John Burke of Gateway Church came up with an idea: pause to connect with God every 60 waking minutes for 60 days. It's been bouncing around in my head to try this, and this past week I decided to just jump in. ... I'm trying to make prayer in my life less like a ritual and more like a conversation. I want to get to know the Lord, the Divine Human, in a way I don't feel I currently do. In Secrets of Heaven it says that prayer is speech with God. I want to start having a conversation. ...Mac talked about this at contemporary service yesterday. I decided to take the challenge after that.
Here's how it works: Create reminders for yourself--sticky notes, pop-up reminders on your computer, hourly beeps on your watch, alarms on your cell phone, or whatever works for you--so that you are regularly... reminded to pray.
Now, the way I'm doing it, I'm not necessarily praying FOR anything, and I'm not "saying a prayer". Every hour, what I do is say silently to myself, "The Lord is always with me," and then taking a second to reflect on my current thoughts, feelings and behavior. I share with the Lord whatever's going on with me, no matter how silly, embarrassing, painful, wonderful--whatever--it is. And then I LISTEN. I still my mind and wait a bit.
That's how I'm doing it. You can do it any way you like! AND, if you like, you can use this FaceBook group to share reflections, experiences, joys, discoveries, etc., with others who are doing this experiment.
UPDATE: Mac's talk is now available online. You can listen to it here. Jump to 13:46 for the talk itself.
Also, I've discovered that you don't have to have a Facebook account to view Facebook groups so I added a link to the group. Click on "A Holy Conversation" here or above.
2 comments:
Due to my self-imposed 300 word limit per post I had to relegate some information to this comment.
The recording of Mac's talk isn't online yet, but should be soon. I'll update the post with a link when it is.
The comments on the Wall of the group are interesting and inspiring. I particularly liked a passage that theolog Ron Schnarr posted. I feel like it explains why having external reminders is such a useful and necessary thing.
CONCERNING CONTINUAL REFLECTION, AND THE CONTINUAL PRESENCE OF THE LORD WITH THE ANGELS. CONCERNING SPHERES.
It was first perceived how the case is with continual reflection, that it is not innate with man, but that it is imbued by habit from infancy, so that at length it becomes as if natural... and of such things there are a great many with man that are at once acquired and yet naturalized... so also it is with those who practice upon musical instruments. All things of the external body are thus imbued, the muscles being wonderfully taught... thus in regard to matters of conscience, conscientiousness is present in every particular of the man's thought and action... Consequently when it is said that the Lord is continually to be thought of... what is meant by [is] not that man is to hold his thoughts perpetually and sensibly on that one theme, which may, however, be done in the outset [and persisted in] until...continuity is acquired. Hence, I now perceive, are the spheres... (Spiritual Experiences 4226)
Read more on reflection.
You can now listen to this talk online and visit the Facebook group whether you have a Facebook account or not. See the update at the bottom of the post.
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