Peace and Stillness

Today's devotion from Jan Johnson's book Enjoying the Presence of God focuses on weaving prayer into every day activities. For instance, I could say a short prayer for any person I am talking to in my head during the conversation. My first reaction was to think she's crazy. I am a motor mouth and a guy. More often than not I'm throwing words out there until I figure out what it is I'm trying to say. My filter can barely keep up with what I say and now I'm supposed to pray for people while we're talking! Then it dawned on me just how helpful this could be. A down fall of talking too much is I tend to interrupt when an idea comes into my head. Sometimes I feel like I'll burst if I don't get these ideas out. It really annoys my wife when she is interrupted. This is why praying while talking to other people is so important. I have to refocus my thoughts on God instead of whatever I thought was important in the moment. Saying a prayer for God puts God first instead of focusing on my thought. I have made more time to listen when I taught Disciple I and it was really neat. However, it's been too easy to slip back into just running my mouth. There is a stillness and focus that comes from this practice. I would very much like to have that focus again.

I know my son has nothing to do with this devotion, but I couldn't resist posting another picture of him.

Breath Prayers

I was never a huge Seinfeld fan, but chapter three of Jan Johnson's book  Enjoying the Presence of God reminds me a little bit of the Serenity Now episode. Evidently George Castanza's father has had a problem dealing with stress. So his doctor told him to use the mantra, Serenity Now. You are welcome watch the clip to see how it worked out on the show.

Jan Johnson is suggesting something similar as a way to stay in God's presence. She recommends breath prayers. As opposed to Serenity Now, breath prayers are a way to get our focus off of ourselves. This is quite a novel concept in American society. Johnson recommends picking a scripture or summing up a verse in 9-10 syllables. When you are worried about surgery, or in my case a paper or test you could just say, "Into Thy Hands." This is not something to screamed, or for the rest of the world to see. This is about trying to redirect yourself towards God. Another way to approach breath prayers is to just ask or say one sentence to God when something out of the ordinary happens. Johnson offers these examples. "Turn this person's heart towards you." "Do I need to change?" Teach me through this negative behavior." Praying for other people in the moment is a great way to shift the focus away from the character trait, or physical appearance that may be bothering you and to put the focus back on God.

As I write this there are a number of people with whom I can practice this, and some very good times. When I am up in the middle of the night bouncing my son and trying to get him to go back to sleep after his feeding - that's a good time to ask, "God, please fill his heart with joy for You."

Wonderful News!!! Busy. Busy! Busy!!

I've been MIA for a while, but for good reasons. On October 10, 2010 my wife gave birth to our first child, Evan. He's wonderful, and persnickety, and fills me with awe and wonder at God's design. Plus how cool is it to have a 10/10/10 birthday? I took a week off of classes to help my wife, and spend time with Evan before the seminary work load came crashing back down. It was great! The late night feedings didn't phase me and I some how managed to still function with the goofy smile of a first time Dad.

Then Monday came, and Wow! Do I have a lot of homework? I'm digging out, and trying to get caught up on a few things. One of them is journaling/blogging. I am supposed to be keeping a blog for one of my classes, and I finally got the book just before Evan was born. So for the next couple of weeks most of these devotions will deal with stuff from Enjoying the Presence of God by Jan Johnson.

I read chapter one yesterday and didn't have a chance to blog about it so we're starting with chapter 2 "Practicing the Presence of God." The goal of the book is to get to a place where the reader is in constant prayer/communication with God. The emphasis is this isn't a knowledge thing, or something we can make a to do list to cover in our quiet time. I confess I've tried that and felt really spiritually dry afterwards. In the end it just felt like one more thing I had to do. The chapter reminded me that being close to God isn't about a warm fuzzy feeling. God is with us whether we feel Him or not. He isn't up there looking down on us. God is right here sitting next to you at your computer. The trick is becoming more aware of His presence. How you ask? Prayer. Try thinking of times when you are board - like standing in line at the grocery store. Then instead of looking at the candy on display or perusing the tabloids say a little prayer for one of the other people in line. It's a terrific way of opening yourself up to what God has to say, and you might make a new friend in line.