A Fast From Felt Grace

18 02 2012
An edited journal excerpt from June 1991

In seasons when my seeking of God feels dry or dark, I feel like I’m on a kind of soul fast. I do not have a sense of felt grace that has meant so much to me at other points along the way. Of course grace is always there, but I don’t “feel” graced.

When I have been on an extended food fast in the past, my digestive system went into a kind of hibernation. Because I wasn’t giving it anything to do, it took a break and basically shut down major operations. I wonder if this soul fast is similar in any way. God doesn’t seem to be feeding my mind with inspiring thoughts, or my emotions with comforting, encouraging feelings or my will with stirring directions. Part of me seems to be in a kind of hibernation.

And the early stages of an extended fast are painful and difficult. Toxins that have built up break lose and make their way out of the body. I don’t feel well. This soul fast seems similar. Soul impurities rise to the surface of my thinking and feelings and it feels awful. Maybe God is bringing about a purification.

“Father, this dry place is a hard place for me. Help me to wait as You bring genuine satisfaction to the depths of my inner being. You are the only one I need. The false food I’ve eaten in the past has poisoned my system. Thank You for this process that is refining me. You alone can satisfy me deeply. “Whom have I in heaven but you? And earth has nothing I desire besides you…. But as for me, it is good to be near God (Psalm 73:25, 28).”

Father, You alone are my soul’s desire. It’s true…and I forget it’s true. It is truly good to be near You, even if that isn’t what I’m feeling now. You don’t feel near at all. I believe that You are faithful and true, even when I feel faithless. May Your Spirit bear the fruit of faithfulness within me. Holy Spirit, make me aware of the life of Jesus within me. Help me to glorify the Father in my every choice, thought and action.”

Reflection: How do you respond when your seeking of God does not feel as “graced” as it once did? How might God be near, even if we don’t sense Him?


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Categories : Dark Night of the Soul, Spiritual Direction, Spiritual Formation

Spiritual Direction: The Gift of Dry Places

16 02 2012

An edited journal excerpt from June 1991

In the unfamiliar landscape of the spiritual dry places, I gain insights I couldn’t see in the oasis places. For example, I live in Southern California and we experience seasons of drought. Water is one of things you take for granted until it’s not there. Growing up in lush Northern California, I never remember giving a second thought to having enough water. It wasn’t even on my radar screen of concerns. But in this drought geography, I realize just how valuable water is. In fact, it is the shortage of water that has increased my awareness of its preciousness.

I’ve been reading some of the psalms that speak of thirst for God. My thirst for Him is heightened in this dry place.

Psalm 84:2, “My soul yearns, even faints, for the courts of the LORD; my heart and my flesh cry out for the living God.” I feel the yearning and fainting for God in my soul in extended seasons of spiritual drought. I’m beginning to feel what fainting with desire for God might be like. This desire wasn’t highlighted when I always felt God near or sensed continual refreshment in His presence. How else might God grow this degree of desire in me for Himself?

I also think about my older relatives who have memory of the great depression. They have a life awareness of the value of things that I, having lived most of my life in relative ease, just don’t possess. I am struck by how frugal many older people are who remember difficult days during the depression as children or at wartime. My generation has grown up with as much as we wanted for the most part. The older generation often has a greater appreciation for the value of a dollar than mine does. Father, give me a greater appreciation for genuine spiritual values. Help me to yearn for You and forsake empty worldly pleasures or pursuits.

Finally, I think of what Paul says about contentment: “I am not saying this because I am in need, for I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances. I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. I can do everything through him who gives me strength (Philippians 4:11-13).” Paul wasn’t content based on having whatever he wanted. He had learned to be satisfied even when he was hungry and living in want. You are teaching this to me in this dry place, Father. You are training me to find my contentment will be in Christ alone, not in favorable circumstances.

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The Fruit of a Dark, Dark Night

2 02 2012

An edited journal excerpt from June 1991

Job 14:14-17 NIV, “If someone dies, will they live again? 
All the days of my hard service 
I will wait for my renewalt to come. You will call and I will answer you; 
you will long for the creature your hands have made. Surely then you will count my steps 
but not keep track of my sin. My offenses will be sealed up in a bag;
 you will cover over my sin.”

In the dark night places, as John of the Cross calls them, and in what I’ve been describing as dry or waiting places, I am looking to God to take initiative. “You will call and I will answer You.” So much of my prayer is my calling, expecting His answer. This, of course, has its place in my life. But sometimes my calling isn’t done in a listening posture. I’m only listening for God’s answer to my request, and not listening more broadly for whatever it is He may wish to say.

God calls to us from a place of deep desire. He longs for the one He has made. He longs for me. Do I believe this, especially when this dry season makes God feel far away? John of the Cross says that the dark night is a place where God’s purifying, fiery love does its work in me.

This place of “hard service” is a time of waiting on God’s own renewing work in me. I don’t renew myself. I trust God to do His renewing work.

One thing that encourages me as I think of the bigger story of Job is that his season of deep testing results in an increased level of influence and leadership. “After Job had prayed for his friends, the Lord restored his fortunes and gave him twice as much as he had before. All his brothers and sisters and everyone who had known him before came and ate with him in his house. They comforted and consoled him over all the trouble the Lord had brought on him, and each one gave him a piece of silver and a gold ring. The Lord blessed the latter part of Job’s life more than the former part. He had fourteen thousand sheep, six thousand camels, a thousand yoke of oxen and a thousand donkeys.” (Job 42:10-12 NIV)

Can I find hope in this for myself? Might this trying, dry season actually be the means by which You drive my roots deeper for future seasons of greater fruitfulness? Father, I look forward to You blessing me beyond anything You have done on my behalf in the past. Thank You, Father.

God, in this season of dryness and waiting is gathering together all of my desires, my thoughts, my motivations and my energies so that He might unite them in obedience to the greatest command, “to love Him with all my heart, with all my mind, with all my soul and all my strength.” 

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Categories : Classic Prayers, Dark Night of the Soul, Spiritual Direction

A Good Retreat Leader

20 01 2012

Because I find that intentional retreat has become a frequent mode of spiritual leadership for me over the last twenty years, both in my life and in my ministry to Christian leaders, I’m always watching for resources on this theme.

One older book I came across on the theme of retreat is Time to Spare, written by Douglas Steere in 1949. Listen to this description of a good retreat leader (and thanks for understanding the male-focused language reflecting the writer’s time if not his heart):

“The retreat leader who in all that he does and is shows that he honestly cares for each of the retreatants, that what happens in each of them matters to him, that he is the kind of person who understands and yet is deeply respectful of the hidden life in each, is one who is likely to become a true guide. But in his instruction he must speak bluntly and plainly to these questions that are consciously or unconsciously in the hearts of his listeners. He must diagnose and expose the hindrances and must make wholeness attractive. If he can speak in simple parables, in illuminating examples, no matter how personal they may be, and in convincing experiences and do it in such a way that room is left for the Invisible Companion to speak to the heart of the listener while this is going on, he is again moving in the way of the true guide. Sympathy, good sense and a veteran’s experience in the life of prayer are good qualifications in such a guide.” (Steere, Douglas V. Time to Spare. New York: Harper & Brothers, Publishers, 1949, p. 65-66.)

For reflection: What line in this extended quotation hits closest to home for you? Which one either captures something you long for in your own life, or in your ministry to others?

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Dealing with Stray Thoughts

13 01 2012

What do I do with anxious, lustful or other unwelcome thoughts that surface when I’m praying, or worshiping, or somehow trying to offer God my attention?

In Listening at Prayer (p. 78), Benedict Groeschel suggests that “By allowing the real issues of the interior life–our emotions, needs, conflicts, joys, and sorrows–to surface in His presence we may be able to make our Savior’s words operative in our own lives.” He reminds me of that as I “try to grasp one of these thoughts and look at it in the presence of Christ who seeks my sanctification more than I can ever imagine (77).”

He offers the specific illustration of fear: “Perhaps the distracting thought is a fear that has been troubling me. Silently I present it to my Savior, who overcame the fear of the Cross. I share my fear with him in silence…. In ways that human words are not able to express He reminds me that He once lived in this world, that He experienced these things Himself, or saw His friends and disciples struggle with them.”

Jesus, do you really understand my fears? Will you enable me to live above them in the powerful love of the Father that overcomes fear? I cannot overcome these deep struggles and conflicts alone. Only You can help me overcome them. As I am silent now in Your presence, I feel those fears rising above the surface before You. May I feel Your acceptance, Your forgiveness, Your empowering now.

When you encountered strangers, You saw them through eyes of love. Love empowered you to give something to the strangers you met. May I find the same resource operating in me. May Your love replace my fears and worries. There are still many places where there is much too much of me and not enough of You, Jesus.

I’m never more bold and courageous than when I remembering deeply that You are with me and for me. To Joshua You said, “Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be terrified; do not be discouraged, for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go (1:9).” The only way that I can obey a command to “not be afraid” is by reflecting on and remembering the reality of Who God is and that He is actually with me. He has graciously come to my side. He is seeking my good and my progress. He desires to make me the best person I can be for His praise.

Thank You, Father. When I am afraid, it is a sure sign that there are some ways that I have failed to fully comprehend the reality of Your gracious presence with me. Help me to become more and more aware that You truly are with me. I am never alone. You are always with me. I do not need to fear because fear is not reflective of reality.

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Categories : God's presence, listening to God, Spiritual Direction

The Divine Undoing

4 01 2012

Fifty years ago, a Quaker professor wrote these words about the busyness he witnessed in the churches of his day. They seem at least as true today:

“In religious circles we find today a fierce and almost violent planning and programming, a sense that without ceaseless activity nothing will ever be accomplished. How seldom it occurs to us that God has to undo and to do all over again so much of what we in our willfulness have pushed through in his name. How little there is in us of the silent and radiant strength in which the secret works of God really take place! How ready we are to speak, how loathe to listen, to sense the further dimension of what it is that we confront.” (Steere, Douglas V. Dimensions of Prayer. New York: Women’s Division of Christian Service, 1962, p. 4.)

In my work on this ‘unhurried time’ writing project, I continue to see evidence that our hurry, rather than getting more done, often gets the wrong thing done, and a whole lot of it. Christ followers learn to slow down enough to listen well to the Master and what it is that He actually wants.

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Repentance: A Return to Our True Heart

20 12 2011

Earlier this fall, I came across these lines from a sermon by Bernard of Clairvaux, a 12th century French abbot and the primary builder of the reforming Cisterian order:

“He calls upon sinners to return to their true spirit and rebukes them when their hearts have gone astray, for it is in the true heart that he dwells and there he speaks, fulfilling what he taught through the prophet: Speak to the heart of Jerusalem. You see, my brothers, how the prophet admonishes us for our advantage: If today you hear his voice, harden not your hearts. You can read almost the same words in the gospel and in the prophet. For in the gospel the Lord says: My sheep hear my voice. And in the psalm blessed David says: You are his people (meaning, of course, the Lord’s) and the sheep of his pasture. If today you hear his voice, harden not your hearts.”

True spirit. True heart. It’s easy for me to hear the “sinner” language come with a tone of shame and even condemnation if I’m not careful. But if I recognize that “sinner” simply means one turned away from God–a wayward one—I can hear the invitation to return as a gift, a calling to return to reality, the longing of a Father’s heart to embrace His son.

What I was struck by here was the language of repentance focused not so much on returning to God as much as returning to our true spirit—our true heart—where God dwells and speaks. This is an intimate and integrating invitation. I can stray from my true heart and live from a false center. I can forget that God really does make Himself at home at the very center of my true self and communes with me there. I do not have a relationship with a distant Deity, but with an indwelling Lover. It sounds scandalous.

“Enable me today, Father, to return to my true heart. Cause me to see the reality of Who You are and who I am in You (and You in me). This mystical sounding language is merely an echo of how You speak, Jesus, in John 14:20, “On that day you will realize that I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I am in you.” Amen!”


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Healing Our Image of Father

28 11 2011

In August, on the last night of a three-day personal retreat, I woke at 3:00am with a great sense of anxiety. I had been struggling with my distorted gut image of God for many days. I found myself praying, “Jesus, I really need for You to show me the Father. I need to see Him the way You see Him.” I thought it was a good prayer.

Immediately, it seemed that God’s Spirit brought to mind the passage in John 14 where Jesus answers a very similar request from Philip. (Let me share the extended passage here):

6 Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. 7 If you really know me, you will know my Father as well. From now on, you do know him and have seen him.”

8 Philip said, “Lord, show us the Father and that will be enough for us.”

9 Jesus answered: “Don’t you know me, Philip, even after I have been among you such a long time? Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? 10 Don’t you believe that I am in the Father, and that the Father is in me? The words I say to you I do not speak on my own authority. Rather, it is the Father, living in me, who is doing his work. 11 Believe me when I say that I am in the Father and the Father is in me; or at least believe on the evidence of the works themselves. 12 Very truly I tell you, whoever believes in me will do the works I have been doing, and they will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father. 13 And I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. 14 You may ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it.

I find this passage profoundly life-giving and potent for where I’m at in the journey. Jesus says to Philip and, for that matter, to me, “From now on, You do know [the Father] and have seen him.” Like Philip, I would have replied, “I really do want to see the Father. That would satisfy me.”

Jesus’ response is one I need to hear. Philip expressed what he thinks is a lack in his spiritual journey. He doesn’t think he’s seen the Father. Jesus opens his eyes by saying; basically, “You’ve been with me for three years. You’ve watched how I’ve lived. You’ve seen what I’ve done. You’ve heard what I said. All of this has been the Father’s nature on display. The Father is like me. I am like my Father. We are One. I haven’t been living my life for the Father so much as in the Father, and He has lived in me all this time. Didn’t you realize that? I speak with His authority. I live in His love and power.

“Now, Philip (and Alan), this is what I invited you into. Trust Me. Believe in Me when I say this. You’ve watched how I lived in the Father. Now I say to you, ‘Live in the Father through me.’ Let the Father work through you, speak through you, live in and through you. Just as the Father has shown Himself in and through Me, let Him now do the same in and through you. Ask whatever you wish in this way. I want it. The Father wants it. And, deep down, you know that you want it as well.”

My response: “Father, I can feel the reality of Your life in these words. I feel an answer to the deep prayer of my heart for so many weeks, months and maybe even years. Your answer to this prayer heals me as Your filling relieves the pressure I’ve felt to try to fill myself with empty experiences, vacant pleasures, and false comforts. Jesus, You Yourself are my experience of life, my pleasing home and my true and real comfort.

“May Your Spirit awaken this as an abiding reality in how I think, feel, choose, plan and work. May this growing reality of my attitude and disposition in life enable me to do the work You have prepared ahead for me in my book writing, the course I’ll teach for HIU, my consulting opportunities, my upcoming retreats, and my leadership of the Journey. This would bring life to others, rather than my just repeated words that have been true enough, but not true enough in me right now.

“Keep healing my heart image of ‘God’, Jesus. Help me to have a vision of the Father in You. Help me remember You, and in that memory realize what the Father is really like. A Father like You is a Father I want to be deeply united with. A Father like You is a Father I want living in me.”

So with all of this in mind, I then hear You when You say, “Very truly I tell you, whoever believes in me will do the works I have been doing, and they will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father. 13 And I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. 14 You may ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it (John 14:12-14 NIV).”

Jesus wants me to hear these words as very true. They reflect deep spiritual reality. This is how it really is. Jesus wants me to deeply trust Him so that I will be able to do the works of the Father just like He did (and does through the Spirit now). I can hardly imagine doing even greater works prepared by the Father since Jesus is with Him in heaven and with me through the Spirit.

I am empowered to “write checks” in Jesus’ name on the account of the Father. I am His representative and am authorized, in a sense, as a signer on that account. And that check will be honored for that reason. It is not carte blanche for selfish requests. It is authority for all the resources and power and wisdom and compassion that I need to do ‘Father works’ in my life and ministry now.

Reflection: How welcoming does your gut image of God feel to you? In what ways does your gut image of God look different from Jesus? Talk to Him about this. 

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Facing My Fears with God

6 10 2011

(An edited journal excerpt from May 1991)

This afternoon, I asked Gem whether she might like to go out to dinner tonight. Since she said, “Yes,” I needed to call and make a reservation. For whatever reason, I don’t like making calls like this. I don’t like making requests of strangers. I somehow feel like I’ve given them power over me. I have some weird fears.

Brother David Steindl-Rast offers some simple counsel:

“Maybe we should, now and then, make a list of our fears—all of them. Of course there will be many reasonable fears among them, legitimate fears; we’ll leave those alone. And when in doubt, let’s give ourselves the benefit of the doubt. Let’s assume that our fears are reasonable and legitimate, unless the contrary is pretty obvious. There will still be enough unreasonable fears left on our list. We may be sure of that…. We pick…one out from our list. For once we do what we fear, and we see that the fear was unfounded. Not only do we survive what we unreasonably feared, but the experience lifts us onto a new and unsuspected level of aliveness. As often as we try this out, we find it to be true” (Steindl-Rast, Brother David. Gratefulness: The Heart of Prayer. New York: Paulist Press, 1984, p. 118-19.)

So unless there is some real danger in what I fear, I take the risk of acting on what I fear. I call the stranger. I ask for help. I risk relationship. May Your faithful, persistent, tender love deepen my awareness of Your awesome power and mighty majesty. If You are with me, what do I have do really fear?

Question: What fear has most recently sought to intimidate you? How might you lean into it and find freedom on the other side?

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Wisdom for the Wayward

25 09 2011

Icon of Mary of Egypt

A while back, I was reviewing some reading I’d done in the desert fathers. I was struck by something I read in the ancient story of Mary the Prostitute and how she was reconciled to God through the ministry of a gracious, wise old Abba. Here was one piece of counsel he offered to her:

“Be not mistrustful, daughter, of the mercy of God; let thy sin be as mountains, His mercy towers above His every creature. We read that an unclean woman came to Him that was clean, and she did not soil Him, but was herself made clean by Him: she washed the Lord’s feet with her tears, and dried them with her hair. If a spark can set on fire the sea, then can thy sins stain His whiteness: it is no new thing to fall in the mire, but it is an evil thing to lie there fallen. Bravely return again to that place from whence thou camest: the Enemy mocked thee falling, but he shall know thee stronger in thy rising.” (Helen Waddell [trans]. The Desert Fathers. New York: Vintage Books, 1998, p. 206-07.)

I am struck by the grace and mercy in this desert father’s counsel. No matter how dirty I’ve become, coming into the presence of the Holy One does not soil him but cleanses me. My mountain of sin is dwarfed by His measureless mercy. If I am tempted to make much of my sense of transgression, I ought to remember that His grace is always greater. I musn’t make an idol of my failure, but instead worship at the altar of God’s immense commitment to and affection for me.

The old man essentially says, “If a spark can set the sea on fire, that will be the day that your sins will pollute His purity.” If I drop a match into the ocean in Laguna Beach, there will not be breaking news bulletins about the fiery cataclysm of the world’s oceans. There will be the simple sound of a tiny flame being extinguished. That is just what happens when I bring my failures and my shortcomings into the presence of God.

I’m grateful, too, for the wisdom of the old man’s counsel about getting back up (this in my own words): “There’s nothing surprising about someone falling into the mud, but staying there just makes it worse. Take courage to return—to repent. The evil one may have laughed at your stumbling, but he’ll be sorry when he sees you return stronger in your rising.” It doesn’t take a lot of effort to fall into a pit. It takes even less to lay there in it. The courageous move is to seek to leave it with the help of the God Who reaches down to pull me out.

Father, I’ve been so painfully aware of my sin: I have sought to fill my soul with food rather than with every word that comes from your mouth (gluttony). I have let deceiving images into my imagination that have counterfeited beauty and holy passion (lust). I have allowed a season of plenty to become more my focus than being rich towards You (greed). I have focused on the shortcomings of others and reacted in judgment and condemnation (anger). I have allowed despair to hinder and paralyze me from taking initiative in the good works You have prepared for me to do (dejection). I have allowed procrastination and idleness to rob me of the ways You desire to express grace through me in good work (sloth). I have been tempted to think far more highly of myself than is warranted by my actual life (vainglory). I have in countless ways made myself the reference point of everything rather than You (pride). From this pit I look to You, asking that I might be washed white as snow and be freed from these entanglements that have so robbed me. Amen.

And so I close with my paraphrase of the final prayer of this story of Mary the Harlot:

Have mercy on me, You Who alone are sinless, and save me, You who alone are merciful and kind: apart from You, Father most blessed, and Your only Son who was made flesh for us, and the Holy Spirit who gives life to everything, I know and trust no other God. Now have me in mind, O Holy Lover, and guide me out of this prison of sins. You are the One Who holds both my first day and my last in Your hands. Remember that I have nothing to offer from myself and rescue me from my own shortcomings. May Your grace, my only help, refuge and “claim to fame” in this world, protect and hold me safe in the face of every judgment. You alone know—You who see and test the hearts and wills of people—that I have often sought to avoid evil and shameful paths (not always, but often). I have sought to refrain from empty pride and misguided ideas of You. I acknowledge that anything good in me has been the fruit of Your generous initiative and faithful work. So, Good and Holy Lord, I plead with You to bring me more fully under Your influence and guidance, and cause grace to grow to maturity in me. With You alone are bright beauty, worthy worship and great glory, Oh Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Amen.

(Repost from February 2008)


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