![]() Your goal should be uninterrupted peace, and trust, and hope, and love. Can you watch your desires at all times, and turn them toward God when they go astray? If you can, you will be at peace at all times.Ĭonversely, if you find that you are not at peace at any point in the day, if you can, stop whatever you are doing and take a few moments to calm your unruly desires and love God with your whole heart. If you want an undistracted mind during prayer, you have to be careful of what you think about at all other times.īut the heart is the heart of the matter. These thoughts, especially if attached to desires, will come back to you during prayer, just because of the way the mind works. If you do wish to better control your thoughts, notice what you are thinking about at other times of the day, before prayer, after prayer, during the night. Rather than trying to control those thoughts, pay attention to what it is that you desire. Thoughts will come and go through your mind. June, you are aware that you are seeking God. If she were free of any kind of desire apart from whatever God wants for her, she would be at peace. June’s expectation and desire to pray in a certain way is an example of a (small) lack of freedom. And if, for a time, we love God with our whole hearts, we have freedom. This is death of self and rebirth in Christ. We must watch our hearts, guard them, notice what it is that they desire, and turn it if necessary. But of course that is not easy: they are the things that we love. To truly give ourselves to God, to love him with our whole heart, we must turn away from such desires and turn toward God. When we desire to acquire and possess things, or desire that others would think well of us, or desire power, or food, or anything that is not God, that desire occupies our will and tends to drive our thoughts and loves. It’s freedom from the desires that darken the mind. It’s no longer being ruled by our own passions. It’s clinging tightly to our own selfish wills.īiblical freedom is freedom from inner compulsion. This is not the Biblical notion of freedom: it’s more like will-worship than freedom. We in this country have an external notion of freedom: that freedom means that no one tells us what to do. You learn to love.Īnd, eventually, if you also have faith and hope, you may find freedom. ![]() ![]() ![]() In trying to give your heart to God, you learn what the heart is, and what is in it, and what it is to give it. Is she sleepy? Depressed? Suffering from indigestion? Is she simply distracted, with the concerns of life that had been running through her mind earlier now returning, unwanted, during prayer? That she feels as though she is still seeking God is an important clue it indicates that her will is engaged with God even if her mind is clouded and confused.Īfter you have been a Christian for a while, after you have spent time trying to figure out how to live for Christ (and fallen), or how Christ can live in you (and failed), or how to be obedient (and were frustrated), you come to the heart of the matter. Here she is unable to do so.ĭiscernment is necessary. June seems to think that when she sits down for prayer and meditates on a Bible passage, if it goes well, she will concentrate, and think clear chains of thoughts, and perhaps figure out or learn something about God or the Christian life or the world. What strikes you about the prayer? What is it that June is seeking? How is this prayer likely to form the soul? I may be thinking about good things, but I just can’t make my mind focus on what I’m reading. When I pray, and I start out meditating on a Bible passage, sometimes I can’t concentrate. You ask June to describe her prayer, and she responds thus: Case 10 You are meeting with a directee, June, who is a Christian, who is seeking God, who has gone so far as to seek out a spiritual director.
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