Focus of today's meeting is on prayer of mutual presence.
1. Meditation
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=AOTmqTHhHak
2. Song The prayer
Prayer of Mutual Presence
Tilden Edwards is a spiritual
teacher and co-founder of The Shalem Institute, a contemplative organization.
In this passage, he describes the purpose of prayer:
Authentic prayer is opening to God’s gracious presence with all
that we are, with what Scripture summarizes as our whole heart, soul, and mind
(Matthew 22:37). Therefore prayer is more a way of being than
an isolated act of doing.
Prayer is aimed at our deepest problem: our tendency to forget
our liberating connectedness with God. When this happens we become lost in a
sense of ultimate separateness. From this narrow outside-of-God place rise our
worst fears, cravings, restlessness, and personal and social sinfulness. . . .
Prayer also arises from our deepest hope: for the abundance of
life that comes when we abide in our deepest home, our widest consciousness.
Prayer is our bridge to Home.
Edwards goes on to distinguish between two types of prayer:
Active prayer is present where our wills
normally shape our opening to God, with faint or strong promptings from deep
within. Intercession, petition, confession, thanksgiving, and praise are forms
of active prayer. These are forms of prayer that most of us learn as children
and find reinforced in corporate worship and Scripture. Their content and shape
rise naturally out of our daily lives and evolving spiritual life.
Quiet, contemplative prayer happens when we
are still and open ourselves to Christ’s Spirit working secretly in us, when we
heed the psalmist’s plea: “Be still and know that I am God” (Psalms 46:10).
These are times when we trustingly sink into God’s formless hands for
cleansing, illumination, and communion. . . . We are in a state of quiet
appreciation, simply hollowed out for God. At the gifted [that is, graced]
depth of this kind of prayer we pass beyond any image of God and beyond any
image of self. We are left in a mutual raw presence. Here we realize that God
and ourselves quite literally are more than we can imagine. . . .
Such contemplative prayer finds us in what Scripture calls our
“hearts”: our deepest, truest self in God, the self that is deeper than our
normal sense of mind and feelings, yet includes these in a transfigured way.
Here is the “home” of God in us, where we are most together, “I pray that
Christ will dwell in your hearts through faith” (Ephesians
3:17). It is the core dimension of our being where we most realize our divinely
gifted nature, indeed, where we sense ourselves being intimately breathed in
and out by God continually. In the placeless place of the spiritual heart we
are in touch before thoughts, beyond thoughts. We can bring into that inner
sanctuary only our naked trust and longing. . . .
If the
fundamental spiritual discipline is prayer, opening to God, then the
fundamental discipline of prayer is turning to our heart and inviting a
sustained mutual presence.
Tilden Edwards, Living in
the Presence: Spiritual Exercises to Open Your Life to the Awareness of God (San
Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1987, 1995), 11–13.
Pray God Reveals the Barriers in Your Heart
Dear Lord, show us how to live in a place where we are aware of our constant communion with You.
As Your child I humbly come before You. Thank You that I get to rest under the shelter of Your wings, here in the secret place of Your presence. I praise You, and I worship You, Lord.
“He who dwells in the secret place of the Most High
Shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty.” (Psalm 91:1 NKJV)
I humbly hand over my heart to You, and I say, “Lord, here’s my heart, search me and know me, show me anything in my life that is keeping me from being as close as I can be with You.”
“Search me, God, and know my heart;
test me and know my anxious thoughts.
See if there is any offensive way in me,
and lead me in the way everlasting.” (Psalm 139:23-24 NIV)
As You show me these things in my heart and in my life, Holy Spirit, will You show me what You would like me to do? Will You show me how to let go of these things? Will You show me if there is any unforgiveness or pride in my heart?
“Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me. Do not cast me from your presence or take your Holy Spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of your salvation and grant me a willing spirit, to sustain me.” (Psalm 51:10-12 NIV)
Anything I am hanging on to that belongs to You, anything that I have willingly allowed into my life that is not in alignment with You and Your ways, I lay it down at the foot of the cross. I surrender all to You, Lord Jesus. Thank you for taking these burdens, Lord. Thank you for what You did on the cross to set us free from death. In You I have victory! I praise You, Jesus!
“Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.” (Matthew 11:29 NIV)
5.Meditation
6. Song remember by lauren daigle
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