge from the continual daily practice.

            Ultimately each goal that I place in my life will lead to this place and finished goal of my daily practices being completed and done through love. I stated that prayer has the power to change the heart, to change the soul, and to change the life. By becoming more intentional in my daily “quiet time” each day, and by entering into these moments with God from a place of love and desire, these moments and practices will multiple within my daily routine. These daily formations will be done out of want and desire instead of obligation. It starts with practice and ends with love.

Blessings & Joy