PLGRM

Growing up as a young fundagelical Christian, there were two words that stressed me out like no other: Quiet Time.

“Quiet Time,” as defined by the evangelical sub-culture, is 20-30 minutes a day (preferably in the morning) where we are encouraged to practice our devotion to God through the studying of the Bible and expressive prayer.

I was always good with the studying part. It was the expressive prayer – talking to God OUT LOUD – that I had problems with.

I’ve spent a lot of my life trying to get comfortable with prayer. If there were a theme of my personal spiritual life, this would be it. Finding contemplative prayer and meditation saved my life. Literally.

I admit I often feel a little guilty for not understanding prayer as magic. I often feel angry that prayer isn’t magic.

There is a story of an ancient monk who would come down with a cold, a headache, and a fever every time it was time to pray. Feeling all this, he said, “Now is the time to pray before I die.” And whenever he did this, his fever vanished.

I resonate with this story. I have a borderline anxiety disorder, and discovering contemplative prayer and meditation – as I said – saved my life. I can tell when my prayer life is out of whack becasue my anxiety begins to get the better of me.

My anxiety is triggered by not being in control. (SPOILER: Yours is too.) Contemplative Prayer and meditation are processes a person can undertake to help center themselves in the loving presence of God. It is a way of resisting thinking of ourselves as the center of the universe.

That’s what prayer does. Prayer isn’t a magic spell that makes something different. Prayer is the process we undergo to recenter God as the ruler of the universe, not ourselves.

I used to have a big problem with this. I used to have a lot of trouble not seeing myself as the one who controlled my reality. But then I heard a sermon about dogs.

The sermons was actually about Jesus as the Good Shepherd and his love for the sheep, but the preacher noted that most of us can’t understand the metaphor because we’re not sheep farmers. She said to think, instead, of our pets and how much we love them.

I love my dog. (That’s her picture at the top of this post.) Her name is Stella, and the thing you need to know about Stella is she is very dumb. In our house, we say having Stella around is like trying to manage a drunk toddler.

But I LOVE this dog. I love her so much. I don’t even care if she doesn’t understand how dumb she is relative to me. In fact, it kinda makes me love her more.

And when I see how much I love her and want to care for her and want to make sure she is happy and loved and cared for…I think that must be how God sees me.

Stella can ask me for food, but I’m only giving it to her when it’s time to eat. She can signal when she needs to go outside, and I will thank her for her attentiveness and let her out. When I come home she nudges her head into my knee until I set my bag down, ignore my wife, and rub her head for a good 2-3 minutes. When it hits 9:30pm, she goes to our bedroom and lays down on her mat because, Silly Humans, it’s time to go to bed now.

The difference between you and I and my dog is we have self-awareness. Our self-awareness is the pre-requisite for our worry and anxiety. Stella has none of this. Stella doesn’t worry. Unlike Stella, you and I have to work at being in a state of bliss.

We have to pray and meditate in order to cease our worry and trust God the way my dog trusts me.

Sometimes, we pray and we’re telling God we need to go outside to go potty, and so we get let out. But let us not confuse that with telling God we’re hungry when it’s not time for our next bowl of food and expecting to be given it.