Thoughts IN Contemplative Prayer
Last weekend, I went on a retreat for the leaders in my church. We did some study and practice of Contemplative Prayer and Lectio Divina. Those are some pretty fancy words, but don't let them scare you off. Lectio Divina is the "spiritual reading of scripture." It's not reading for information or a good story. It's reading scripture to meet Jesus and see what he would have pointed out to you. Contemplative prayer is sort of what you experience around it. It's the prayer of our heart. It's simply resting IN his presence.
If this helps, I'm reading a book right now called "Contemplative Youth Ministry" (all of this by chance). Here's the defintion of contemplative prayer that I read last night...
We come to Scripture as if it were a meeting place, a secret rendezvous where we hope to spend some time with the One who loves us. - Mark Yaconelli, Contemplative Youth Ministry
For some of you, I'm sure you're thinking that this is all a bit over your head or just sounds really weird. I'm not going to take the time to explain anymore on it (if you'd like, you can message me though). Instead, I'd like to tell you a little bit about my own experiences in it...
Since the retreat I've been practicing this method of prayer every day. This morning I found myself in the first chapter of John, verses 29 through 42. It's not a passage that I had really paid a lot of attention to. It always seemed to me like the less interesting story of how Jesus gathered his disciples, but when choosing to read a passage "spiritually" and contemplating over it, you discover that Jesus highlights all sorts of things that you would have never noticed if you had just read it as you normally would have.
The part that I felt God was pointing out to me were verses 35 and 36. It's a pretty simple passage "The next day John was there again with two of his disciples. As he saw Jesus pass by he said "Look! The Lamb of God!" He had done something very similar the day before.
John was the man who baptized Jesus. He very well could have asked Him where he was staying so that he could introduce his disciples to the man he had been speaking of, but didn['t. Instead when Jesus just happened to be passing by, he chose to point Jesus out to them. He was just passing by. He didn't walk up to John. He didn't wave. He didn't draw attention to Himself. He was simply passing by. He was present to John... and John noticed and pointed Him out so that others could see Him.
It's easy to toss the Bible in front of someone and say "There. There's Jesus." In actuality, how much good does that do? So many people today consider the Bible to be a book of stories that have no bearing on today's culture, so how about pointing Jesus out to them in their every day life?
He's everywhere after all. He's always present to you. You just have to become present to Him.
If this helps, I'm reading a book right now called "Contemplative Youth Ministry" (all of this by chance). Here's the defintion of contemplative prayer that I read last night...
We come to Scripture as if it were a meeting place, a secret rendezvous where we hope to spend some time with the One who loves us. - Mark Yaconelli, Contemplative Youth Ministry
For some of you, I'm sure you're thinking that this is all a bit over your head or just sounds really weird. I'm not going to take the time to explain anymore on it (if you'd like, you can message me though). Instead, I'd like to tell you a little bit about my own experiences in it...
Since the retreat I've been practicing this method of prayer every day. This morning I found myself in the first chapter of John, verses 29 through 42. It's not a passage that I had really paid a lot of attention to. It always seemed to me like the less interesting story of how Jesus gathered his disciples, but when choosing to read a passage "spiritually" and contemplating over it, you discover that Jesus highlights all sorts of things that you would have never noticed if you had just read it as you normally would have.
The part that I felt God was pointing out to me were verses 35 and 36. It's a pretty simple passage "The next day John was there again with two of his disciples. As he saw Jesus pass by he said "Look! The Lamb of God!" He had done something very similar the day before.
John was the man who baptized Jesus. He very well could have asked Him where he was staying so that he could introduce his disciples to the man he had been speaking of, but didn['t. Instead when Jesus just happened to be passing by, he chose to point Jesus out to them. He was just passing by. He didn't walk up to John. He didn't wave. He didn't draw attention to Himself. He was simply passing by. He was present to John... and John noticed and pointed Him out so that others could see Him.
It's easy to toss the Bible in front of someone and say "There. There's Jesus." In actuality, how much good does that do? So many people today consider the Bible to be a book of stories that have no bearing on today's culture, so how about pointing Jesus out to them in their every day life?
He's everywhere after all. He's always present to you. You just have to become present to Him.