ATTENDING TO THE SPIRIT

“During the night Paul had a vision of a man of Macedonia standing and begging him, ‘Come over to Macedonia and help us.’ After Paul had seen the vision, we got ready at once to leave for Macedonia, concluding that God had called us to preach the gospel to them." (Acts 16:6-10 NIV)

Attentiveness to God’s Spirit requires deeply receptive, prayerful listening. Practicing the art of attending to the Spirit involves us in contemplative listening. Such listening is quite distinct from the various ways in which we generally listen to another….

It is holy listening, rooted in silence. It seeks emptiness in order to be filled with the Spirit. It is permeated by humility. Such listening assumes the Spirit is active among us. So it makes space for that movement. It is primarily receptive, patient, watchful, and waiting. Yet, it does not fear action when action is called for. Such listening is generously flexible, hospitable, and warm. It embraces the widest possible spectrum of life’s beauty and pain. It acknowledges the creation of all people in the image and likeness of God…. While in one sense a gift, such listening is generally cultivated over the years as we prayerfully attend to the Spirit in our own lives and as others listen to us in the same grace-filled way. 

-- Wendy M. Wright in “Companions in Christ: Participant’s Book,” Part 5

#5626

THE REIGN OF GOD

Much of what Christian community needs right now is... awareness... In its most complete expression in both Eastern and Western spiritual traditions, awareness is the quality of simple alertness and receptivity to whatever the Divine Presence may be doing.

Jesus seeks to draw people into a fuller state of awareness with the words we know nearly by heart: "Let the little children come to Me, and do not stop them; for it is to such as these that the kingdom of God belongs. Truly I tell you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God as a little child will never enter it" (Luke 18:16-17).

We are to become like the awed and the open, like those blinking their eyes at the wonder of life. Do this, Jesus counsels, and then we shall enter most fully what God sets before us. Not long before His crucifixion, Jesus responds to those seeking dramatic signs of God's reign: "The kingdom of God is not coming with things that can be observed; nor will they say, 'Look, here it is!' or 'There it is!' For, in fact, the kingdom of God is among you" (Luke 17:20-21).

Be open, Jesus counsels. Be attentive. Be aware! The reign of God is in our very midst. 

-- Stephen  Doughty in “Discovering Community” 

#5435

THE HEART’S GREATEST DESIRE

"Delight yourself in the Lord, and He will give you the desires of your heart. Commit your way to the Lord; trust in Him, and He will act.”  (Psalm 37:4-5 ESV)

What kind of life does my heart want?  I find no easy answers to that question, but I know the answer means giving up the fantasy of always moving forward and allowing instead for seasons of dormancy.  And it is always time to listen.  Perhaps the heart's single greatest desire is to listen attentively to the voice of God … My heart wants the kind of life that leaves room for God… 

-- Elizabeth J. Canham in “Heart Whispers” 

#4934

LISTEN FIRST

“Incline your ear, and hear the words of the wise, and apply your heart to My knowledge, for it will be pleasant if you keep them within you, if all of them are ready on your lips. That your trust may be in the LORD, I have made them known to you today, even to you.”  (Proverbs 22:17-19 ESV)

Attentiveness to God's Word and will is the ground from which all fruitful service in God's name grows. The resoundingly clear priority of the spiritual life is to listen first; then to obey what we hear.

-- Rev. Marjorie Thompson in “Leading from the Center Newsletter” 

#4849

IN THE STILLNESS

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“Be still and know that I am God.”  (Psalm 46:10a)

The ancient desert dwellers of our early Christian communities tell us that the surest way into the heart of God is to be still. In being still we learn to be attentive to the vast and hidden stillness that permeates all things.

So I invite you to begin by becoming attentive to that stillness as well. Seek it first in your own home. Go at night into the darkened room of your sleeping child and breathe with the moist, quick risings of a child's breath. Rise in the thin light of a new day. Do not turn on the lamp or the television or the coffee maker, but stand by an east window and let the dawn's fingers creep up over the fingers of your own hand.

Listen next for stillness as you venture out of doors. Hear it in the splintering of fall leaves as you cross a grassy knoll between paths in the park. Find it in the first cape of snow draped over the eaves of your house.

Turn finally to your own heart. The same stillness is there as well. At the core, buried beneath the turbulence of emotions rubbed raw by life's labor, is the same stillness discovered in the slow-moving sap of an autumn tree. In that primordial stillness beats the heart of God.

There is correspondence between our hearts and God's. They have imprinted on them the same unimaginable hope, sealed with a promise. The hope is for fullness, for completion, for being one with each other. What that will look like is hidden from us. The end and fullness of all things is known only to God. But we have glimpses of it.

-- Wendy M. Wright in “The Vigil: Keeping Watch in the Season of Christ's Coming” (Nashville, Tenn.: Upper Room Books, 1992)


#4654

PAYING ATTENTION

“Moses said, ‘I must turn aside and look at this great sight, and see why the bush is not burned up.’ When the Lord saw that he had turned aside to see, God called to him out of the bush, ‘Moses, Moses!’ And he said, ‘Here I am.’”  (Exodus 3:3-4 NRSV)

[Pay] attention to the many ways in which God acts in our lives and in the world. God leaves metaphorical breadcrumbs that lead us along a path of God's choosing if we're paying attention. Learn to notice the gifts God gave you and watch the way your own life story is developing if you want to know more about God's will for you. God may not put a burning bush in your path, but there will be plenty of other clues about what God may want you to do or be.

-- Debra Farrington in "Alive Now" Magazine, published by The Upper Room, Nashville, TN.   Used with permission.


#4618

PAY ATTENTION

 “Fools have no interest in understanding; they only want to air their own opinions.”  (Proverbs 18:2 NLT)

In the movie Michael, John Travolta plays a wayward angel traveling across the country from the Midwest to New York. While this movie couldn’t be endorsed as presenting a godly representation of angels, it does provide an interesting illustration: While standing in the middle of a group of people, Michael predicts what one young woman will do next.

Another woman standing by him asks how he knew that. Expecting him to profess something about his spiritual powers, the audience is surprised to hear him say, “I pay attention.”

What a great line! I pay attention.

Often we don’t pay attention. But the more we do, the more likely we will touch others in significant ways. We need to pay attention. If we don’t, we’re apt to make assumptions that simply aren’t’ true. 

-- Lois Mowday Rabey in “Women of a Generous Spirit: Touching Others with Life-Giving Love”


#4517

ATTENTIVENESS TO GOD

“Repent therefore and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out, so that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord.”  (Acts 3: 19 NKJV)

Worship is the strategy by which we interrupt our preoccupation with ourselves and attend to the presence of God.  Worship is the time and place that we assign for deliberate attentiveness to God -- not because He's confined to time and place but because our self-importance is so insidiously relentless that if we don't deliberately interrupt ourselves regularly, we have no chance of attending to Him at all at other times and in other places.

-- Eugene Peterson in “Leap Over a Wall”


#4406

STAY AWAKE

In Mark 13, Jesus repeats a simple imperative three times in quick succession: "Keep awake!" For Jesus to repeat this so emphatically three times in a row implies that one of the great hazards of the faith journey is spiritual acquiescence, a kind of grogginess that dulls us to what is true, and truly important. Sleepiness of spirit means we miss out on what God is doing, and perhaps overlook the presence of Christ right in our midst. By simply falling asleep, spiritually speaking, we miss God, and miss out on what God is calling us to be and do.

The peril of spiritual stupor is real, and we see this theme repeated in scripture many times. The disciples who hiked to the mountaintop with Jesus almost missed the transfiguration because they were sleepy!  One story tells about someone whom others assumed was dead, but Jesus says, "He's not dead; he's sleeping." In the Garden of Gethsemane, on the night which the disciples knew would be Jesus' last among them, they fell asleep. Even after Jesus implored them to stay awake with Him, they nodded off. Scripture also records one poor follower who dozed during a sermon and fell out the window. (Let that be a warning to the people in the pews!).  If it hadn't been for Mary and company on Easter morning, the disciples would have slept through the resurrection of Christ…

A dulling of spiritual insight causes us to see people as things, and to overlook how each is a child of God made in the image of God…  If we're not careful, we become so distracted by things that do not matter, so driven by things that are of little account, or so tired and burned out and spiritually exhausted, that they stop being human to us. We lose sight of people, of purpose, of what matters most. "Keep awake," Jesus says. "Be alert."  "Stay attentive!" Following Christ, staying awake with Him, requires a constant spiritual acuity, an attentiveness to see the coming of Christ, a preparedness of soul and character, a kind of spiritual attention. Stay awake.

-- U.M. Bishop Robert Schnase from his blog at www.fivepractices.org

#4393