Prayer
Finding the Heart’s True Home
by Richard Foster
Part 2— Moving Upward
Chapter 13—Meditative
Prayer
“Meditation is the tongue of the soul and language
of our spirit.” Jeremy Taylor
OPENING PRAYER
1. Chewing
Our Spiritual Cud
The cow chews grass over and over
as it digests. It turns into rich, nourishing milk.
The
Word turns into nourishment for our souls as we digest it thoroughly.
The
Jogging Monk—Head to Heart
2. The Wonderful Word of Life that lead us to
the Word of Life.
I am
the Bread of Life.
Internalize
and personalize the passage
Set
aside arrogance, our own understanding
Ponder
the Word in our hearts like Mary did
3. Kierkegaard: the “contemporaneity” of
Scripture
The
past does not merely parallel the present, but intersects it in God’s eternal timeframe.
4.
Sanctifying the Imagination
God
created our imagination and uses it to sanctify us.
We
meditate on scripture through our imaginations.
Abstract
meditation does not get to the heart and engage the emotions.
Through
our imagination and our senses we move from
Detached
observation to
Active
participation
We
must be in utter dependence on God—delight in His presence.
We
participate in the incarnation through Lectio Divina.
Not
dissecting, but entering in
God
imparts peace (shalom) through this process.
5. Contrasting Eastern meditation and Christian
meditation
Biblical
Meditative Prayer addresses our Will
Christ
confronts us and asks us to choose—His will or ours
Repentance—life-transforming
obedience—Christ at Gethsemane
No
loss of identity, but retaining and strengthening our identity IN CHRIST
Eastern/New
Age Meditation
Free-for-all
Self-will,
personal power
Loss
of identity to the Cosmos
6. The Mind descends into the Heart
Listening
to the heart of the Holy within—Karl Barth
Edifies
and strengthens us within
7. Great Devotional writers
Not
“pop” devotionals of today
Gregory
of Nyssa—The Life of Moses
Confessions
of St. Augustine
The
Little Flowers of St. Francis ( perfect joy, Canticle of the Sun)
Juliana
of Norwich—Revelations of the Divine
“In
his love he wraps and holds us. He enfolds us for love, and he will never let us go.”
Highly
recommended: The Imitation of Christ
Deeper
Experiences of Famous Christians—James Gilchrist Lawson
“Search
for truth in holy writings, not in eloquence.” Thomas a Kempis
8. God’s Beams of Love
God
addresses us personally – we don’t make it happen.
Our
normal response is to hide and cover due to guilt and shame from the Fall.
Fortitude—the
gift of the Fall—causes us to rise up in our own power, not seek God’s.
Thomas Merton—We can’t do
this in our own strength or we will give
up. We must pray for the grace and mercy of God to give us the desire
and the strength.
9. The Prayer Course—The Lord Is My Shepherd
story
Closing
Prayer
Lord, I seek now to meditate on your disturbing
words “I came to bring fire to the earth” (Luke 12:49). What do you mean? What
do they mean for me?
Are
there things in me that need to be burned out?...pride, fear, anger? Consume
them, each one.
Are
there things in this world that you want destroyed—the systems of religion we
use to hide from you—the artificial lines we draw that separate us from each
other: black from white, men from women, parents from children—the terrible
injustices done to the weak and the helpless—the unspeakable violence done to
women and to unborn children?
Forgive
us, O Lord.
For
Jesus’ sake. -- Amen
You can share our lessons with others who can’t be
here in person by referring them to
http://christian-transformationblog.blogspot.com
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