Some books I read deserve an outline (writing out the outlines help me comtemplate them better) and this is one of those deserved. While the outline is not complete (still as of 8/17/2008), I do refer back to it from time-to-time as I'm drawn back to it...God is changing my heart or head. This is an important book for me in the sense of "let God transform me by the renewing of my mind (the way I think)...Romans 12:2.
Book Title: Prayer, Finding the Heart’s True Home
Author: Richard J. Foster
Publisher: Harper Collins
Outline Compilation: Danny Smith
Date: 3/18/06
Preface Statement: To be spiritually fit to scale the Himalayas of the spirit, we need regular exercise in the hills and valleys of ordinary life. (XII)
I Coming Home: An Invitation to Prayer
• The heart of God is an open wound of love
o He aches over our distance and preoccupation
o He mourns that we do not draw near to him
o He grieves that we have forgotten him
o He weeps over our obsession with muchness and manyness
o He longs for our presence
• God is inviting you, and me to come home
o to where we belong
o to that for which we were created
o His arms are stretched wide to receive us
o His heart is enlarged to take us in
o He welcomes us home
to serenity
to peace
to joy
to friendship
to fellowship
to openness
to intimacy
to acceptance
to affirmation
• The Key and the Door
o The Key, to the heart of God, is Prayer
even if you’ve unsuccessfully tried prayer before
even if you’ve only prayed in anguish or terror
perhaps you are broken and/or bruised
perhaps prayer is the delight of your life, but you long for more
• more power
• more love
• more of God in your life
o the Door, to the heart of God, is Jesus Christ
He lived a perfect life
He died in our place
He rose victorious over all the dark powers so that we might live through him
o We may now enter through the door of God’s grace and mercy in Jesus Christ
The Father’s heart is open wide – we are welcome to come in, to come higher up, and deeper in
• The Syntax of Prayer
o this is not about…
definitions of prayer
terminology for prayer
arguments about prayer
methods of prayer
techniques of prayer
o though all have their place and will be discussed
o this is about a love relationship with the great God of the universe
enduring
continuing
growing
o Overwhelming love invites a response.
o Loving is the syntax of prayer
o To be effective pray-ers, we need to be effective lovers.
o Real prayer comes not from gritting our teeth, but from falling in love
With simplicity of heart we allow ourselves to be gathered up into the arms of the Father and let him sing his love song over us.
II Moving Inward: Seeking the Transformation We Need
Note: the movement Inward is prayer to the Son of God, Jesus Christ, which corresponds to his role as Savior and Teacher among us.
A. Simple Prayer
1. Grace
i. everyone comes to prayer with a tangled mass of motives – altruistic and selfish, merciful and hateful, loving and bitter. (8.3)
ii. this side of eternity, we will never unravel the good from the bad, the pure from the impure. (8.3)
iii. thankfully, God is big enough to receive us with all our mixtures. (8.3)
iv. that is what grace means, and not only are we saved by grace, we live by it as well. And we pray by it. (8.3)
2. Just as We Are
i. God receives us just as we are
ii. God accepts our prayers just as we are
iii. a child of God cannot offer a bad prayer
iv. Focus – our needs, our wants, and our concerns are dominate
v. we make mistakes, over and over again – we pray again, and again
vi. Simple Prayer is the most common but also the good, the bad, and the ugly all mixed in together
1. Numbers 11:11b-12
2. 2 Kings 2:24
3. Psalms 137:9
4. Exodus 32:32
5. 2 Kings 4:16
6. Psalms 119:97
vii. Simple Prayer involves Ordinary People bring Ordinary Concerns to a loving and compassionate Father
viii. Simple Prayer is beginning prayer
1. it is the prayer of children and we all return to it again and again
2. Jesus calls us to Simple Prayer when he urges us to ask for daily bread
ix. The “sophisticated” deceives themselves when attempting to skip over the Simple Prayer in hopes of advancing to a more mature level of prayer
x. Simple Prayer is necessary, even essential to the spiritual life
xi. It is when we pray, genuinely pray, that the real condition of our hearts are revealed. This is when God truly begins to work with us.
3. Beginning Where We Are
i. Questions we ask
1. How do we practice Simple Prayer?
2. What do we do?
3. Where do we begin?
ii. We begin right where we are
1. in our families
2. on our jobs
3. with our friends and neighbors
iii. God can reach us and bless us in the ordinary junctures of daily life
iv. In the most natural and simple way possible we learn to pray our experiences by taking up the ordinary events of everyday life and giving them to God
v. We should feel perfectly free to complain to God, or argue with God, or yell at God
1. Jeremiah 20:7
2. God is capable of handling our anger
vi. Never believe the lie that says that the details of our lives are not the proper content of prayer.\
vii. Carry on an ongoing conversation with God about eh daily stuff of life
viii. Do not worry about “proper” praying, just talk to God
4. Counsels Along the Way
i. Prayer is nothing more than an ongoing and growing love relationship with God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit
ii. We must never be discouraged by our lack of prayer
1. even in our prayerlessness we can hunger for God and the hunger is itself prayer
2. in time, the desire will lead to practice, and practice will increase the desire
3. we give even our lack of prayer to God
iii. Let go go of trying too hard to pray
1. just as an occasional jogger cannot run a marathon, we must not do that with prayer either
2. single out a few moments and give that to God
iv. We must learn to pray even when we are dwelling on evil
1. even when we are waging a battle over anger, or lust, or pride, or greed, or ambition
2. do not isolate these things from prayer
3. talk to God about what is going on inside that we know displeases him
4. lift our disobedience into the arms of the Father; he is strong enough to carry the weight
5. Sin separates us from God, but trying to hide our sin separates us all the more
v. In the beginning, strive for uneventful prayer experiences
1. Psalms 131:1-2
5. The Conversion of the Heart
i. Caution that we do not focus too much on “self” which will lead to selfishness and narcissism
1. Romans 1:25 (where we loose sight of God and ending up worshipping the creature instead of the Creator)
ii. Seeking divine protection, we venture forward with honesty and openness
iii. In the beginning we are indeed the subject and the center of our prayers.
1. In God’s time and in God’s way a revolution takes place in our heart.
2. Slowly, there is a shift in our center of gravity.
3. We pass from thinking of God as part of our life to the realization that we are part of his life
4. Wondrously and mysteriously God moves from the periphery of our prayer experience to the center.
5. A conversion of the heart takes place
6. A transformation of the spirit
Dear Jesus, how desperately I need to learn to pray. And yet when I am honest, I know that I often do not even want to pray. I am distracted. I am stubborn! I am self-centered! In your mercy, Jesus, bring my “want-er” more in line with my “need-er” so that I can come to want what I need. In your name and for your sake, I pray. Amen
B. Prayer of the Forsaken
“My God, My God, why hast thou forsaken me?” (Matt. 27:46b)
Jesus’ experience on the cross was, of course, utterly unique and unrepeatable, for he was taking into himself the sin of the world. But in our own way you and I will pray this Prayer of the Forsaken if we week the intimacy of perpetual communion with the Father. Times of seeming desertion and absence and abandonment appear to be universal amounf those who have walked this path of faith before us.
We might just as well get used to the idea that, sooner or later, we, too, will know what it means to fee forsaken by God.
Deus Absconditus – the God who is hidden.
1. A Major Highway
i. Encouragement: this is not a rabbit trail, but a major highway
ii. Ps 42:9, many have passed this way
iii. We are in good company
iv. Darkness is a definite experience of prayer
1. it is to be expected
a. even embraced
2. A Taylor-Made Journey
i. Our sense of God’s absence does not come in a preset timetable
ii. Some of the deepest experiences of alienation and separation from God have come to those who have traveled far into the interior realms of faith
iii. We do not move from “stage-to-stage”
3. A Living Relationship
i. We are entering into a living relationship that begins and develops in mutual freedom
ii. God grants us perfect freedom
1. He desires creatures who freely choose to be in relationship with him
a. Prayer of Forsaken teaches us to give to God the same freedom
b. This relationship can never be manipulated or forced
iii. God is not an object at our beck and call like objects and idols
iv. God is constantly smashing our false images of who he is and what he is like
v. Sense the absence of God?
1. an unsuspected grace?
vi. God is wild and free
vii. God comes at His will
viii. God is not a puppet on our string or a genie in a bottle
ix. God is powerful and we often could not take him (Exodus 20:19)
4. Anatomy of an Absence
i. Psalm 13:1 “How long will you hide your face from me?”
ii. There are times that God will want us to retreat
1. something that is going well
2. or a tragic event
3. or it is simply from a warm glow into an icy nothing
a. a hibernation
iii. like a fast
iv. waiting in silence
v. God might, and often will, be silent also
vi. It is a discipline of silence that needs, must, be endured
5. The Purifying Silence
i. The purifying silence is not dramatic or even recognizable at the time
1. much like a child growing up slowly at your feet
ii. Two purifications
1. Stripping of dependence upon exterior results
a. Less and less impressed with big things around us (budgets, buildings, miracles, cars…)
b. We are drawn towards praise and adulation
c. We are not even moved by kind and gracious remarks
d. We become deadened to religious response to God
i. Liturgical practices
ii. Symbols
iii. Aids to prayer
iv. Books on personal fulfillment
v. Private devotional exercise
vi. We just simply are no longer fascinated by them
e. We become less in control of our destiny and more at the mercy of others
i. Like in John 21:18-19 Peter, who once girded himself and went where he wanted but in time found that others girded him and took him where he did not want to go
f. There becomes an intimate and ultimate awareness that we can not manage God
i. God refuses to “jump” for me
g. God conquers me
2. Stripping of dependence upon interior results
a. This is more disturbing
b. This is more painful
c. It threatens me at the root of all I believe in and have given myself to
d. We become less and less sure of the inner workings of the Spirit
i. Not disbelieving in God
ii. But what kind of God?
iii. Is God good and intent upon our goodness
iv. Or is God cruel, sadistic, and a tyrant
v. We discover the workings of faith, hope, and love become subject to doubt
vi. Personal motivations be suspect
vii. We worry what our acts and thoughts are inspired by; faith, hope and love or fear, vanity, and arrogance
e. Like a frightened child we walk cautiously through the dark mists
i. We become tentative and unsure of ourselves
ii. Questions nag at us
f. Through this all, God is purifying our faith by threatening to destroy it
g. We are led to a profound and holy distrust of all superficial drives and human strivings
h. Deeply we know our capacity for infinite self-deception
i. Slowly taken off of vain securities and false allegiances
j. Trust in all exterior and interior results is being shattered so we learn faith in God alone
k. Through our barrenness of soul God is producing detachment, humility, patience and perseverance
l. Our very dryness produces the habit of prayer in us
i. Distractions are gone
ii. We become focused
iii. The soul is parched and thirsty
m. Or despair and abandonment of the search
3. The Prayer of Complaint
a. During these times of abandonment, we begin praying the Prayer of Complaint
i. In the Lament Psalms the ancient singers knew how to complain
1. words of anguish and frustration can guide our lips into the prayer we dare not pray alone
2. Reverence and disappointment are expressed
a. Ps 109:1 “God whom I praise, break your silence”
3. Dogged hope and mounting despair
a. Ps 88-13-14 “I am here, calling for your help, praying to your every morning: why do you reject me? Why do you hide your face from me?”
4. Confidence in the character of God and exasperation at the inaction of God
a. Ps 42:9 “I say to God, my rock, ‘Why have you forgotten me?’”
b. They Lament Psalms teach us to pray our inner conflicts and contradictions.
i. They allow us to shout out our forsakenness in the dark caverns of abandonment and then hear the echo return to us over and over until we bitterly recant of them, only to shout them out again
ii. They give us permission to shake our fist at God one moment and break into doxology the next.
4. Short Darts of Longing Love
a. During this time of silence, we can also keep on doing what we know to do
i. We pray
ii. We listen
iii. We worship
iv. We carry out the duty of the present moment
b. What we do in the light of God’s love, we also do in the dark of God’s absence
c. We continue to ask even though there is no answer
d. We continue to seek even though we do not find
e. We continue to knock even though the door remains shut
f. The constant, longing love produces a firmness of life in us
g. We love God more the gifts God brings
h. Like Job, we love God even as he slays us
i. Like Mary, we say freely, “here am I, the servant of the Lord; let be with me according to your word” (Luke 1_38)
j. This is a wonderful grace
5. Trust Precedes Faith
a. Wait on God
b. Silently and still
c. Attentively and responsive
d. By trusting God, we put our spirit into neutral
e. Trust is confidence in God
f. Firmly, deliberately say, “I do not understand what God is doing or even where God is, but I know that he is out to do me good.”
g. This is how we wait
h. This is trust
i. While the wilderness is necessary, it is never permanent
j. In God’s time, in God’s way, the desert will give way to a river flowing with milk and honey
k. Ps 32:7 “O my God, deep calls unto deep”
GOD, WHERE ARE YOU!? What have I done to make you hide from me? Are you playing cat and mouse with me, or are your purposes larger than my perceptions? I feel alone, lost, and forsaken.
You are the God who majors in revealing yourself. You showed yourself to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. When Moses wanted to know what you looked like, you obliged him. Why them and not me?
I am tired of praying. I am tired of asking. I am tired of waiting. But I will keep on praying and asking and waiting because I have nowhere else to go.
Jesus, you, too, know the loneliness of the desert and the isolation of the cross. And it is though your forsaken prayer that I speak these works. - Amen
C. The Prayer of Examen
D. The Prayer of Tears
E. The Prayer of Relinquishment
F. Formation Prayer
G. Covenant Prayer
III Moving Upward: Seeking the Intimacy We Need
Note: the movement Upward is prayer to God the Father, which corresponds to his role as sovereign Kind and eternal Lover among us.
A. The Prayer of Adoration
B. The prayer of Rest
C. Sacramental Prayer
D. Unceasing Prayer
E. The Prayer of the Heart
F. Meditative Prayer
G. Contemplative Prayer
IV Moving Outward: Seeking the Ministry We Need
Note: the movement Outward is prayer to God the Holy Spirit, which corresponds to his role as Empowerer and Evangelist among us.
A. Praying the Ordinary
B. Petitionary Prayer
C. Intercessory Prayer
D. Healing Prayer
E. The Prayer of Suffering
F. Authoritative Prayer
G. Radical Prayer
Book Title: Prayer, Finding the Heart’s True Home
Author: Richard J. Foster
Publisher: Harper Collins
Outline Compilation: Danny Smith
Date: 3/18/06
Preface Statement: To be spiritually fit to scale the Himalayas of the spirit, we need regular exercise in the hills and valleys of ordinary life. (XII)
I Coming Home: An Invitation to Prayer
• The heart of God is an open wound of love
o He aches over our distance and preoccupation
o He mourns that we do not draw near to him
o He grieves that we have forgotten him
o He weeps over our obsession with muchness and manyness
o He longs for our presence
• God is inviting you, and me to come home
o to where we belong
o to that for which we were created
o His arms are stretched wide to receive us
o His heart is enlarged to take us in
o He welcomes us home
to serenity
to peace
to joy
to friendship
to fellowship
to openness
to intimacy
to acceptance
to affirmation
• The Key and the Door
o The Key, to the heart of God, is Prayer
even if you’ve unsuccessfully tried prayer before
even if you’ve only prayed in anguish or terror
perhaps you are broken and/or bruised
perhaps prayer is the delight of your life, but you long for more
• more power
• more love
• more of God in your life
o the Door, to the heart of God, is Jesus Christ
He lived a perfect life
He died in our place
He rose victorious over all the dark powers so that we might live through him
o We may now enter through the door of God’s grace and mercy in Jesus Christ
The Father’s heart is open wide – we are welcome to come in, to come higher up, and deeper in
• The Syntax of Prayer
o this is not about…
definitions of prayer
terminology for prayer
arguments about prayer
methods of prayer
techniques of prayer
o though all have their place and will be discussed
o this is about a love relationship with the great God of the universe
enduring
continuing
growing
o Overwhelming love invites a response.
o Loving is the syntax of prayer
o To be effective pray-ers, we need to be effective lovers.
o Real prayer comes not from gritting our teeth, but from falling in love
With simplicity of heart we allow ourselves to be gathered up into the arms of the Father and let him sing his love song over us.
II Moving Inward: Seeking the Transformation We Need
Note: the movement Inward is prayer to the Son of God, Jesus Christ, which corresponds to his role as Savior and Teacher among us.
A. Simple Prayer
1. Grace
i. everyone comes to prayer with a tangled mass of motives – altruistic and selfish, merciful and hateful, loving and bitter. (8.3)
ii. this side of eternity, we will never unravel the good from the bad, the pure from the impure. (8.3)
iii. thankfully, God is big enough to receive us with all our mixtures. (8.3)
iv. that is what grace means, and not only are we saved by grace, we live by it as well. And we pray by it. (8.3)
2. Just as We Are
i. God receives us just as we are
ii. God accepts our prayers just as we are
iii. a child of God cannot offer a bad prayer
iv. Focus – our needs, our wants, and our concerns are dominate
v. we make mistakes, over and over again – we pray again, and again
vi. Simple Prayer is the most common but also the good, the bad, and the ugly all mixed in together
1. Numbers 11:11b-12
2. 2 Kings 2:24
3. Psalms 137:9
4. Exodus 32:32
5. 2 Kings 4:16
6. Psalms 119:97
vii. Simple Prayer involves Ordinary People bring Ordinary Concerns to a loving and compassionate Father
viii. Simple Prayer is beginning prayer
1. it is the prayer of children and we all return to it again and again
2. Jesus calls us to Simple Prayer when he urges us to ask for daily bread
ix. The “sophisticated” deceives themselves when attempting to skip over the Simple Prayer in hopes of advancing to a more mature level of prayer
x. Simple Prayer is necessary, even essential to the spiritual life
xi. It is when we pray, genuinely pray, that the real condition of our hearts are revealed. This is when God truly begins to work with us.
3. Beginning Where We Are
i. Questions we ask
1. How do we practice Simple Prayer?
2. What do we do?
3. Where do we begin?
ii. We begin right where we are
1. in our families
2. on our jobs
3. with our friends and neighbors
iii. God can reach us and bless us in the ordinary junctures of daily life
iv. In the most natural and simple way possible we learn to pray our experiences by taking up the ordinary events of everyday life and giving them to God
v. We should feel perfectly free to complain to God, or argue with God, or yell at God
1. Jeremiah 20:7
2. God is capable of handling our anger
vi. Never believe the lie that says that the details of our lives are not the proper content of prayer.\
vii. Carry on an ongoing conversation with God about eh daily stuff of life
viii. Do not worry about “proper” praying, just talk to God
4. Counsels Along the Way
i. Prayer is nothing more than an ongoing and growing love relationship with God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit
ii. We must never be discouraged by our lack of prayer
1. even in our prayerlessness we can hunger for God and the hunger is itself prayer
2. in time, the desire will lead to practice, and practice will increase the desire
3. we give even our lack of prayer to God
iii. Let go go of trying too hard to pray
1. just as an occasional jogger cannot run a marathon, we must not do that with prayer either
2. single out a few moments and give that to God
iv. We must learn to pray even when we are dwelling on evil
1. even when we are waging a battle over anger, or lust, or pride, or greed, or ambition
2. do not isolate these things from prayer
3. talk to God about what is going on inside that we know displeases him
4. lift our disobedience into the arms of the Father; he is strong enough to carry the weight
5. Sin separates us from God, but trying to hide our sin separates us all the more
v. In the beginning, strive for uneventful prayer experiences
1. Psalms 131:1-2
5. The Conversion of the Heart
i. Caution that we do not focus too much on “self” which will lead to selfishness and narcissism
1. Romans 1:25 (where we loose sight of God and ending up worshipping the creature instead of the Creator)
ii. Seeking divine protection, we venture forward with honesty and openness
iii. In the beginning we are indeed the subject and the center of our prayers.
1. In God’s time and in God’s way a revolution takes place in our heart.
2. Slowly, there is a shift in our center of gravity.
3. We pass from thinking of God as part of our life to the realization that we are part of his life
4. Wondrously and mysteriously God moves from the periphery of our prayer experience to the center.
5. A conversion of the heart takes place
6. A transformation of the spirit
Dear Jesus, how desperately I need to learn to pray. And yet when I am honest, I know that I often do not even want to pray. I am distracted. I am stubborn! I am self-centered! In your mercy, Jesus, bring my “want-er” more in line with my “need-er” so that I can come to want what I need. In your name and for your sake, I pray. Amen
B. Prayer of the Forsaken
“My God, My God, why hast thou forsaken me?” (Matt. 27:46b)
Jesus’ experience on the cross was, of course, utterly unique and unrepeatable, for he was taking into himself the sin of the world. But in our own way you and I will pray this Prayer of the Forsaken if we week the intimacy of perpetual communion with the Father. Times of seeming desertion and absence and abandonment appear to be universal amounf those who have walked this path of faith before us.
We might just as well get used to the idea that, sooner or later, we, too, will know what it means to fee forsaken by God.
Deus Absconditus – the God who is hidden.
1. A Major Highway
i. Encouragement: this is not a rabbit trail, but a major highway
ii. Ps 42:9, many have passed this way
iii. We are in good company
iv. Darkness is a definite experience of prayer
1. it is to be expected
a. even embraced
2. A Taylor-Made Journey
i. Our sense of God’s absence does not come in a preset timetable
ii. Some of the deepest experiences of alienation and separation from God have come to those who have traveled far into the interior realms of faith
iii. We do not move from “stage-to-stage”
3. A Living Relationship
i. We are entering into a living relationship that begins and develops in mutual freedom
ii. God grants us perfect freedom
1. He desires creatures who freely choose to be in relationship with him
a. Prayer of Forsaken teaches us to give to God the same freedom
b. This relationship can never be manipulated or forced
iii. God is not an object at our beck and call like objects and idols
iv. God is constantly smashing our false images of who he is and what he is like
v. Sense the absence of God?
1. an unsuspected grace?
vi. God is wild and free
vii. God comes at His will
viii. God is not a puppet on our string or a genie in a bottle
ix. God is powerful and we often could not take him (Exodus 20:19)
4. Anatomy of an Absence
i. Psalm 13:1 “How long will you hide your face from me?”
ii. There are times that God will want us to retreat
1. something that is going well
2. or a tragic event
3. or it is simply from a warm glow into an icy nothing
a. a hibernation
iii. like a fast
iv. waiting in silence
v. God might, and often will, be silent also
vi. It is a discipline of silence that needs, must, be endured
5. The Purifying Silence
i. The purifying silence is not dramatic or even recognizable at the time
1. much like a child growing up slowly at your feet
ii. Two purifications
1. Stripping of dependence upon exterior results
a. Less and less impressed with big things around us (budgets, buildings, miracles, cars…)
b. We are drawn towards praise and adulation
c. We are not even moved by kind and gracious remarks
d. We become deadened to religious response to God
i. Liturgical practices
ii. Symbols
iii. Aids to prayer
iv. Books on personal fulfillment
v. Private devotional exercise
vi. We just simply are no longer fascinated by them
e. We become less in control of our destiny and more at the mercy of others
i. Like in John 21:18-19 Peter, who once girded himself and went where he wanted but in time found that others girded him and took him where he did not want to go
f. There becomes an intimate and ultimate awareness that we can not manage God
i. God refuses to “jump” for me
g. God conquers me
2. Stripping of dependence upon interior results
a. This is more disturbing
b. This is more painful
c. It threatens me at the root of all I believe in and have given myself to
d. We become less and less sure of the inner workings of the Spirit
i. Not disbelieving in God
ii. But what kind of God?
iii. Is God good and intent upon our goodness
iv. Or is God cruel, sadistic, and a tyrant
v. We discover the workings of faith, hope, and love become subject to doubt
vi. Personal motivations be suspect
vii. We worry what our acts and thoughts are inspired by; faith, hope and love or fear, vanity, and arrogance
e. Like a frightened child we walk cautiously through the dark mists
i. We become tentative and unsure of ourselves
ii. Questions nag at us
f. Through this all, God is purifying our faith by threatening to destroy it
g. We are led to a profound and holy distrust of all superficial drives and human strivings
h. Deeply we know our capacity for infinite self-deception
i. Slowly taken off of vain securities and false allegiances
j. Trust in all exterior and interior results is being shattered so we learn faith in God alone
k. Through our barrenness of soul God is producing detachment, humility, patience and perseverance
l. Our very dryness produces the habit of prayer in us
i. Distractions are gone
ii. We become focused
iii. The soul is parched and thirsty
m. Or despair and abandonment of the search
3. The Prayer of Complaint
a. During these times of abandonment, we begin praying the Prayer of Complaint
i. In the Lament Psalms the ancient singers knew how to complain
1. words of anguish and frustration can guide our lips into the prayer we dare not pray alone
2. Reverence and disappointment are expressed
a. Ps 109:1 “God whom I praise, break your silence”
3. Dogged hope and mounting despair
a. Ps 88-13-14 “I am here, calling for your help, praying to your every morning: why do you reject me? Why do you hide your face from me?”
4. Confidence in the character of God and exasperation at the inaction of God
a. Ps 42:9 “I say to God, my rock, ‘Why have you forgotten me?’”
b. They Lament Psalms teach us to pray our inner conflicts and contradictions.
i. They allow us to shout out our forsakenness in the dark caverns of abandonment and then hear the echo return to us over and over until we bitterly recant of them, only to shout them out again
ii. They give us permission to shake our fist at God one moment and break into doxology the next.
4. Short Darts of Longing Love
a. During this time of silence, we can also keep on doing what we know to do
i. We pray
ii. We listen
iii. We worship
iv. We carry out the duty of the present moment
b. What we do in the light of God’s love, we also do in the dark of God’s absence
c. We continue to ask even though there is no answer
d. We continue to seek even though we do not find
e. We continue to knock even though the door remains shut
f. The constant, longing love produces a firmness of life in us
g. We love God more the gifts God brings
h. Like Job, we love God even as he slays us
i. Like Mary, we say freely, “here am I, the servant of the Lord; let be with me according to your word” (Luke 1_38)
j. This is a wonderful grace
5. Trust Precedes Faith
a. Wait on God
b. Silently and still
c. Attentively and responsive
d. By trusting God, we put our spirit into neutral
e. Trust is confidence in God
f. Firmly, deliberately say, “I do not understand what God is doing or even where God is, but I know that he is out to do me good.”
g. This is how we wait
h. This is trust
i. While the wilderness is necessary, it is never permanent
j. In God’s time, in God’s way, the desert will give way to a river flowing with milk and honey
k. Ps 32:7 “O my God, deep calls unto deep”
GOD, WHERE ARE YOU!? What have I done to make you hide from me? Are you playing cat and mouse with me, or are your purposes larger than my perceptions? I feel alone, lost, and forsaken.
You are the God who majors in revealing yourself. You showed yourself to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. When Moses wanted to know what you looked like, you obliged him. Why them and not me?
I am tired of praying. I am tired of asking. I am tired of waiting. But I will keep on praying and asking and waiting because I have nowhere else to go.
Jesus, you, too, know the loneliness of the desert and the isolation of the cross. And it is though your forsaken prayer that I speak these works. - Amen
C. The Prayer of Examen
D. The Prayer of Tears
E. The Prayer of Relinquishment
F. Formation Prayer
G. Covenant Prayer
III Moving Upward: Seeking the Intimacy We Need
Note: the movement Upward is prayer to God the Father, which corresponds to his role as sovereign Kind and eternal Lover among us.
A. The Prayer of Adoration
B. The prayer of Rest
C. Sacramental Prayer
D. Unceasing Prayer
E. The Prayer of the Heart
F. Meditative Prayer
G. Contemplative Prayer
IV Moving Outward: Seeking the Ministry We Need
Note: the movement Outward is prayer to God the Holy Spirit, which corresponds to his role as Empowerer and Evangelist among us.
A. Praying the Ordinary
B. Petitionary Prayer
C. Intercessory Prayer
D. Healing Prayer
E. The Prayer of Suffering
F. Authoritative Prayer
G. Radical Prayer
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