Practicing the Presence of God

I was reading this month's issue of Christianity Today and ran across an article I really like by Richard Foster, author of the seminal book The Celebration of Discipline. That book was published 30 years ago, and for its anniversary, he gave a speach (adapted for the article in the magazine) in which he laid out what he believes the "priorities for the next 30 years" should be.

I found this article very convicting, and yet inspiring. He starts out by saying that some of us have gotten burnt out by doing good, others believe so much in the falleness of man that they find it useless to try to ever be better. He goes on to say that we have gotten so used to being surrounded by dysfunction -- not only in the media, but in our own churches -- that we forget that a great company of witnesses surrounds us and urges that transformation into the likeness of Christ really is possible.

Foster points out that it's not a matter of us "trying" hard, but it's a matter of yielding ourselves to God over and over again, looking to him and asking him to root out any evil in ourselves. This section of the article stood out to me in particular:

And so we begin to pray, to enter into an interactive communion with God. At first our praying is uneasy and halting. It's an alternation of our attention back nd forth from divine glories to the mundane tasks of home and work. Back and forth, back and forth. And often the alternation is worse -- much worse -- than not praying at all. One moment we are reveling in divine glories, the next moment our minds are wallowing in the gutter of base desires.

Our lives are fractured and fragmented. As Thomas Kelly puts it, we are living in "an intolerable scramble of panting feverishness." We feel the pull of many obligations and try to fulfill them. And we are "unhappy, uneasy, strained, oppressed, and fearful we shall be shallow." But through time and experience -- sometimes much time and experience -- God begins to give us an amazing staidness in the Divine Center. In the depths of our being, alternation gives way to well-nigh unbroken life of humble adoration before the living presence of God.

Theis not exstasy but serenity, unshakanbleness, and firmness of life orientation. In the words of George Fox, we become "established" men and women.

We began to develop a habit of divine oreintation. Now this is no perfectionism, but it is progress in our life with God. The interior work of prayer becomes much simpler now. Slowly we find that little galnces heavenward and quiet breathings of submission are all that are needed to draw us into a havitual orientation of our heart toward God. Without even knowing it, we are practicing the presence of God. Formal times of prayer merly join into and enhance the steady undercurrent of quiet workship that underlies all our days.

As someone who has been deeply rooted in some local part of the Body of Christ for most of her life, I have found it to be very difficult, spiritually speaking, to have felt "spritually homeless" for the last year and a half since I moved to Mt. Vernon. I have found myself feeling spiritually dry, and often lament the absence of fellowship with other believers. This article has encouraged me, though, that during this time, I can cultivate an inner life of prayer.

I tend to err on the side of those Foster described at the beginning of his article -- those who say, "What's the use? It will never change anything." But the more I find myself quickly turning to anger and frustration at people in my life, the more I am convinced of my need to turn to God and away from my own flesh. I am sick of being a selfish and angry person. In the words of Paul, "Wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? Thanks be to God -- through Jesus Christ our Lord!"

As a task- and goal-oriented person, it's easy for me to approach my prayer life as a series of tasks to check off my list. But then again, maybe that's not so bad, if it reminds me to turn to God during my day (and other than those "Dear God, please let my code work!" kind of moments at work.)