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Words, when they do find their way to the surface from these depths, carry with them a whole new power and meaning because they are forged in the caldron of our deepest longings for God.
breath prayer.
This prayer is so simple that it requires no thought to remember it once we really know it is ours.
Breath prayer is powerful because it is an expression of our heart’s deepest yearning coupled with the name for God that is most meaningful and intimate for us at this time.
The breath prayer helps us to pray when we don’t know how to pray. It gives us a way to pray even when we cannot pray formally.
you discover it by listening to your deepest longings and desires in God’s presence.
In moments of stress or fear, at times when sadness threatens to overwhelm me or awareness of my sin presses in, this prayer finds me, rather than my having to search for a way to pray.
it connects me with spiritual seekers down through the ages, reaching all the way back to blind Bartimaeus, who have cried out to God from the deepest place within them.
To ask for what we really need is hard to do, but Scripture encourages us to make our requests known to God.
Sometimes only desperation makes us willing to be that vulnerable.
Jesus responds with compassion and healing, and it gives me courage.
it connects us with God in the most intimate places of our lives and relieves us of the need to figure out how to pray.
In the morning we begin with praise, affirming God’s presence with us and his loving care toward us and committing the work of the day to him. At midday, when tasks and to-do lists are pressing in and human effort is at its height, we stop to renew our awareness of God’s presence, rest in him for a few moments and ask for his peace and guidance regarding the things that are concerning us. In the evening we place the cares of the day in God’s hands and offer up general intercessions for ourselves and others, as well as bringing needs that are specific to us and burdens we are carrying for
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Intercessory prayer is more about recognizing that we do not know how to pray for others—or ourselves
but the Holy Spirit knows.
When our community is together on retreat, we close the day with night prayer, confessing our sins, celebrating God’s presence among us during the day and asking him to be with us as we rest.
The longer I journey in the spiritual life, the more I experience all of life as prayer and the other disciplines as different ways of praying.
Solitude and silence help me experience the more contemplative elements of prayer.
all of life becomes prayer. From prayers that are more formal and structured to those that are informal and spontaneous, from prayer with words to prayer that is beyond words, from the most intimate expressions of love expressed privately to God to words spoken in unison by God’s people when they gather, from the eloquent written prayers of the church to the breath prayer that is nothing more than a gasp of need or a sigh of love or a groan of longing, from the prayers uttered in beautiful cathedrals to prayers offered on the side of a mountain—every breath we take can be a prayer, uniting our
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Begin by spending time quietly in God’s presence,
“God, what I most want from you right now is . . .”
“My most meaningful name for God is . . .”
If various possibilities come, write them down and eliminate or combine until you have a prayer of about six to eight syllables that flows smoothly when spoken aloud and captures the core of your deep yearning for wholeness and well-being in Christ.
pray it into the spaces of your day—when you are waiting, when you are worried and anxious, when you are needing some sense of God’s presence. Over time, learn to pray it underneath all the other thoughts and words that swirl around you throughout your daily interactions.
pray this prayer as a way of entering into silence and of bringing your mind back to your desire when it begins to wander.
our bodies are worthy of care and blessing. . . . It is through our bodies that we participate in God’s activity in the world.
physical condition: my eating patterns, how much sleep I was getting, whether I was getting any exercise, my water intake and my general attention to health issues.
he had let himself become so run down that God had to send an angel to strengthen his body before they could deal with anything else.
The angel even pointed out that if he did not care for his body, the journey into the presence of God would be too much for him
I am not merely a soul and spirit; I am an embodied human being, and my body is the temple of the Holy Spirit
The appreciation of life in the body includes embracing our maleness or our femaleness, and thus our sexuality, as a gift from God that helps to reveal his true nature.
This means that our sexuality is a great gift, because it is a place we meet and know God in unique ways.
Not only does such a dualistic approach cut us off from knowing God, it also cuts us off from knowing ourselves, embracing the powerful drives within us as a created good and bringing this essential part of ourselves into relationship with God.
As we abide more closely to the God who is the source of all creation, the God of the Incarnation, we begin to experience sexual energy in a new way, as a holy, inalienable generative force.
there is a very real connection between care for our body, our ability to continue deepening our relationship with God and our capacity to faithfully carry out God’s purposes for our life over the long haul.
exercise and spirituality go hand in hand.
Most times, our body is the first to know if we are overcommitted, stressed, uneasy or joyful, and when we need to attend to something that is causing us pain or disease.
“No, the word [of God] is very near to you; it is in your mouth and in your heart for you to observe”
Paying attention to what gives our body and our spirit a sense of life or drains life from us can help us stay connected with God’s guiding presence.
often God speaks into that awareness with truth and insight that proves very helpful over the long haul.
Intimacy happens as we bring more and more of ourselves into God’s presence.
With our body we are telling God that we trust him and rest in him and are available to him.
When words become inadequate to express our joy and praise, we pray with our body by lifting our hands or moving or dancing.
life can spring up anywhere, even in the dry and rutted places of my own life.
Eating food that we enjoy and is healthful for us can be the occasion of experiencing God’s care for us, reminding us of our dependency on him and of his faithfulness to care for our needs.
Paying more attention to the act of bathing or showering can heighten our awareness of our human vulnerability and also the wonder and beauty of our body.
As I care for my body more wisely, I am conscious of a life-giving energy that is always being renewed as a gift from my amazing Creator God.
