The Single Greatest Thing You Can Do for Your Relationship with God

To be a writer, the single greatest thing I can do is write.  To improve my relationship with God, the single greatest thing I can do is spend time with Him. That's what I used to think.

Writers procrastinate all the time.  I'm magnificent at it.  The same holds true for us in our relationship with God. We want to have a real connection with our Creator. We have the best of intentions. We talk about it. Some of us even talk a lot at Him. It doesn't seem to work. He doesn't seem to be listening. Or we simply never find the time to be with God.

Just exactly how are we supposed to BE with someone we can't even see anyhow?

Since God is everywhere, there's no particular place to GO to be with Him, right? So can't we spend time with Him anywhere? And you've been trying to listen but getting no answers.  I'm right there with you. I get it.

Looking at relationships around me, I see some are vibrant, touchy-feely, happy. They KNOW each other's likes and dislikes, habits and fears.  Others are in their own little world clueless to details in the lives of those with whom they live or work. That's me plenty of the time.

One of the worst feelings in the world is when no one listens or cares.  Right? That's God's dilemma. What? He doesn't have dilemmas, you say? He doesn't need us. He has everything. Wrong.

He is Love. All love wants to do is give and receive. That's the nature of Love.  It keeps giving and giving in eternal hope of us choosing to love back in return.

The single greatest thing you can do to strengthen your relationship with God is to care. That's what turned the corner for me. I was curious about Him because others had such glowing things to say about Him. I wanted to know more about Him. I went to church every Sunday; studied His Word in bible study. One day, I started to do what you do when you care about others in your life:
* I became more interested in Him. What did He think or want?
* I talked to Him about little things. "Hey! I could use Your help here."
* I LISTENED. Just listened. As long as I was talking, I wasn't learning anything new. Besides, I remembered He knows everything, so what need was there to tell Him what was in my heart. So I shut up and started listening. That was brilliant. I'm sure He had something to do with it.

In a foreign country, we understand little of any conversations around us at first. We get lost and hungry but can't read the signs or the menus. We hear directions but do not understand. We jabber in our own language and get nowhere.

The discipline of listening in silence to His still, small voice brought me to my goal of being closer to God. I didn't hear with my ears, but I began to understand some things. You might find something new by trying it. Go somewhere quiet and let God lead you by giving Him one of your most prized possessions. For most of us, it's our time or our heart.

It's scary because you are attempting to release control for a few moments. Do the thing you fear to do and that's the death of fear, a friend once taught me.  (Thank you, Mary Kay Slowkowski.) It's counterintuitive. I've found a lot about God to be counterintuitive. I have to give to receive. To live, I must die. When I sin or ignore Him, He forgives me. It goes against what I think I know.  I kinda like counterintuitive stuff.  It's like an adventure in discovery.

Black holes in space contract inwardly. That's what happens when we focus too long on our needs and wants. Light - and Love - expand. It is their very nature.

I waited like a bird before dawn. My cares turned toward the Other. Watching and listening, the eyes and ears of my heart opened. Try it. You'll see.

Start by caring. About Him. It's all any of us wants. Somebody who cares. It's the crack that lets in the light. It's the greatest thing you can do.

Here in the south, when I ask where something is in a grocery store, I hear this: "It's in Aisle 3.  I'll take you there.  Please follow me."  I push my cart after him.

Behold, I make all things new. Revelation 21:5.
#procrastination #timeforGod #writers #knowGod #GetToKnowGod #SingleGreatestThingToDoForGod #chrismanion #MaryKaySlowkowski #Caring

The Jesus Prayer

I have practiced the Jesus prayer off and on for several decades and it has not stuck as a practice for me. Some of my friends have it running as a "working" prayer in their subconscious all day long. It is my go to prayer in times of desperation and fear. It brings me into the heart of Jesus instantly.

 The website of the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America shares the following introduction to the prayer. www.goarch.org

In order to enter more deeply into the life of prayer and to come to grips with St. Paul's challenge to pray unceasingly, consider the Jesus Prayer, which is sometimes called the prayer of the heart. The Jesus Prayer is offered as a means of concentration, as a focal point for our inner life. Though there are both longer and shorter versions, the most frequently used form of the Jesus Prayer is:

 "Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner."

 This prayer, in its simplicity and clarity, is rooted in the Scriptures and the new life granted by the Holy Spirit. It is first and foremost a prayer of the Spirit because of the fact that the prayer addresses Jesus as Lord, Christ and Son of God; and as St. Paul tells us, "no one can say 'Jesus is Lord' except by the Holy Spirit" (1 Cor. 12:3). 

THE SCRIPTURAL ROOTS OF THE JESUS PRAYER

The Scriptures give the Jesus Prayer both its concrete form and its theological content. It is rooted in the Scriptures in four ways:

In its brevity and simplicity, it is the fulfillment of Jesus' command that "in praying" we are "not to heap up empty phrases as the heathen do; for they think that they will be heard for their many words. Do not be like them . . .” (Matt. 6:7-8).

The Jesus Prayer is rooted in the Name of the Lord. In the Scriptures, the power and glory of God are present in his Name. In the Old Testament to deliberately and attentively invoke God's Name was to place oneself in his Presence. Jesus, whose name in Hebrew means God saves, is the living Word addressed to humanity. Jesus is the final Name of God. Jesus is "the Name which is above all other names" and it is written that “all beings should bend the knee at the Name of Jesus” (Phil. 2:9-10). In this Name devils are cast out (Luke 10:17), prayers are answered (John 14:13 14) and the lame are healed (Acts 3:6-7). The Name of Jesus is unbridled spiritual power.

1. The words of the Jesus Prayer are themselves based on Scriptural texts: the cry of the blind man sitting at the side of the road near Jericho, "Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me" (Luke 18:38); the ten lepers who "called to him, ‘Jesus, Master, take pity on us' " (Luke 17:13); and the cry for mercy of the publican, "God, be merciful to me, a sinner" (Luke 18:14).
2. It is a prayer in which the first step of the spiritual journey is taken: the recognition of our own sinfulness, our essential estrangement from God and the people around us. The Jesus Prayer is a prayer in which we admit our desperate need of a Savior. For "if we say we have no sin in us, we are deceiving ourselves and refusing to admit the truth" (1 John 1:8).

The training to practice the Jesus Prayer, according to Meg Funk, author of Tools Matter:

“To make it a habit we must say the words slowly, mindfully, and with respect for their meaning. We do this repetition at specific times with a certain number in mind, somewhat like repeating the prayers of the rosary, fifty times in five sets. Then we rest and repeat it another fifty times in five sets. We do this morning and evening for two weeks. Then we increase it, repeating the words one hundred times in two sets, morning and night.

“The Jesus Prayer is a ‘working’ prayer done as we do other things. It is not a meditation practice like centering prayer. We concentrate on making it happen while we are doing our ordinary tasks of walking, driving, cleaning, cooking, managing children, or teaching a class. We keep increasing our repetitions gradually until we start to feel the prayer rising automatically in the in-between times. If for some reason we stop our practice, we start it again with three sets of fifty repetitions. After about two months, this ceaseless Jesus Prayer will be self-acting all the time.