Sabbatical - Day 6

It is a privilege that by God's grace Paul Weston of Ridley Hall Theological College and the Lesslie Newbigin Centre will be in Chennai at much the same time. We will be sharing much of the itinerary.

I have been pondering the words of M Basil Pennington (Call to the Centre): 'The regular practice of entering prayer will have a profound effect on our lives.It will bear abundant fruit... But we must not test God. We must not go to our prayer looking for results. For then it will no longer be true entering prayer.
'Entering prayer is a very pure prayer - pure gift, teetotal gift of self to God. It will bring forth fruit in our lives... But we must leave all that to God. They will show up when and where and how he deems best.
'If we go to entering prayer looking for results, we are still trapped within the false self, the self that is made up of what we do, what we have and what others think of us. Our prayer becomes a "doing", something we will have to do, and do right to get a certain result... It will no longer be the simple prayer of being...
'Don't put God to the test. Just give...'

This ties in with my own experience of prayer.
- The deepest moments of prayer come in periods of silence and waiting - this is perhaps part of what he means by 'centering'.
- In the midst of this and other prayer, it seems to be the brief prayers (though maybe chiselled out over long periods) that God especially seems to answer.
- What then of my long prayers? I used to think that it was the intensity of my asking that mattered; but my brief answered prayers are not always intense (though perhaps deep). Perhaps my long prayers are examples of patient waiting. If so, I need to worry that they are not intense enough. But maybe God is still chiselling away ate me in them, or perhaps a better image is that of a river (God's Spirit) carving its way through a landscape.

So to finish, George Herbert on Prayer

OF what an easie quick accesse, 

My blessed Lord, art thou !  how suddenly 
            May our requests thine eare invade ! 
To shew that state dislikes not easinesse, 
If I but lift mine eyes, my suit is made : 
Thou canst no more not heare, than thou canst die. 

            Of what supreme almightie power 
Is thy great arm which spans the east and west, 
            And tacks the centre to the sphere ! 
By it do all things live their measur’d houre : 
We cannot ask the thing, which is not there, 
Blaming the shallownesse of our request. 

            Of what unmeasurable love 
Art thou possest, who, when thou couldst not die, 
            Wert fain to take our flesh and curse, 
And for our sakes in person sinne reprove ; 
That by destroying that which ty’d thy purse, 
Thou mightst make way for liberalitie ! 

            Since then these three wait on thy throne, 
Ease, Power, and Love ;  I value prayer so, 
            That were I to leave all but one, 
Wealth, fame, endowments, vertues, all should go ; 
I and deare prayer would together dwell, 
And quickly gain, for each inch lost, an ell. 

And here is George Herbert praying, as depicted in Salisbury Cathedral (at the foot of the window)