going deeper, by ken wilson

Once you start making progress in praying for brief periods through the day (e.g. morning, mid-day and before bed), eventually the Holy Spirit may invite you to "come hither" or go deeper into prayer.  When that happens what do you do?  For some, it may mean taking a more extended time for Scripture reading (a chapter or two or more).  Whatever works do that.  There's two other things you might try, in addition to reading Scripture.

 

Meditating on a Text of Scripture. Read a small portion of scripture

(for example, Psalm 23) over slowly.  Read it over again being gently attentive to a place in the Psalm that stirs your heart.  Read it a third time, then select one of the verses that your heart seems to be drawn to.  Read that over slowly, meditatively. If it is a visual metaphor ("he makes me lie down beside still waters") try picturing yourself in the scene that the verse is evoking.  This is simply using the "eyes of your heart" to engage the text.  Also called the imagination.  Quite proper and biblical, by the way.  The point of meditating on a text is not to exegete it with intensity but to savor it, especially with your affective capacity (your mind's eye, your heart, your feelings.)  Like honey.   Mmmm good.  That's the modality.  It's slow down, dial down, savor and listen.

 

Practice a little silence and stillness.  Set aside a minute, or two or ten, depending on your capacity, to be physically still.  As I once heard, "Don't just do something, stand there."  (Or sit there.)  This is, after all a from of worship. "Be still and know that I am God."  Don't expect or aim for anything to happen, that's not the point. (Of course, paradoxically once you give on anything happening, that's when your in a better place to receive whatever it is that God may drop in your lap.)  Physical stillness precedes inner stillness.  So focus on that part first.  The practice of silence and stillness, by the way, is at the heart of John Wimber's legacy to the church when it comes to understanding the ministry of the Spirit.  John, you remember, was a Quaker before he helped found the Vineyard.  He talked about "dialing down" in order to tune in.  He understood that Jesus himself only did what he saw the Father doing, implying that Jesus knew how to wait and look and listen, which of course starts by being still.

 

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