Chapter 5 - Liberation Through Prayer

"Whatever else it may be, prayer is first and foremost an act of love. Before any pragmatic, utilitarian, or altruistic motivations, prayer is born of a desire to be with Jesus. His imcomparable wisdom, compelling beauty, irresistable goodness, and unrestricted love lure us into the quiet of our hearts where He dwells." [pg.83]

When I think about prayer, the majority of my prayers cause me shame. Not like hide in my room under the covers shame, just a bitter disgust at the shallowness of my prayers. Most of my prayers are prompted by my own needs or the situation in which praying is standard or at least appropriate. These are the majority of my prayers.

In the minority are the moments where it's as if my lips are to His ear and I know that He knows. He KNOWS. A compassionate understanding that only a true BFF can understand. And the crazy thing, most of these times I'm not even speaking. These prayers of my heart, it's a moment where my conversation is not even verbal. Those are the tender moments. There are also the prayers which are cried out, screamed out, tears streaming down my face because of anger or brokenness. These conversations mostly take place in my car, my room or the bathroom. But these too, are the kind of prayers I think Manning is talking about. Prayers where He and I are talking in the deepest chambers of my heart.

Basil Pennington [pg.84] describes prayer as a child resting in their father's arms. Rest is something that I have to learn to do with God. How many times have I heard preachers at camp telling me to not pray at night because I might fall asleep in the middle of praying? If God is truly with me in everything, then He is most definitely there in my resting. I know the intent of the teacher was to help a rowdy group of selfish teens realize that they need to give their best to God and not just give Him sloppy seconds. But somewhere along the way, I never learned to find God in my resting (reference Tim Hughes, "Everything"). I remember being at a one day prayer retreat, and the speaker gave us permission to nap. Tears welled up in my eyes as I finally realized that I can find freedom and rest in God's presence. Rising up early to meet Him is good and well, but so is laying down to know Him. My husband always says the most amazing feeling in the world is an infant asleep in your arms, tiny hand around your neck and sweet baby drool nuzzling your shoulder. So we should be with Abba Father.

I have no comments on this paragraph, I just love it:

"The crucified Christ, in his present risenness, is not an abstraction but the ultimate response to how far love will go, what measure of rejection it will endure, how much infidelity, self-centeredness, and betrayal it will withstand. The unconditional love of Jesus Christ nailed to the wood does not flinch before the worst sinner's perversity and inhumanity." (Matt 8:17)

Brennan's excercise on pg. 93 reminds me of an engagement session I had with a young couple a few weeks ago. Brennan says "Reflect on the fact that he loves and accepts you just as you are now. Take time out to sense his unconditional love for you as he looks at you lovingly and humbly." I had them standing a bit away from me, and had them look each other in the eyes. And as I had them standing there quite awhile, I heard her say a bit embarrassed, "I can't look at you that long." I imagine this is how I would be, as I imagine Christ looking on me, fully accepting me, in this current broken and often lazy state.

"The great turning point in your life is not when you realize that you love God, but that when you realize and fully accept the fact that God loves you unconditionally." - Anthony de Mello

Shaken!

A Glimpse of Jesus chapter 5 “Liberation through Prayer

At the first reading of this chapter I was shaken. His comments on prayer that it was first and foremost and act of love and that to really love someone implies a natural longing for presence and intimate communion. Manning then described the requirements for canonization of a person to sainthood. Their life, more than anything else, is a life characterized by extraordinary prayer. It didn’t matter what miracles they performed, what influence they had or how they swayed the masses, if they did not demonstrate this type of prayer life they would not qualify for sainthood.

I was shaken because I felt the weight of my insufficient prayer life condemning me. I must not really love God because I don’t find prayer natural and I could never be a saint because I certainly don't have an extraordinary prayer life. Ordinary might be more accurate.

I know this was not Manning’s intent or heart but it struck me that way just the same. I realize that my reaction went overboard, due in part to personal guilt and in part to genuinely wanting a better prayer life. I found some comfort in the story of Basil Pennington when,
as Pennington puts it, it isn’t so important what we say and do but “that I am choosing to remain for this time intimately with the Father, giving ourselves (myself) to him, receiving his love and care, letting him enjoy us (me) as he will”(pg.84)

There was much in the chapter that resonated with me. Much of what Manning had to say was a “hard pill to swallow” but once taken to heart I know the benefits will follow.
I have taken to heart the idea of simply “being in God’s presence” more. Prayer has always been an act discipline for me and I long for it to be something more.

Liberation Through Prayer

Where I had a problem with much of the previous chapters I had the opposite reaction to this whole chapter. I might sound prideful to say that I feel like Manning truly hit the nail on the head regarding prayer - the meaning of it, access to it, problems we have with it. Perhaps a better way to state it is what he wrote resonated with my thinking about prayer and new thoughts he shared made perfect sense to me.

I think his Catholic background aided him in the practice of prayer. He says, "Recognition of the problem (of prayer) is not the answer. Action is. One learns to pray by praying. Two twenty-minute periods of prime time in solitary prayer, morning and evening, before a symbol of the crucified Christ is the most effective discipline I have found for making conscious contact with the living God and his liberating love."

He talks about how "Christian piety has prettified the passionate God of Golgotha", how we have taken the holy, reverent, passion of the access to the cross and minimized it into a necessary inconvenience.

I was inspired and challenged by this chapter.