The exercise of talking with God (praying), was invented by the Lord himself. . . to make way for communion and (as importantly) for transformation.
God talks. He comes with worthy things to say. All his communications are like that.
God also listens, wishing that his children grow to know him as companioning friend and not simply as “rescuing deity.” He speaks. He listens, and surprisingly to some, he seems quite content at just sitting with his image bearers in unstrained silence. This is itself a form of prayer. The practice carries a label. The discipline of silence.
But whether it is God speaking or the person speaking or simply an intentional time of God and his beloved sitting voiceless in one another’s company, he ever has this matter in mind. Transformation born of closeness.
The creator is ever in the business of saving his people and of growing his people to become much like himself. This is the only way his children are able to come to know him as he intends. In rightly practicing the discipline of silence within the discipline of prayer, the devotee to Jesus is sure to undergo metamorphosis. Change of character is underway as the disciple discovers that the really great thing going on is not a cosmic movement rattling the universe. Rather, something is happening at the interior level of the apprentice as they engage the practice. Such practicings of silence are, paradoxically, bringing forward inward transformation.
“Everyone thinks of changing the world”, Foster writes, “but where, oh where, are those who think of changing themselves? People may genuinely want to be good, but seldom are they prepared to do what it takes to produce the inward life of goodness that can form the soul.”*
For the believing Christian whose heart cannot stop yearning for more of Christ (where God’s presence may be getting routinely manifest in the ordinariness of daily living) nothing short of inside-out change will do.
©2025 Jerry Lout *Celebration of Discipline
Loving these posts about spiritual transformation!
Thank you for the affirmation. Articulating stuff helps to clarify things here and there, right.
I found the portion about the discipline of silence quite interesting. Of late, sometimes when I come into God’s presence with the intention of prayer, I find absolutely no words…and this from a person who rarely lacks anything to say! It has often bothered me and I am often tempted to fill the space with words, or to let my mind wander. Let me try changing my tactics and just getting comfortable with those spaces of silence and see what happens…