communing – Jerry Lout ⚬ Writer ⚬ Speaker ⚬ Mobilizer

How does the apprentice of Jesus bring about the shift in his prayer life that he really wants and needs? What raw material can he draw on to grow more a participant than spectator?

It is heartening to know that once anyone – anyone – purposes to advance in the holy enterprise of communing with the Almighty, the Lord himself supplies the means. Ingredients called for to see it through. He sees to it that whatever helpful tool, whatever effective resource is needed, it’s there in easy reach.

Any field of human endeavor that results in life-enriching expression does, of course, call for tools.

Great soul-stirring music – whether gentle and melodic (think Bach) or thundering and strident (think Beethoven) – comes to us because of ‘means’. Sheet music, for instance, helps a good bit!

For a long while, especially in the earlier years, I struggled with what to pray. And how to pray as well, with meaning or effectiveness. It was a welcome day when simple tools (helps) got brought to my attention. I confess I felt a bit foolish having passed over some elementary resources that had been available all along. They simply had not registered on my radar. They were also, most likely, being broadcast in lesser measure to the family of faith than today. Thankfully, that is changing.

Opening my Bible (or Bible app) nowadays, I sense a permission in spending time lingering in just one of the many Psalms, returning to it day after day. This grand book of scripture – a prayer book all its own – has proven a treasured onramp (even a camping spot) for the rhythmic set-aside times with God.

Sitting in stillness, welcoming awareness of God’s presence, I can now borrow from the precise language of the man-after-God’s-heart-worshipper himself. Soon it comes to me that I – employing the tools of the Shepherd-king’s language – am worshipping and petitioning out of the wellspring of my interior soul. How encouraging. Lifegiving. Faith has stirred wakefulness – my prayer life made richer in assurance and trust – in boldness and joy.

This by simply lifting the latch and opening the lid of an ancient toolbox: The Book of Psalms.

“If God wanted me to be a morning person, he would cause the sun to rise later in the day.” A good many people today might share this sentiment.

While the amusing line can strike a sympathetic chord in some, we would likely all benefit from at least giving thought to a practice common in Jesus’ day-by-day living.

And rising very early in the morning, while it was still dark, he departed and went out to a desolate place, and there he prayed.*

When we think of it, every new day gets its start in the morning. A no-brainer insight, but one which can help us engage a common-sense truth if we are willing.

Morning persons or not, each and every day begins when we wake from sleep to launch (sometimes maybe shuffle) into it.

Jesus’ personal practice was to rise from sleep (in that normal way his fellow humans routinely do). Shortly after waking Jesus engaged his will to consciously direct his thoughts. Toward God. He was intentional at the start of his day, carving out a space and a time to individually give himself to the direct presence of the Father. We, in our day, might label it his quiet time. Regardless what we name it, this action of Jesus was predictable. Conversing with God is a thing he looked forward to. He would never consider choosing not to.

Inhaling and exhaling air is an activity we (as did Jesus) practice a lot, while almost never thinking about it. Breathing comes automatically. In his repeated ‘practice’ of meeting with God on his daily rising, Jesus had grown to pray ‘automatically’. Not as a robot responding to external commands, but as a much-beloved offspring. He purposely – eagerly as well – set aside those many lesser attractions, lesser voices clamoring for his attention and time. My mind by contrast can often get hijacked by relentless distraction.

Nothing going on around Jesus on any given occasion commanded his attention more than this. Communing with the father trumped all.

Jesus invites us, his beloved apprenticing friends, into much the same kind of lifestyle he enjoyed while navigating the many winding and hilly terrain of earth’s pilgrimage. Christlike living, simply put, is prayer-centered living.

Hanging out with God was a centerpiece in his “being-about-my-father’s-business”. This predictable first-of-the-day habit was no less familiar to him than other common practices – breakfasting, teeth-cleaning, sandal-lacing.

.Anyone acquainted at all with Jesus Christ knows that he understood the best way to live life as a human from day to day. Most of us would probably be wise to ponder this for a moment. Jesus knew the smartest kinds of practices to engage in as a flesh and blood human person. He supplies every apprentice the pattern to follow.

“And he went out. . and there he prayed”.

Tag: communing

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