“In Quietness and Trust is your strength (Isaiah 30:15)”
My goal in this reflection is to give us a proper foundation for connecting with God. The ultimate way that Christians (and other theists) connect with God is through prayer.
Prayer is a spiritual practice that gets us connected to a higher being, and in theistic traditions, this higher being is personal (he has a mind and a will). Before going into prayer, I want touch on the practice of meditation. Many Christians are suspicious of the practice of meditation because of its affinity with eastern religious traditions (Hinduism, Buddhism). The basic idea of meditation is the quieting of the self or the emptying of the mind so as to make way for interaction with a higher power that brings peace to our lives. To accomplish this, the practitioner puts his focus onto something: his breathing, an image (physical or visualized), repeated words, musical rhythms, calming repetitive activity, a question that has no clear answer. The goal could be inner peace or stability, connection to the present, or the development of wisdom. Those are good goals, however there are some that use meditation as an instrument to visualize what they want with the belief that it will get them what they want.
Experientially, people seem to be wiser and more stable when they quiet themselves. They are more attuned to what is happening (inside and outside), therefore able to act in a non-reactive way. He becomes more centered and not dragged around by the destructive force (to himself or others) of emotion. Although humans are created with emotion, I believe that emotions can be destructive of relationships and a person’s well-being; therefore it needs to be controlled. For example, anger can cause violence if given free reign.
The above passage from Isaiah speaks of the importance of quietness. In one psalm, the believer is admonished to “Be still and know that I am God.” The quietness of the soul is a resource for the believer as he faces his fears about the future. In a story about Elijah’s search for the Lord’s presence, the reader is told that the Lord is in the quietness, not in the noise of the storm. God met Elijah in the quietness. The wise man meditates on God’s word. In the story of Jesus and Martha and Mary, Jesus affirmed Mary’s quietly sitting on his feet, over Martha’s frantic service to the Lord. The human being is said to be created with a conscience, sort of a law written in his heart. This suggests that a human does have something within himself that is somewhat connected to the creator, and he has knowledge of it. However, this conscience is drowned by the world’s wrong values (e.g getting wealth is more important than relationships) and the flesh’s drive (I really want...). So how can it be accessed? It would make sense to say that it is by bypassing the world and the flesh through quieting of the self. The Christian monks quieted themselves because they desire communion with God and some of them are revered as great theologians (e.g. Augustine and Aquinas) or great humanitarians (e.g. Francis and Benedict).
The purpose of the above paragraph is to establish that the quieting of the self is a necessary spiritual practice to help us be in communion with the creator. Meditation should be embraced as a spiritual practice, not shunned. All the entertainment and noise we produce to make God more relevant and exciting should be looked at with suspicion, even if it is through “stimulating” churches that some people begin to find the creator. Stimulating sights and sounds are not wrong in itself, and may be beneficial for the beginning of a person’s spiritual journey, but they detract us from being in touch with the inner self, and consequently to God. What we need to do to bring ourselves closer to God is to learn to be quiet and lead others to be quiet. We need to be quiet and deal with our inner selves, which is where change ultimately needs to happen. I suspect that some people find it hard to be at some churches because they could not stand the quiet, their entertained minds are just not trained for quietness.
But what is beyond the silence? This is where theistic spiritual practice diverges from eastern meditation. Eastern spirituality does not recognize a personal God, but theistic spirituality does. Here are some implications of God being personal.
There are some who “confuse” a personal God with the impersonal force of eastern spirituality. They probably see the word “God” as uncool; therefore they prefer not to use it. They thank the universe, for example, for giving them something good. An impersonal universe could not rightly be thanked because it does not have good or bad intentions. We could not thank an impersonal universe for its kindness. That would be like thanking electricity. The source of the good is a personal God who created all things.
We could also not expect mercy from an impersonal universe. We can only expect rigid cause and effect (e.g. Karma) from it. There is no hope for those who violate the laws of an impersonal universe. However, a personal God is seen as a source of mercy among most theists. He is not bound by laws he created, but stands above it. He can choose to let natural law take its course (judgment) or mitigate the full consequences of our violations of the laws he created. Forgiveness is possible in a personal universe.
Theists believe that beyond the silence is a personal God whom we can interact with, and who has also given us his word in history. Most theists believe that this personal God’s words are contained in what is called Scriptures or the Bible. He gave us his word so we can know him- his thoughts and his emotions. We are not confined to speculation as to knowledge of God’s being. If that is the case, meditating in the silence is not adequate to get us connected to the personal Supreme Being. Connecting with this personal Supreme Being entails dialogue. We speak and we listen to his voice through his word.
If God is personal, then prayer cannot be a practice to manipulate God to give us what we desire. Same can be said of our works- it does not guarantee the desires of our heart. God has a plan for us and our universe independent of the desires of our heart. Jesus warns about people who do repeat prayers thinking that it could get them what they desire, not just for quieting their souls. There are indications that God rewards those who seek him and listens to him. However, it is also a reality that he does not grant every prayer or causes the “good” to live more comfortably than the “evil”. This situation opens up two choices; we can either turn our back on this personal God or continue to trust in his mercy despite not getting the desires of our heart. God invites us to trust that his plans for us are good, despite unanswered prayers.
Prayer should be done as a function of relationship. It is not a magical petition to a supreme being. God desires that we look at him as our father, having good intentions for us. However, just as a father does not grant all his children's desires, God does not grant all his children's desires. We may never understand why he does not, but we are called to continue to trust in his fatherly love, that he makes all things work together for the good of those who love him. The pain of unanswered prayer is strong, but God's spirit will help us find his goodness in the midst of the pain.
When we pray, there is an unspoken assumption that God is in control of his universe. That would include not only the movement of the forces of nature, but also the human will. Imagine what praying for somebody’s safety entails. We are praying that God somehow keep circumstances from causing harm to a person, and also that no person would have the will or the means to harm the one we are praying for. Without this assumption, prayer would be absurd, like asking somebody to do what they cannot do. God’s sovereignty could be disturbing but it makes real peace possible. If there are things beyond God’s control then there could be a power that could defeat God’s plans. Therefore, we cannot trust him with our whole heart.
When King Solomon built the temple, God gave him three choices of what he could have- wealth, power over his enemies, or wisdom. Being a compassionate leader, Solomon saw the importance of ruling his people well and put that as a higher priority than his own needs. Theists see wisdom as ultimately coming from an outside source, not something from the inside. In biblical parlance, it’s even insinuated that our hearts are not a good judge of what is the good. There is a sickness in the heart that clouds our judgment as to what is truly good. That does not mean every human insight is wrong but that it could not be trusted completely when it comes to determining what is good and wise. That is also why we should be wary of our own anger. It’s not just that rage cause violence but anger can be a result of a sick heart that feels entitled to something it is not entitled to. True wisdom entails listening to the voice of a personal God, whose wisdom may be different from our own wisdom, but a wisdom that we can trust.
We are used to thinking that we could pray wherever we want. There is truth to that since the personal God is everywhere, and his power could be experienced anywhere. Objects in the universe could not contain the divine, as if the divine is an impersonal force. However, there are those who see a proper focal point of prayer/approach to God. Muslims pray towards Mecca. Some Jews pray towards Jerusalem. Today, some think of that sacred space as a church building or certain persons (saints). Solomon dedicated the ancient temple of Jerusalem to be a place where God is approached for mercy, for worship, and for supplication. There is a thought in theistic religion that God has chosen a special place to reveal himself, a sacred space where he holds court.
This idea of a sacred space seems outdated and even heretical for some. For God to choose a special place, and a special people for that matter, seem to be tribalistic, going against spiritual egalitarian impulses. However, could it be that the idea of a sacred space actually squares with God’s revelation? Maybe the God who is holy (separate from his creation) really wants to meet us in a special place to make his presence concrete. In Christian theology, a person has replaced the temple- the concrete focal point of worship for the theistic Jews. It is true that there is no temple that can contain God, but in Christian theology God has “contained” himself in the person of Jesus. This means that forgiveness comes through Jesus, Jesus answers prayers (he performs miracles), and Jesus receives worship. He is God’s presence made concrete in history. Jesus surpasses other “presences” of God both in the past and in the future because he is God in the flesh. He is the only mediator between God and man, the proper focal point for our prayers.