Unceasing Prayer with John Mark Comer, Christine Caine, Tim Mackie, Pete Greig | Tyler Staton

Alright folks, thank you so much for being a part of this conversation, the kind of point of the book, praying like monks, living like fools, is the idea of ​​

unceasing

prayer

or rebellious fidelity, which is obviously

unceasing

prayer

to the that we call each other. by the apostle Paul is an internal state of being, but like every spirit, every spiritual practice points to some internal state that we want to inhabit correctly, which is why I recommend a daily prayer rhythm three times a day that is taken from the rhythm of church. The first 300 years were preserved in monastic communities, which is beautiful because it has been preserved throughout history and tragic because it was taken out of the common church and assumed to be only for special spiritual elites or something, and so dream with how it would be. put that back into the life of the everyday believer of the stay-at-home dad and the student student and the busy executive and the hourly worker and everyone just the everyday person and uh, so I was hoping we could have a conversation about that about what it might look like and Tim, I'd love for you to start us off because we've been having an ongoing dialogue about the motif of Paradise in Scripture, perhaps as a picture of what prayer is meant to be or how it's supposed to be experienced, So why don't you give us that Reason and then we'll separate it?

Yes, of course, I know personally, the challenge of unceasing prayer really forces me to think about it. my basic assumptions about reality and the nature of reality and uh there's a reason in Scripture that always seems like a puzzle to me um that became the key for me personally how to unlock this in an experiential way um is the famous scene where it's the criminal crucified next to Jesus, there are two, but one of them asks, you know, remember me when you come to your kingdom and Jesus' response is, "I'll see you later today in Paradise," which I think most of We may think what he meant.

Heaven, I'll see you in heaven later today, but of course, that's not what it says, it says, I'll see you in Paradise and the interesting thing is that the word Paradise in both the Greek and Hebrew of the Old Testament is the word Garden. So what does it mean? for Jesus to say, "I'll see you in the garden later today because he's a Jewish man who learned it in the Scriptures, there's only one garden he's talking about and that's the garden of Eden and the last time I checked the garden of Eden was kind of like that." in the past like on page two of the Bible uh and it's actually on page two of the Bible and so for me the form of the question was um, when is Paradise and is it like something in the future for people that they're dying or is it something like in the past like in Genesis and then there's another part of the New Testament that really bothered me and that's what Paul was actually talking about his own prayer life in the letter of two Corinthians and he talks about how One time, when he was praying, he had an experience that called vision and an apocalypse and he was transported, not even sure if he was in his body or not, to heaven, which he then proceeds to call Paradise, and that was the puzzle . for me it was like okay, so where is the garden and when is the garden?

You know, a long time ago, when it's in the future or it's very much available in the present and that might seem like a nerdy Bible trivia question that you would ask. I asked, but for me it became really significant when, suddenly, what paradise and the gardens are in the story of the Bible is one of the most powerful symbols to talk about a place where Heaven and Earth are one, where heavenly abundance and the source of everything. life creates this environment that just explodes with divine presence in life and that is what Adam and Eve lost, you know in the story of Eden, but apparently it is a reality that is not lost from the world, it is now accessible particularly through of prayer, etc. that became really powerful for me when I realized that paradise is a way that you can, but you can, there are biblical images about temples, rivers and mountains, these are all places where the eternal perpetual presence of God floats and sustains every moment and molecule. of reality uh prayer and becoming aware of paradise now it's really about tuning into what reality really is um and that's the reality that underpins my entire life experience and um so I hope that's a coherent thought but it's become coherent for me and It has become a framework for thinking about prayer that opposes moving away from reality; indeed, it is an opportunity for me to become rooted in the personal presence of the One who is the Eternal, now the source of all life and Beauty in our world. and the moment I had that shift of this is what I seek in prayer or I would have the opportunity to connect with uh it really transformed my own prayer journey yeah so what are the thoughts that drive me because I remember what was a big breakthrough for me, since you were sharing, is another place where the Paradise Motif is explored in Revelation, one where John on the island of Patmos finds himself having a revelation of Jesus in Paradise, but is exiled on an island, so this place ordinary. actually, a place he wouldn't choose to be becomes a meeting place through this thing called prayer, so we have that line He was in the spirit on the Lord's day, what does that mean?

I was in the spirit on the day of the Lord, yes, yes. What thoughts does this raise about this crazy, broad concept called prayer? I mean, I don't find it exciting because it's also very challenging because I can't just pigeonhole prayer and say I've had my quiet time, now I can move on. real life, but also incredibly comforting because it means that prayer, instead of being something else that I'm constantly trying to grasp from the future to the present or from some other place in church history or whatever the continuing presence is of God, is continually available. for me and therefore it is something I relax into.

I think the word for continuous prayer, Jessica, means to rest, there is a sense that we are not fighting for the presence of God, but rather we are learning to relax into it and I think as we talk about spiritual disciplines and things like that it is understanding that that It is a way of opening your hands, loosening your fists, it is not grasping, it is like that and this gives me a framework for the grace and possibilities of each moment that you are in a cancer ward, you are in a maternity ward, you are going to work in some way. manner.

Paradise, the presence of God runs parallel. Every moment can be a port into the presence of God, so I find it incredibly exciting, yes, that reminds me. I, uh, commentator Frederick Dale Bruner and his commentary on the Gospel of John argues that everywhere you see the word believe in the Gospel of John, the best translation is relax and say yes, and then you'll know it's talking about the invitation. . relaxing in Jesus relaxing in his promises roleheiser defines prayer as relaxing in the goodness of God so I'm wondering if I love everything I'm thinking about the book of Hebrews where it says to work to get into that place of rest and I'm wondering if the Prayer is the portal through which we come to that place of rest, so it is and the work is wow!

I suddenly went back and forth even though I'm still here like I'm in this realm, but I'm no longer in this realm and then I can work from rest for the Kingdom, so it's a completely different thing. I just think that many of us try to do things in our own strength, but we don't have to work the wrong way if we work to enter that place of rest, then from that place of rest we can work in this kingdom and see the coming. Kingdom of God and the gods will be made here on Earth as in heaven.

I think so. I think work is a useful word because the truth is that I think the beautiful Biblical Motif you are talking about may simply be an abstract concept if I don't plant it in some kind of container where I am now ordering my life in such a way. in a way that I am healing taste buds for that paradise or for that recognition of God that is always present for me in my ordinary life and so I wonder for each of you how you have stumbled or how you try to practice the presence of God and recognize it As you go through your ordinary life, because it's become common in the church today, it seems to have a box that God fits into where, for example, if I'm a particularly disciplined average church goer, it's a 15 to 30 minutes in the morning and then I go about my day, but how do we allow Paradise to run parallel to all our ordinary moments?

How do we start taking advantage of those portals? Well, for me, I mean a real pivot point in mine Journey um I was seeing a spiritual director and they invited me to start each day with a long period of silence, which is really counterintuitive. I feel like my tradition made me think that prayer is talking a lot, you know, even if it's silently, but speaking mentally. to God um and so what's interesting is that it's actually a part-time preparation um but the fact that it's at the beginning it's almost like it's setting the tenor like it's for the day and acknowledging what's true starting here in the beginning and it will be It is true every waking moment for the rest of the day in the presence of God and that has been enormously meaningful to me.

It was very surprising and at first I didn't feel like anything was happening, but as more and more time went by. that has become one of the most meaningful rhythms for my own life it is

mark

ing that season of time those few moments at the beginning of the day that is a practice in a way that has become meaningful to me it is something that plays in my head just when I wake up getting up every morning is something I've heard you say and you tell me exactly how it is, but it's about how the first thing you pay attention to shapes your imagination during the day or shapes your attention, you know what I mean?

Oh, I couldn't do a good job, but I read this neuroscientist years ago who talked about how the two most important times of your day for the development of your brain and your Consciousness and your Neural Pathways or what you think. about right before you go to sleep and what you think right when you wake up and that was almost devastating for me as a pastor to realize that most people end their day consuming quasi-pornographic material on Netflix, yes, and they start their day with Twitter Send an email to Instagram or the news feed and like it.

Can you imagine two more deformative acts for the healing of your conscience? That may be strange language, but I truly believe that is what prayer and discipleship is all about, especially if you read the ancient Christians, desert fathers and mothers. It's actually about, you know, Paul would call it the renewal of the mind, but it's about healing the flow of thoughts and feelings and desires through your mind into the Trinitarian presence of love, so I think those moments just before going to bed and entering. mornings are crucial and I would be with Tim, you know, the silence of the morning, you know, my morning prayer time, which is nine times out of ten the highlight of my day, yeah, yeah, I mean, I just look forward to it. cravings all day, I miss it. when it's over, I'm ready and that's not because I'm so virtuous, I think it's that I don't know how it got there, you know, and I don't remember, I remember growing up in a very good Christian home, so it was like they forced us to have a quiet time in the morning, like we literally had a rule in our house, like no Bible, no breakfast, but it was very much that kind of Western Gospel that was like, uh, hey, you can stay with that, maybe that's spiritual abuse. maybe it's good parenting I'm not sure I'm the oldest of four kids, the four of us look back at our day reading scripture, it worked, it worked, breakfast actually and we do intermittent fasting so what can I say?

But it was a lot. that type of Western evangelical morning prayer was reading the Bible in a year and an interest session like verbally asking God to do things in the world, which are beautiful practices, it was not resting in the love of God, it was not contemplative at all. , I was tiring you. I know, I didn't realize until I was, I think, in college and I went through a really bad season of mental health, extreme depression, and suicidal ideation where I needed God to survive, so at that time every morning was like two hours. of morning prayer and it wasn't because I was spiritually zealous or virtuous, it was because I didn't want to commit suicide and I couldn't get through the day, so I think pain for most of us is the big driver Since then, you know, 20-something years then my morning quiet time is some scripture, but sometimes it's very slow, it's just a Psalm or maybe a Psalm and a portion of the gospels in the New Testament and I'll read longer in others. periods is simply the richest time of my day, the challenge for me is how to carry it out during the day and so I have been trying to move towards a daily prayer with a prayer rhythm at fixed times for like a decade and tryingand failing trying and failing because the work is not on God's side, it is on me's side and the world's side, you know, the Hebrew line primarily translates, strive to enter into his rest, so preachers They are always as if we were against the effort.

God is not a forceful driver, but you are not straining on the God side as if God is there waiting available to welcome you, you are straining on the iPhone. The Wi-Fi side is busy inside and that is where one thing that has been really helpful for me in those later touch points of prayer has been using, whether you want to call it liturgy or pre-written prayers or the Psalms without having to make them up myself. It is harder for me to get to that place of Stillness in the middle or end of the day with teenagers and a job and therefore using other prayers from the Psalms or right now at night.

I've just been reading Phyllis Tickle's little book. you know, literature, yeah, literally, hours and I just do her vespress, you know, every night, and it's very helpful. I can lie in bed. I'm exhausted. I can barely think, but it's so much better than Netflix and I just scroll through it. It's a long page, it's a pretty bad sentence, like we're judging performance, it's really bad and we're not, but it's a little guide to take me in my exhaustion back to trying to have my last moment. being of God, yes, well one thing I found useful because I actually also practice silence early in the morning, which is interesting, a theme arises when I think about it like giving the first word of my day to God and I don't I mean that. like every time I am silent I receive Revelation or I am waiting for Revelation but it is as if I want to begin with consent because there the spirit is within me working for my transformation at a deeper level than I have language and so I want to accept the work of the spirit and surrender my day as I start it, but then come back to whatever it is, when I open up the Psalms or look at parts of the gospels to come back to it, I find the exam really helpful. practice the test at night, not like the last moments before I fall asleep, which, if you're not familiar, is just reviewing your day with God and often I will talk to God about my morning time with him and say: I remember. talking to me about something I can't remember and I take, I talked to him about what you were saying like I do with a friend and I can usually remember it and sometimes I can see wow you were at points throughout my day and sometimes I just say I'm sorry so much for not doing anything with it today please keep talking to me about it until it gets worse this little thing I'm reaching for it I'm going to get in trouble for making noise but I have these little pieces of paper and every morning I write down whatever I feel from God what it could be and I put my gratitude in here and usually it's just little phrases of scripture, sometimes it's more serious and then I just paste it. in my pocket and then every time I grab my phone or my car keys or my wallet I feel it there and sometimes it just goes there and ends up in the laundry room, but sometimes that helps me not forget, you know, it's like they say the most common commandment in all of scripture is don't fear Tim, you can, you can close this, yeah, be careful, this is, don't affirm, make any affirmations about the Bible with Tim or pray alongside Tyler, it's like, what about?

I can talk? I don't even know, um, uh, and I was told that the second most repeated command is remember. I don't know if that's true, but it sure is amazing, yes there is a whole, there are definitely a lot of memories and there is definitely a bond between those you remember. I know that the more we remember God's faithfulness and his goodness and our present and our past, the less afraid we are. I think as we position ourselves for the future, you know, I think listening to God daily and then remembering, remembering, remembering, you know. yeah, I'd love to hear from you guys about this, wow, I love it and okay, for every mom out there who has a million things going on with the kids and she's been saying, "I'm listening to us right now," I wish I could You could practice, you know, examine every night and, um, if the kids weren't throwing things at me and if I, you know, and because my life, even now, at 50, is still very subject to airline schedules and delays , and I've had to learn to do it.

Practices. I learned even when I was a young mother. You know where you were you had two seconds. You couldn't even go to the bathroom alone. So, I mean, some people literally look at us as we go. I love doing what you're talking about, but I can't even go to the bathroom without six kids around my ankles or you know, so I've learned that I could even be in an airport and there are delayed flights or I'm there often. on a plane in what would normally have been early in the morning or late at night and if I'm sitting close to someone and then other times I have the opportunity to not be close, I have a little more space so I had to learn to get in In a Zone, however, it is wherever I am, with the time I have and I would have variations of all that, so if I am at home, in my house, I have much more control over my own time my children are older my environment is there um so I listen to you and say: yes, I have aspects of all that, but where I am often, which is not like that, and Nick and I are often in a small hotel room where we share that space and a small bathroom and that It happens many dozens of nights a year.

We just had to make it work like he's going to leave our room and go down to the lobby of a hotel where it's almost pitch-black and I have some time and I'll get the room and then I'll have some perks of 26 years of marriage, but we make it work well and mine is and always can work. How do I connect with God with some people? It works the same way, I do it the same way every day and there is a great intimacy. um, it's like any married couple, your intimacy is disturbed like if Nick and I were married for 26 years, so there's a lot of things.

In various ways we express our intimacy and show it, and that's how it works in my relationship with God and I think in light of what I'm called to do, there are so many different time zones, so many different environments where I have to do. this intimacy works in some places it's much longer there's a completely different way that we make our connection and then in other places we can get there much faster and we can and it's fine as if it were. Whether it is the word or the spirit, I will have different moments. I remember when I was going through a really difficult time where I really wanted to quit smoking, I even thought about walking away from the Ministry.

It was so difficult in my tradition that I could. He had the word. but I also had 22 years of prophetic words that I had transcribed spoken throughout my life and over a period of six months I read each one of them. That was my quiet time with the Lord. He only remembered that he read those prophetic words. With my children, when the pandemic first hit, I understood all the prophetic words outside of my daughters and Nick and I, of course, received the word of God and then the words of God that were given to us through people and just We read and told them.

Know that right now children we need not fear because this is what has been spoken in our lives and a lot of this has not happened yet so I don't know where it is going but I can tell you that this is the promise of God and it was just a teaching that you were building the present moment on promise instead of anxiety absolutely yes, so go instead of looking at this, this is what the word and then other words of God by the people of God have come to. . us, so it's a way to train my kids, but even remind myself, and there will be other days, you know, I've done three years in a row of My Utmost For His Highest um, you know, like I could, so I'm.

I say this for people who maybe think, "My God, I couldn't think of anything worse than the same way all the time every day." I think there are variations and I think what you're going to do and whatever, this is going to explain what we all have in common between our different temperaments is that we would all say that the intimacy of the connection is the absolutely important thing, however, that then it plays out in our lives and I think every married couple has a different way of doing it than everyone else has. his unique way of doing that with God too, yeah, it's something you're touching on.

I think it's really important. I look at the prayers and letters of the apostle Paul and they are very instructive to me, especially the prison letters like the letters he wrote from prison because the way he prays is like he comes to the promises of God, recognizes his situation and then reaches out. to God's promises and then prays for the promises to be fulfilled, so his prayers are not what I have noticed. that I think I inherited a form of prayer that is a reaction to circumstances, right, oh no, this has happened. God, please help and Paul recognizes that he is not ignorant of his circumstances, which would be equally harmful, but he recognizes that the circumstances are there and then.

He puts God's promise on top of the circumstances and builds his prayer on that, so I think one way to have a portal to Paradise is to recognize the current circumstances, have God's promise influence the circumstances and then pray in the promise instead of praying in reaction to circumstances the promise would be my starting point in my prayer life um, which for some people that's a little disconcerting because they would say you're denying reality. I'm like no. deny reality at all, actually I am stating reality first and then I will bring my circle. Now I know this can get complicated, so you know, we're not talking about chatting and grabbing it and we're not talking about that, but there is being a space and I think that's part of why some people's prayer life feels like it doesn't.

I was accomplishing nothing like why am I doing it I have an imaginary friend is this this isn't really real it's um it's an imaginary friend when you don't I don't know promises it's a fine line people who take it to the extreme don't want to take no responsibility for this area, but I believe that if you are willing to take responsibility for this area, then the truth is the word of God, the facts. So the truth never changes but the facts can change so many of us build our prayer life on the facts of our circumstances and I think the facts can change but the truth never changes so I'm going to subordinate the facts to the truth. as my starting point and then lining it up that's where it would work for me.

Does it take me back to where you said Tim earlier about it really being about what's real? you know I kept going while you were chatting I kept thinking about Douglas Steer who was a 20th century Quaker spiritual writer said that to pray is to pay attention to the deepest thing that I know and it's a melody and a line of the Ultimate Reality, but if you're in a materialistic framework and you don't have to live in Portland and some super secular context, most of the Western world is very materialistic, meaning that what is real is what can be verified empirically in a laboratory and within that type of worldview which is the air we breathe, we cannot help but be influenced by it. as followers of the Jesus prayer you may feel like reading a shopping list to Santa Claus in heaven or making up thoughts in your mind or just an excuse to rest or whatever or daydream and but if the prayer is actually for see if in reality the material world is the blurry world and spiritual perception that includes material reality and not only transcends it, it incorporates it if that is really what is real, seeing the world through the lens of God, his presence, his promises, his history, his redemptive history, if that is the real reality and my The New York Times every morning is actually a very distorted version of reality.

So, actually, in prayer I am not abandoning reality. I return to it and relearn how to see the world through its lands. I agree with all that, but I have a guard against some kind of jewelers who say you know the reality is like I'm sitting alone with Earl Gray tea and the squirrels are silent with a Bible verse, the squirrels are not silently for the record, they are quite distracting for us. in Oregon, I know girls can get pretty distracted, pretty distracted from prayer, okay, and occasionally, unrealities like the New York Times and me. I know we're all on the same page here, but I really think the principle here is that whatever practice we use is actually about helping us find God in the material world in that and it's not just that he's somehow more somewhere else than there, but actually the elimination of ourselves allows us to find it in the place I am talking about, our interpretation of the real world, yes, I am not talking about abandoning the messy everyday life because God is only in the stillness .

What I'm saying is that when all I do is live in chaos and noise, I accept the web browser's interpretation options for this world around me, yes. and they can pray. I have the lenscorrect, the correct interpretation of this very real, very earthly, very material world, yes, you know, it has to be significant that, in these biblical moments, when people encounter heaven on Earth, they are usually in moments of true coercion and suffering and then you mentioned John exiled on an island in Patmos um, there's that well-known story about Jacob in Genesis where he's running, his brother is going to murder him, yeah, and he's estranged from his father and his brother and he has, He has no place to sleep, so he's asleep in a field and this field becomes the place where Heaven meets Earth and you know, it's the famous story of the Stairway to Heaven, um or Ezekiel sitting on the exile in Babylon and I remember when I started observing that, I mean what.

What other circumstances seem to determine reality for you than when our lives fall apart and that's just and of course Jesus is dying and you are thinking about where you will meet the criminal and any kind of configuration of consciousness of the divine presence of those people in every moment of life, those kinds of things do not happen by themselves as if you are alone in those kinds of moments with Paradise in the brain if you have been molded or you have molded your mind to be aware of it, then it Appreciate, that's a very good point, Pete, and I think that's where the desired end goal lies. quiet morning with some squirrels chirping or if my life is falling apart, that in either of those circumstances I can be equally aware of the divine love and presence that is here and let me try to take this a little bit further because I loved what I said about, You know, being a busy mom and all that.

First of all, I was the primary caregiver for our children for several years and I remember going to the prayer room at 3 in the morning carrying a few month old baby who, you know, was asleep in his thing. Coming in I was tired I felt like I needed to be awake when the baby was asleep like a hole in the head he woke up every two hours at that stage I settle in I'm like okay Jesus, you and me and at that moment little Danny starts crying and I'm , I am ready to rebuke him in the name of Jesus and he needed his diaper, his diaper was changed and I felt deeply resentful of this intrusion into my hour of you know, esoteric stillness and I realized and this is Here is a deeply holistic spirituality Celtic.

I need to forgive myself but I need to find Jesus when changing the diaper or I'll never find Jesus so this is a little graphic but we're human yeah while I'm cleaning the what is it? I know from his bottom, I realize this is my sin and as I tenderly wipe him away, I repent and receive forgiveness and that beautiful moment when they have a clean diaper, everyone is cuddly. I'm thinking about the father, so I had to take what seemed like a distraction and turn it into my moment of encounter and let myself apply that in a different way.

Most books on spirituality have been written by hyperintroverts and, um, us. I have to start exploring those pieces of the Bible that actually talk about spirituality in corporate contexts and kinesthetically as energy, so I didn't know that it was okay for me to often have clarity in my thinking and even hear God when I'm running. I didn't know because a lot of it was just sitting still, you know, eliminating distractions and all this, and I didn't know that sometimes it was okay to do an activity that allowed me to focus and then I started thinking about Jesus climbing mountains to pray and I realized that I had this romantic notion that he just liked Hills and that he was a hiker and I didn't think that it might actually be that that was releasing certain hormones into the blood of Christ that actually allowed him to concentrate.

I mean, there's quite a bit of good research on that now and it may have been that she was actually deliberately doing physical exercise for her prayer time and I say this because I want busy moms changing diapers to know that you don't necessarily have to sit for an hour in silence. . To meet Jesus two, I want people who maybe have a little bit of ADHD or have difficulty focusing and concentrating. No, maybe there are some active ways you can find God with equal validity, so pray the way God made you. Yes, I connect with God more that way. yeah, I walk in the morning, right, I walk in the morning, I have a run that I do on Friday morning, so I don't use headphones or anything and it's the best prayer time of my week, it's what restores me more than nothing and a lot of time.

In some stretches I'm not actively talking to God, but then a thought arises and I'll have this Clarity between me and God and then I'll come back to another stretch. It's like being on a road trip with a friend we have. amazing conversations and then you just don't talk for an hour and then you reengage but you feel comfortable enough to know you're going to be in and out. Yeah, I'm thinking you mentioned the exam and I've been trying. pray the exam every day for a decade and fail for a decade. I believe in the examiner.

I literally gave a lecture on the exam. It was a pretty good sermon and I believe in all the theology behind it. I just find it incredibly difficult to do at the end of the day. I'm so tired it takes more mental discipline than I have, but the funny thing is I'm still trying to figure it out, so help me, we can. It can be an offline conversation. help me figure out how to do this, but you know historically Ignatius developed that from a thousand years of monastic tradition of praying at set times seven times a day or six times a day because they took vows of stability and lived cloistered behind walls in the same place and here comes Ignatius, you know, and he is starting a new order that is not a monastic order, it is an apostolic order, they are going to do Mission and Justice, the world has opened up through navigation and commerce and they are sending missionaries to parts of the world that they didn't even know existed and they need a form of contemplative spirituality for a busy, active life and if you travel to Japan or whatever in the 16th century, you can't take a break six times a day you can't do vespers and many and you can't do that, you're traveling, you're going to another culture, so he developed the exam and, as I understand it, to develop a whole contemplative life that you could do in 15 minutes a day moving in an airport, in a hotel room on a ship or whatever, so I think of the exam as the deep end of the pool for super Elite contemplatives, but it was actually designed for extroverted travel.

For people who are not like me, it was a problem, extroverted, kinesthetic and active people, to continue cultivating an inner life with God. You know, you know what I'm hearing, because as we all talk, whatever your spiritual practices are, they will change. in your life, as spirit invites you to be formed in prayer in different ways at different times, but whatever your spiritual practices are, they are ultimately about developing intimacy, which I think is often expressed through interruptibility. I was thinking about the fact that when I'm at work, I'm, I love every time Apple built the do not disturb feature into an iPhone because, you know, I can't get notifications and it's amazing, and then they wait for me every time turn it off except um Kirsten on my phone she her contact with me my wife they push it because we didn't make it you didn't make it she's the only one who made it but it's because intimacy like she can interrupt for me because she's never an interruption for me , true, and intimacy allows it. um, we have a normal date night, but I think all that date night does is facilitate a deeper interruptibility and it seems that way, maybe even in those biblical images that you were exploring. less like oh John on the Isle of Patmos was tapping into something and more like maybe it was more like John was interruptible to God and so this is where God pierced something to get to John instead of the other way around, yeah, and just like a you know, talking about the Bible with a Bible nerd, but Ezekiel throughout all the experiences he has, some of them he's actually very angry about one of them, he's completely angry, he says after having had an encounter with God because it was a commission to do something that he didn't want to do, so he had never really thought about that, yeah, but the point is that these are things that happen to him and you have to imagine getting to that place It takes a lifetime to shape it. to get to a place where you would even know that God wants to get your attention in the first place, yeah, thinking about prayer not as something we do but also as something that is done to us is a paradigm shift, you know, like it's French. philosopher who writes about how technique is the secular version of superstition, so in pre-secular scientific eras it was to throw salt over your shoulder or whatever and you'll get the right result in life and people just try to avoid that bad things happen to them. and make good things happen to them.

Secular people think we're much more evolved than enlightened, so we're like it's intermittent fasting and I'm going to count calories. I'm going to make this mindfulness app and I'm going to hack this like all these life hacks and I'm going to read this about parenting. I'm going to adopt this philosophy and its technique, it's trying to do the right thing to design the circumstances of your life and I think it's really difficult. for people who take prayer seriously, don't accidentally bring that technical mindset into prayer, yeah, and think prayer is about I need to position my body the right way or this is the right way and everything matters, our body It matters, how we pray, it matters where we all are.

This matters, but there is danger. The goal of prayer is not to dominate the circumstances of your life, it is to be dominated. Yes, that will make some people really uncomfortable with that language, but the goal is not to control your life, but to let it go. control, so yes, there is a skill, there is a posture that matters, how you stand, how you breathe, how you sit, sure, all of that is very useful to me, but it's not that if you learn the correct prayer technique, then you can control and you're just living in the third heaven all day it's not like that, that's not how life with God is, you're trying to let go of control, so I think about the Arc of a life and this doesn't mean that intercession is becomes less important, I don't think so.

I think it does sometimes, but I do think there is a gradual change in prayer. It feels less and less like something you do and more and more like something God is doing in and through you. Yes, yes, it is availability and awareness, isn't it that openness? to what God wants to do um, that's exactly right, I love it, can we land this way? I would love for each of us to share how God is shaping or stretching you in prayer right now. I have this. At this point in your spiritual journey as the questioner, I can name mine first because something happened last week that made me realize, so I've been pausing for this midday rhythm of prayer for the lost people in me. life that are outside of the relationship with Jesus, it's usually like 60 seconds, it's an attempt to stop in the middle of the day and cultivate compassion, yeah, because sometimes being a pastor can erode that right, you spend all your time with professional Christians and you turn inward. to church work and you forget what it's like to walk around not knowing where home is and and um, I've discovered that my heart is just beginning to soften, it's so slow it's like a calloused heart that's having lotion rubbed on it. day after day it's so slow and my eyes are starting to open that the spaces in my life where I used to be mostly secluded and feel like I had earned being secluded because of my job or something are the places where my eyes become more open like Oh, this is the place where Jesus could meet me now, for example, last week. um, there's a particular friend of my wives who I found myself praying for regularly by noon and then, through a strange set of circumstances, Kirsten had to leave. my son's soccer practice while I arrived she was talking to that friend.

I've never had a face to face conversation with this person and then we were just sitting on the grass at soccer practice next to each other and there's 45 minutes left and suddenly my eyes widened at that moment of waiting a minute. I wonder if Jesus is making space. I've been praying for people who say yes, so anyway, how does God want you to let me make one? I've been exploring. a lot about relating to God through my limbic region instead of my frontal cortex, so the frontal cortex is language and logic, the limbic region is creativity, empathy and intuition, all of that and and um, when Jesus teaches in pictures , um and parables, he is deliberately talking to the limbic. region, so what that means is that I always understood that carrying aJournaling is a useful discipline, especially for an external processor, but a psychologist told me that the problem is that if you write words in your journal, you're still using the frontal cortex, so you need to use pictures, scribbles, uh, colors, um, to switch to that part of your brain that is more meditative, it's the part of our brain that we will use when we go to the movies, you know, we all know how to use it.

I get it, but a lot of us turn it off when it comes to God, so even if you use a digital journal of some kind, you know, spend a little money. Now I have a nice Apple pen, so I can draw on it. screen and use of colors. I spent a month exploring Psalm 23 and incorporating imagery and, you know, drawing lines and exploring. I would be embarrassed if anyone else saw it, but it was a way to create that Stairway to Heaven. Kind of like that part of me that knows how to do empathy and imagination, so that's keeping a journal, but not writing a lot of words, and people get scared because they're like, "I don't know how to draw or not." I worry about how stupid it looks if someone else sees it, but there's something pretty powerful about engaging that part of my brain in my commitment to God, so that's just a really practical thing I'm doing.

Here's something that's happening right now, so if I feel the Lord starting to tell me something it won't be right now, but it will be like three o'clock, so this is like real time. I hope that by the time this video comes out, it actually helps someone, um, but about. Three or four months ago I started to feel, you know? I felt very attracted in my personal time. I have a systematic way of reading the Bible, but this was like Jonah Nineveh and that's how everything happens in my quiet time, so I'm sitting there with the Lord and there's this thing and this person specifically that I know I should be praying for. but I don't want to because I still am, you know, I don't want to because God will change my heart, but this is just me. very honest and um, and you know, and that, I, you know, I have to take forgiveness and release to a whole new level.

I feel like I'm probably off a negative point, but you know there's some way we can. go here and this is what happens in my time, so it's almost like the Lord and I go through all these things and then there's this thing that's not finished because I have this persistent thing that I just know and it persists and then about three years ago months was okay I want you to start talking about Jonah and just with what you're doing I just want you to add this so I'm reading and having this moment in real time while we're.

I'm recording this push and pull with the Lord in the middle of my entrance into the seventh heaven and Jacob's Ladder and we're like um on Patmos and I'm ushering in the second coming and all of this is amazing, this simultaneously What's happening is um Christine, what if I send you to Nineveh and you don't go? You don't want them to regret it because you know I'm going to be merciful and to me that's how the Lord is speaking to me. I am about to do a great number on the earth and within my body and a large part of my body will have to go to Nineveh and they will not want to do it because of everything that has happened in the last few years. um and because they're not going to want innovative repentance because they're not going to want me to forgive them because So, Christine, are you up for it now in our time together?

This is what I feel. I mean, I'm being. very open over the next year or so to allow me to take you places there so you can be ready for what I want to do there so this isn't now. This is a very specific example because we're doing this, but that's generally how I know, oh, I think I know where the next few years are going, yeah, and one of the themes that I hear there I also love your honesty in that thank you, Is it a look or a struggle with God? and I think sometimes we underestimate those moments where it's like God is watching us, we're watching, there's that struggle that you talk about in the book and as long as we rush to say the right thing or do the right thing, but so of radical. honesty before God, yes, it is part of awareness and openness, yes, absolutely, is there anything that comes to mind for any of you?

Yes, you know, I spent most of my adult life developing a skill set for engaging with the Scriptures, in a way that removes subjectivity from The Experience, so I and that's important so, yeah, I don't want the Scriptures be an echo chamber where I am actually importing my own thoughts. I want to hear what the spirit has to say, um, through what these authors were communicating and, in recent years, I realized that that has also led me to underestimate subjectivity and experience in the way that I listen and interact with God, so my area of ​​growth right now is learning in times of silence o Often when I'm running or biking to and from work, I feel like it and I don't know how to describe it except that a word or phrase enters my mind and sometimes I'm like no.

I don't know, our brains are weird, you know, but there have been times where I feel like I think that's important and, um, it could be like this: I had too much coffee or not enough, but it could be significant and I've had a few. experiences where there will be something that happens later in the day that is totally connected to that weird thing that was on my mind and then I think, wait a minute, it feels so slow when I tune in and some of those have been really re

mark

able, It's too much of a coincidence, yeah, so if that's a skill or a habit that I can increase in my own life, I would really love to experience the subjectivity of more of that and I feel like it's really just another way of surrendering my preconceived ideas about what prayer is and what it means for my life to become a dialogue with God, that's definitely my area of ​​growth right now in prayer hmm uh, mine would be very simple um you know um I've been I'm going through a really difficult time in my personal and emotional life and sometimes I find it very difficult to pray, when I find it difficult to think, you know, when life is upside down and confusing and what I thought we were doing was God.

It didn't work out and it's a very confusing and disorienting time and in those seasons you can't help but wonder where God is and where I am, and I feel very chaotic inside my brain, I just find it. very hard to pray Stillness is harder than normal and it's hard all the time and I've been thinking a lot about the Lord's Prayer and when Jesus taught the disciples to pray, he gave them a prayer to pray and I grew up in a church. tradition where prayer was totally extemporaneous, it was all just telling God what was on your mind and then as I got older I became captivated by more contemplative prayer, which requires a bit of mental skill and discipline, you know what I'm into.

I mean and he is Even requires more on some level and I think I accidentally skipped the initial point of the prayer, which is praying the prayers of Jesus and the church to God. I don't think you'll ever mature beyond that. I think there are different aspects of prayer, but the first is just talking to God in the language of Jesus or the Scriptures or the Psalms or the saints or I didn't grow up in a church liturgical tradition. I'm not even particularly drawn to that, but I find that pre-written sentences End Times are really helpful at different times, they're really helpful for me when I have an early morning flight and I don't have an hour of quiet.

I have, you know, a seat in the middle and it's 7 a.m. m. and there is a baby crying next to it. I'm probably not going to pray very well contemplatively at that time, but I can, I can pray Psalm 5 to Jesus, you know, when I'm exhausted, I didn't sleep well and I slept four hours last night because I had this with my kids or whatever, so I'm going to pray this in the morning when I'm in the Dark Night of the Soul, when I'm doubting God, when I'm confused, and one thing I've done is It has been, but you know, sometimes liturgical prayers feel really impersonal, so one thing that I'm finding great life in and that's new to me in prayer is that it's all done in each different kind of season of my life, so I did one for about three months. and I just started a new one about a week ago.

I will spend some time thinking, and mostly in solitude and in close friendships with other people, what God is trying to do in my life right now and how I can do it. cooperate in prayer and how what is it that the spirit of Jesus is trying to pray through me so that the father fulfills his purposes in me, which is a difficult question to answer, of course, yes, and requires as I did the last week. I'm gone for a day and I know some people can't do that, but for me it's really important to go away for a day and it requires really honest conversations with my wife and close friends to try to articulate it and then like.

I forced myself to put it on a page and this isn't like it's going to appear in a Phyllis tickle book one day. This is not a beautifully written poetic prayer, but it is my attempt on a page of sorts to capture everything that I believe God is trying to communicate with me through to him, so I printed it out and pray it every morning and recently read a writer of sentences that said you should always start and end your sentence the same way, only he was in the, you know, just your brain follows. Ritual can help me focus, so I started my morning prayer with a little gratitude and a Psalm and then I'll end it by praying this, yeah, and the nice thing about this is if you read it, you can read it in two minutes. pray, it takes me about ten, but it honestly says everything that I feel like I need to say to God and it tells me everything that I think God needs to tell me and then I feel like if all I do is take 10 minutes and just breathe for a minute and pray this to God.

I feel like I'm fine. Now I'm anchored for the day. Yes, and that doesn't solve all my problems, but I just found an extraordinary life with God by praying. a prayer that I wrote and sometimes I take it from other people or it will be quotes or the Serenity Prayer will be part of it or whatever you know, but I feel like this is what God wants to pray through me and I just find that in a season of confusion and pain it is incredibly helpful to bring my soul to God. Yes, well, you are all brilliant, so your ideas are useful, but thank you more than that for opening up your lives and sharing where.

You are, are the words of Ruth Haley Barton. You know that the greatest gift we have to give the world is our own transformation, so thank you for sharing that gift.