The Possibility of Prayer: Finding Stillness with God in a Restless World

by John Starke

“I didn’t get anything done today.” If that’s how we evaluate our use of time, is it any wonder we rarely justify the time for prayer, much less any meaningful spiritual exercise?

A life with God calls for unhurried time that is driven not by accomplishments or tasks but by love and communion. Nothing is earned or achieved in prayer. God gives everything as a gift to those of us who are still and vulnerable enough to receive it.

But our age of pathological efficiency has taught our hearts to resist any moments of quiet, unhurried time. We fear the judgment of using our time inefficiently. You cannot p...

The prayers in the Psalms use words of waiting, watching, listening, tasting and seeing, meditating, and resting. It’s remarkable how inefficient these actions are. They aren’t accomplishing anything. There isn’t a product on the other side of these prayerful actions. Yet over the years they bring steadfastness, joy, life, fruitfulness, depth of gratitude, satisfaction, wonder, an enlarged heart, feasting, and dancing.

The witness of Christian history is that the ambitious need quiet hearts.

The rhythms of our world do not make space for the habits of prayer: Communion, meditation, solitude, fasting and feasting, Sabbath rest, and corporate worship. We are in danger of being formed by our calculating age of technique and efficiency, rather than the quiet Voice that forms us when we are with him.

pathways (rather than techniques)

But Jesus is the God who came down. He condescended to be with us. He put on our flesh, our humanity, our weakness and took hold of us. He experienced our humanity that we might experience his glory.

Either we must put on divinity or he must put on humanity. Which is more reasonable? Both seem like madness, but only one is good news.

The incarnation of God teaches us to see differently. A god who cannot comprehend our pain or understand our trouble is a false god. The God of Jesus Christ knows what it means to be poor, to be troubled in spirit, to suddenly lose his best friend to death, to be falsely accused, to be slandered, to be abandoned by his closest companions, to be misunderstood by family, to be mocked, ashamed, humiliated, and hated. He knows what it means to face death. In the incarnation, “God becomes our neighbor.”

The mystery of our faith is that God is at the same time beyond us, with us, and in us.

We may not be able to fully explain the presence of evil and suffering, but the answer cannot be that God shrugs. The weeping, suffering, and dying Christ won’t let us give that answer.

Jesus commands us to. He tells us to pray God into our trouble, and in exchange we enter his joy.

The first question in reading stories like this is not, What did Jesus do and how do we do it? but What does Jesus offer and how do we put ourselves in a position to receive it?

what we need to be in order for Jesus to befriend us! And, of course, Jesus befriends the sick and needy.

the first step of prayer in a universe where God has put on flesh to be with us: we must put ourselves in the way of his friendship to sick and needy sinners. The heart naturally resists this posture and disposition. If we see ourselves as healthy and self-sufficient, invulnerable and spiritually impressive, we will miss Jesus’ healing and friendship.

“Jesus did not say, ‘Blessed are those who serve the poor,’ but ‘Blessed are the poor.’”

Our modern world often sees our neighbors, relationships, marriages, religion, family, and civic engagements as enhancements,

Things that previous societies might have seen as obligations, we see as enhancements.

we think of prayer, too, as an enhancement.

need a rhythm and a daily place of concentrated time, where efficiency and productivity do not have dominion.

Nooks and rhythms are building blocks of a vibrant spiritual life.

Without that intentional recognition of his presence, prayer can seem distant and impersonal. Without the conscious welcome of his company (since he has welcomed ours), communion can often feel about as intimate as email.

prayer is the way of knowledge of self and the place of friendship with God. We come to our inner place, where God exposes our hidden motivations and subconscious longings, heals them, and shows us himself.

the meeting place of prayer is within us. “You have your chamber everywhere.”

Annie Dillard tells us to be careful of what we learn because that is what we will know.

The Christian faith teaches us that we ought to learn how to seek love and intimacy from God in the way that Christ, the Son of God, sought love and intimacy with God the Father. The more we intellectually grasp this reality, the more we will have an experiential grasp of it, leading to transformation.

There’s a difference between the experience of guilt and the experience of shame. Guilt keeps us up at night because we’ve done something wrong. Shame keeps us up at night because we are wrong. Shame is a sense of inadequacy. We walk into encounters with others with an overwhelming sense of having to prove ourselves, so we play-act as someone we are not. But Paul says, “You have been raised and seated with Christ. His glory is your glory. His beauty has been given to you. Who you are is hidden in Christ.”

“Love takes off the masks that we fear we cannot live without and know we cannot live within,” says James Baldwin.4 Coming to prayer in Christ gives us the divine experience that heals us and takes off our masks.

Reactionary lives lead to empty and confused hearts, making us prisoners to a changing world. It’s impossible to be truly loving with a reactionary spiritual life. With a reactionary heart, joy depends on circumstantial ease or success rather than being sustained through all the spheres of life. Self-control is only possible when we are in control of our surroundings.

To experience fear, anger, despair, depression, or anxiety isn’t a lack of faith. Our faith is evident in what we do with these emotions.

something of the soul is used in prayer and communion that doesn’t get exercised in intellectual endeavors. For many of us modern people, it doesn’t get stirred much during our lives. Even though as Christians we recognize our need to pray (and in fact our love and desire compels us to), we often feel like a wet match trying to strike a flame.

Trust that hiddenness will give you new eyes to see yourself, your world, and your God. People cannot give you new eyes; only the one who loves you without limits.”

In Nouwen’s short journal entry we find a narrative of how he responded to the feelings of rejection. First, he reflected on what to do with these feelings. He was confused and hurt, but nevertheless honest about his emotions. He didn’t stuff them down. Second, he brought his emotions and pain to God, asking for help in what he knew he should do—that is, forgive and not be bitter—and worked to remind himself of what he knew to be true about his vocation and standing in the world. Third, he recognized his human weakness in overcoming the pain with forgiveness and asked God for help. Finally, the occasion helped him become aware of the ways he had caused others to feel rejected by him. He committed to a more loving correspondence with others.

the time and space he gave for reflection, lament, and self-correction. The circumstance provoked pain and feelings of rejection. Nouwen didn’t squash the feelings, nor did he quickly deem them illegitimate. Instead, he brought his emotions to the Lord intentionally and methodically, giving him time to heal and correct.

Eventually, it will find its way out, but it won’t be a prayer or lament. Instead, it will be malice and suffering either in me or toward my neighbor.

The psalms teach us we have little control over our emotions. The little power we have is where we take them.

Prayer is the intentional act of vulnerability to God’s claim on our lives. This picture of prayer opposes the popular view, which sees prayer as self-expression.

Christians, too, have inherited this way of talking about weakness and confession, though it is alien to the New Testament. These are confessions of imperfections on our terms. It is a laissez-faire spirituality that boasts of weakness but is safe from criticism and reproof. This sort of authenticity seeks to confess in order to be merely received. Christianity is quite different. Christianity also boasts of weakness (see the apostle Paul), but makes the self vulnerable to change and transformation.

The authentic self says, “This is me; you must accept me as I am.” The vulnerable self says, “This is me; take me and transform me.” The vulnerable self comes not merely in confession but in repentance. It looks not for power and affirmation but for divine help and deliverance.

We learn humility through humiliating failure, and we humans provide ample opportunity for such lessons.

Humility comes from humiliation, not from the choice to be self-effacing or a strong urge to give others the credit. Humility that has not come from suffering due to one’s own arrogance is either a pragmatic strategy to get along with others or a natural predilection that seems to befit only a few rare individuals. For most, humility comes only by wounds suffered from foolish falls.

We are resistant to humiliation, yet we needn’t be. There’s a communion that comes with it, if we have the eyes to see. There’s a nearness to God that, at first, may feel like death but is really working to get the death out of us.

We must not wait until we feel better about ourselves before we come to God; that’s just pride masked by self-loathing. Coming quickly to God in repentance is a sign of humility, of putting all our trust in the blood of Christ, knowing that we have no worthiness in ourselves.

Another ancient Christian monk, John Cassian, put it this way, For the character of the soul is not inappropriately compared to a light feather or plume. If it has not been harmed or spoiled by some liquid coming from outside, thanks to its inherent lightness it is naturally borne to the heavenly heights by the slightest of breath. But if it has been weighed down by a sprinkling or an outpouring of some liquid, not only will it not be borne off by its natural lightness and snatched up into the air, but it will even be pressed down to the lowest places on the earth by the weight of the liquid that it has taken on.

We can put up with a lot of dissatisfaction with our idols as long as they’re working on our terms.

Some distraction and boredom come from weeds of desire that need to be pulled from the heart for stability and strength in prayer. Sometimes, though, there’s something deeper at work. We simply need to wait. “Be still before the LORD and wait patiently for him; fret not yourself over the one who prospers in his way” (Psalm

Waiting is one of the least effective things we can imagine doing. Not much is getting accomplished when we wait—but waiting is often the key toward spiritual fruitfulness.

you abide in me, and my words abide in you.” It means that we are with Christ more than at the times when we ask for things. In other words, our abiding is more characteristic than our asking, so eventually our asking becomes more informed by our abiding.

the psalmist has learned that the secret to stability and courage is dwelling and abiding; it’s in the quiet, mundane seasons that our roots stretch farther into the ground.